The Undercover Introvert

From Delusion to Compliance: a Writer’s Five Steps

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Writing for a living is interesting. And by interesting I mean a maddening roller coaster of self doubt and overconfidence. It’s incredibly difficult to keep on task when you work for yourself, because there is no framework. You’re literally making things up for a living, including your own schedule. In an attempt to describe just how much of a struggle it is to squeeze anything meaningful out of a workday that starts when we say it does and ends the same way, I’ve identified five distinct steps that writers pass through during their hours spent tied to their computers.

Step One: Delusion

This stage is probably the most creative, as well as the most ambitious. While here, your goals for the day are lofty as fuck. You are going to write 15,000 words, outline a new novel idea, finish a short story, edit a few chapters of a first draft, and write a blog post or two. This furious planning starts around the time the alarm goes off at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning. Your mind is a fertile treasure trove teaming with possibility that is yours for the taking if only you will get your lazy ass out of bed and get started. But, you don’t.

Step Two: Apathy

Creativity is a sword that cuts both ways, and this is the point in the day in which you use that sword to inflict the most damage to yourself, because if a way exists to derail your forward progress, you will either find or create it. Despite planting your ass in front of your computer by seven a.m., you’re unable to get to work. Well, you don’t have your coffee yet, and by the sounds of things, it’s just about finished brewing. Go get yourself a cup. While you’re out there, take a peek in the fridge. It’s too early to eat, isn’t it? Yeah, probably. You notice the time on the microwave. Oh, shit. Have you really been standing in the kitchen for nearly ten minutes? You book it back to your desk. By now, someone else is awake and messaging you. You message back. Check Twitter. Check Facebook again. It’s been quite some time since you posted to Instagram. Better get on that. Another friend messaging. And another. You haven’t even looked at the dozens of emails that have crash landed into your inbox. You start through those, looking for correspondence from clients first (I mean, you are working, supposedly), and then branching out to other messages. You fall into a rabbit hole. You resurface for more coffee. Then a snack. Bathroom break. Your dogs bark and you spend several minutes petting them. Before you know it, the afternoon is creeping closer and you’ve written fuck all. Shit. You have something to do that evening. You need to get it together. Stat. No more fucking around.

Step Three: Haggling

At this phase in the day, you’re beginning to acutely feel the passage of every solitary second. You do quick calculations in your head, comparing the time you still have left to write versus the time you’ve already wasted. Cursing yourself, you fire off a number of firm directives. 1,000 words before you can even think about taking a bathroom break, despite the fact that you’re 5 minutes away from an embarrassing accident (you are home alone, however, and your dogs don’t judge). 2,000 words before you get another snack or check social media. 8,000 words before you can leave your desk. You are painfully aware that you are to blame for this mess, but still see a way to meet a few of those lofty goals from early that morning. Definitely not all of them–that ship has long since sailed while you stood watching it instead of writing–but enough. You knuckle down in the limited hours you have left. You consider canceling whatever you have going on that evening, but it’s impossible. The only option is to complete your work. It’s fine. You can do this.

Step Four: Wretchedness

You can’t do this. No one can write 8,000 words in four hours. What were you thinking? Why didn’t you get up at 4:30 when the alarm went off? Why did you go to the kitchen ten times? Was that 20 minute long back and forth on Twitter really necessary? You are always doing this, and if you keep on the same way, you’ll never make your deadline and you won’t get paid. In case you haven’t realized, you need money to live. Thus begins your decline into the depths of despair at your own inability to muscle through your lifelong penchant for procrastination. You know how you are and you haven’t done anything to change it. Maybe you can’t. Maybe this freelancing thing just isn’t for you. But the thought of returning to a regular eight to five makes your skin crawl and your stomach drop. Still, instead of doing this, your time might be better served sprucing up your resume…

Step Five: Compliance

You are a world class procrastinator whose mind runs a hundred miles an hour. Okay. That’s nothing new. And since you know how you are, let’s just get this work done, shall we? We’ve had our pity party, and now it’s nose to the grindstone. You have bills to pay, after all. Somehow, this tough talk works. You crank up the music, you put your hands on the home row keys, and you get cooking. Before you know it, you reach the goal, and then you pass it. You don’t get close to the herculean itinerary your sleep starved brain cobbled together that morning as you lay in your bed maniacally planning a future that was never to be, but you rally and end the day somewhat successfully. You also kick off the delusion stage of the next working day a bit early, promising that tomorrow things will be even better because you won’t let yourself get off track in the first place. You will avoid this entire mess and break the five step cycle!

And, like the sucker you are, you believe it.

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Resolutions are Bullshit, But I Made Some Anyway

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What’s the old joke? We make resolutions on New Year’s Eve only to break them by January 2nd? Yeah, well, these aren’t going to be your standard, garden variety lose weight, exercise more, and learn Mandarin kind of resolutions. I actually plan to do all of this crap, no matter how much it hurts or pushes me to the brink of a psychotic break. So, indulge me, for the sake of auld lang syne…

Bring on a Blue Tsunami

The Blue Wave started with 2017 municipal races and special elections all across the country. Now we have the 2018 midterms looming large on the horizon. All 435 seats in the House are up for grabs. 33 seats in the Senate. 14 gubernatorial races (including Florida!). Countless state, county, and municipal offices are in play. Change starts by organizing locally, but that change is only solidified by getting good people into office to represent our values and fight for us. We have a lot of work to do in 2018, but I can feel that Blue Wave coming, can’t you? This time next year, I want to be mentally and physically exhausted, but proud.

Get my own work published

I’ve been writing for decades and freelancing for a little under a year. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased as spiked punch to have enough paid work to handle my bills and allow me the free time to focus on full time activism, but paying my bills with money earned from my own novels is the goal. I was just kicking around Barnes and Noble the other day and dreaming like the fifteen year old I was once in between stacks of other writers’ works. The thought of holding my own published novel still makes me giddy inside. I’ll keep running after that feeling as long as it lasts.

Do no harm, but take no shit

I’m gearing up to exponentially increase organizing in my community this year. In 2017, I spent much of my time jacked up on coffee and fueled by outrage at the nonstop shitshow that is the trump administration. I’m committed to not allowing myself to be powered by rage this year. I’m going to tread lightly, but firmly, putting myself out there, but not allowing anyone’s negativity to derail my objectives. In short, I’m going to get shit done, fuck the naysayers, foot-draggers, and do-nothing complainers. The burgeoning, flickering hope that I fostered last year–tending to it carefully so as not to let it die in the onslaught of negativity that was 2017–is going to bloom this year into a parade of full-fledged results. If you want to get in on that, hit me up. If not, get the hell out of my way.

Build a coalition

There are literally dozens of groups in my tiny little red county that are all trying to do the same things. We habitually work at cross purposes though our goals almost perfectly align–scheduling events at the same time, recreating the wheel several times a month, pulling our common members in a dozen different directions. I may be a moderately new kid on the block, but it seems self-evident to me that we need to build a true coalition, enumerate our goals, and figure out what each group can do to further these initiatives. 2018 is the year to get shit done, and that won’t happen unless we stand together.

Get my hands on the contact information for George Soros

Remember the early days of the resistance when republicans were calling us paid protesters (of course, they were also simultaneously accusing us of being jobless snowflakes, but I digress)? Apparently, George Soros was supposed to be bankrolling the entire anti-trump movement. Try as I might, I just can’t seem to get in touch with Mr. Soros. I’d love to collect that fat paycheck. I’ve put in hundreds of hours this year and would jump at the chance to turn it into a paying gig. Anyone with a good phone number or email address for Mr. Soros, please, oh please advise.

And last but not least:

Figure out what will truly make me happy and go the fuck after it

This one is self explanatory, but it’s also incredibly elusive. Part of being happy will include putting out the dumpster fire that’s currently consuming my country. Hence, this 2018 action plan. The holidays are over. It’s time to get to work.

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Lessons Learned from a Year of Insane Activism

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When I say this year has been bananas, I’m not kidding. In the last twelve months of focused, frenzied, nonstop activism, I’ve learned lesson after valuable lesson about what it means to truly make change in my community and beyond. This kind of rapid learning on the fly is what happens when you get thrown into the deep end to sink or swim, right? Turns out, I can swim, but not as fast as I’d like. Yet. Still, the experience has been invaluable, even if a little batshit crazy. Here are some of the things I know now that I didn’t know this time last year:

You can’t champion every cause

Initially, I joined every organization I could find (and even helped start one) and went to meetings or an activity every night of the week and all day on the weekends. This feverish insanity went on for months. It helped to fully immerse myself in the local political climate, becoming knowledgeable about all of the issues that mattered. Unfortunately for poor, introverted me, there were way too many issues that I cared about. I ran myself ragged and fell into a perpetual state of bleary eyed exhaustion that wasn’t emotionally or physically healthy, nor was it sustainable long term. It took going through a hurricane to realize that I needed to prioritize and carve out personal time or I was going to burn out all together.

People will disappoint you

I’ve met more people in the last year than I have in the last decade. No joke. Riddled with anxiety and unable to remember a person’s name for the first twenty times I ‘meet’ them, I think I’m doing pretty damned well holding it together socially. I’ve met some seriously kickass people since the 2016 election. These folks are closer to me right now than people I’ve known for decades. We’ve been battle tested and run through the ringer together. I’m stuck to these fellow activists like glue and would drop everything to show up when they needed me.

But there are also people whose conduct, lack of interest, overall shitty attitude, and unwillingness to follow through on anything they commit to doing are constant sources of frustration. My mother didn’t raise a goldbricker, so if I say I’m going to do something, I damned well do it. I can’t understand people who don’t show up or complete a task they’ve volunteered to undertake, but they are out there. Everywhere. I’ve tried to come to terms with this, but it still burns me up every time.

You won’t always get it right

This was another lesson internalized the hard way. I don’t think there’s a task I’ve taken on this year that has been done the right, most expedient way the first time. I recalculate. I reassess. I go at it from another direction, keeping in mind what didn’t work the last time. It’s labor intensive and aggravating to the point that I’ve considered tearing my hair out by the handful or screaming my throat to bloody ribbons. Instead, I soldier on, wiser for the inevitable fuck ups, because what else is there to do?

You will fail over and over again

Seriously, this kind of work is unpaid and unforgiving. You try, you fail, and you try again. That’s the long and short of it. Get used to falling short, to nonstop hustling that never manages to reach the goal, to pouring blood, sweat, tears, and expletives into the cause only to end up right back where you started. Don’t let it discourage you. Just keep on keeping on.

There is always work to be done

I’ve learned to juggle more causes than I’d have believed myself capable of a year ago. And when one campaign ends, another three are right there to take its place. Causes multiply depending on the number of organizations you join, and the tasks are never ending. Training is sparse, there are no guidebooks, and you’re going to do a lot of guesswork, but when in doubt, act like you know what the hell you’re talking about. You’ll figure it out along the way. I sure as hell did.

You will be more fulfilled than you ever imagined

This is the real shocker from 2017. I’m exhausted, running on caffeine, chocolate, and cheese, constantly frustrated, and feeling like I’m being pulled in thirty different directions at once. But I’ve also never been more certain that my life is serving some higher purpose than I am right now. I honestly feel like I’m making a real difference, and I wouldn’t give that up for anything in the world, even though I sorely miss my cozy little existence of binging on books and Netflix while ignoring the rest of the world.

You will realize that giving up isn’t an option

After every heartbreaking loss or setback, I’ve found that my resolve only strengthens. I’m not quite sure what happened to the Negative Nancy I used to be 12 short months ago, but nowadays getting pushed down only makes me spring back up with even more piss, vinegar, and old fashioned determination. I will see this through, whatever the cost to my personal life or sanity, because I already know the high price of complacency.

I have many more lessons to learn, causes for which to fight, and frustrations to mitigate with lengthy happy hours spent bitching, commiserating, and planning with my fellow activists on balconies shaded from the Florida sunshine. I wouldn’t have it any other way, honestly and truly.

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How to Turn that Hobby into a Job

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I’ve been a writer since I was in middle school, and I can’t remember a time when I haven’t looked at a shelf full of books and imagined my own future novels sitting there. In between those halcyon days and now, my life unwound in ways I never imagined as a middle schooler–a child of my own, college, marriage, divorce, iterations of ‘real’ jobs that kept money rolling in but weren’t especially fulfilling. All the while, I kept writing, still dreaming of that day when I’d find my own books for sale. But it took actually getting let go from one of those ‘real’ jobs to force me into finally deciding to try my hand at writing for a living.

Once you become an adult, it’s difficult to justify spending time on something that doesn’t pay the bills, take care of your kid, or clean your house. And folks are quick to storm all over your parade when you tell them you want to pursue something artsy. Oh, you write? How nice. My 7 year old likes writing too.

But there are some people who aren’t as judgmental and awful. Upon hearing that I’m a successful freelancer, they want to know how I managed to escape the hellish trap of working in a job you dislike so you can afford a life that’s not quite going the way you planned. I became a freelancer officially after losing my job last April, but I learned the focus and discipline necessary to write all day long many years before that. And for those of you who are wishing and hoping and thinking and praying and planning and dreaming to transform your own love of writing into a job that actually pays the bills, I have some suggestions to get you started.

Treat writing like the job you want it to be

I used to write in between managing the rest of my life–raising my kiddo, doing laundry, working a job, etc., etc.. But once my kiddo was in school and I had a supportive (now ex) husband who agreed I could give this writing thing a go and see where it led me, I realized the only way I was going to be able to get any consistent work done was by actually treating writing like a job, not a hobby that I fit in if I found myself with an abundance of free time. Once I shifted the way I thought about it–even though I wasn’t yet making any money–I had instant results. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that envisioning shit doesn’t help you actualize it, because it totally does.

Plant your ass in a seat

This is critical. The best way to treat this writing thing like a job is to sit your happy ass in a chair for sprawling hours at a time and force your fingers onto the keyboard. No matter what happens, power the hell through. Doing this helped me set up my own individual groove…and the words flooded in by the thousands every day. Thanks to this process, I found that writer’s block isn’t really a thing. It’s really just a prettied up way of saying ‘plain old loss of focus’. And do you know what the cure is? Keeping that ass in that seat.

Don’t focus so much on quality of the words you write (that’s what editing’s for, silly). Focus on quantity, because without quantity, you can’t get to quality. If you have to put a knife to your throat in order to force yourself through the harder scenes, do it. Every time I do this, I’m sure what I’ve written is complete shit, but then I go back to read it and am pleasantly surprised if not outright pleased as punch. But you’ll never get there if you keep removing that ass from that seat. I’ve had days where I knocked out well over fifteen thousand words. Just don’t overthink it. Give your inner editor/critic a swift kick in the balls and keep writing so furiously, you don’t have time to contemplate the how and why. In this way, I went from writing a novel a year to writing three to five a year (and now that I freelance, I can do an 80k novel a month, no joke, and that includes editing).

Make like Virginia Woolf and get a room of your own

For years, I wrote on my living room couch, sometimes while the TV was on. It sounds incredibly stupid now, but that’s how it was. When I first started treating this writing thing seriously, I made myself go to my local library from the time it opened until I needed to pick up my daughter from school in the mid afternoon. This got me used to sitting at a desk and writing for hours at a time. I couldn’t wander to the kitchen or decide my baseboards needed a good scrubbing at the library. It also helped that I didn’t yet have a Twitter account and only had like 50 friends on Facebook. After a few months of that, I trusted myself enough to try working at home, but not on the couch this time. With the help of my (now ex) husband, I converted one of our guest bedrooms into an office. Every morning I got up at 5, went running, took my daughter to school, and then came home to write until it was time to pick her up again. Having my own space that was only for writing changed everything.

Soldier through, no matter what

I have submitted eight novels to agents and dozens of short stories to literary magazines. I’ve managed to land an agent and work with her for two years through several edits of my novel only to have her tell me that she was quitting the business ASAP, without selling my novel first (that was a blow that took some time from which to recover). I have weathered more rejection than you can imagine. It’s a bummer and I hate it, but it has never made me question my desire to write. I know I can string words together so they jump off of the page. I just need to get the right piece of work into the right person’s hands, and that hasn’t happened yet. So, no matter what, keep writing. Even if you’re working a job you hate. Even if you believe what you’re creating is total shit. I guarantee you, it isn’t. Writing is a process. The more you do it, the better you get. Stopping won’t get you where you want to be. Do. Not. Quit.

There are writers who are much more successful than I am, but there are also writers who are stuck where I used to be: dreaming about turning this burning desire into a job that pays real money. I’ve done that (this would be a marvel to the Tess of several years ago). I still have more work to do to get to the point where I’m seeing my own original work on the shelf, but I’ll take this. For now. But, believe me, the hustle never ends.

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Being an Ally is More Than Just Lip Service

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I wrote a piece a little while ago that laid out the first part of a road map about how best to proceed as a white person who wants to help people of color in their ongoing struggle for racial justice. This is the next part of that road map, and it deals with how to be an ally.

In my talks with the white folks around me, the question I get most often is: what does being an ally even mean? It’s a term that gets thrown around a lot, especially now that we’re talking more and more about race and societal inequity, but it’s also a term that rarely gets pinned down with an actual definition. Allyship is much more than just memorizing MLK’s I Have a Dream speech or spouting lots of lip service about believing in equality for all. It’s intentional action and it never ends as long as the goal is to dismantle systems of oppression.

Easy peasy, right?

In case you’re still confused, I put together a handy dandy list and, as always, there will be examples and comparisons…

Being an ally is less of a noun and more of a verb

In other words, it’s a series of actions and not a state of being that, once achieved, earns you a kind of irremovable brand of street cred. It’s not a get out of being called racially insensitive badge. I guarantee that you will still get called out by those around you. And, really, that’s to be expected, because this is a deeply racist society. Learning how to stop contributing to systemic racism takes constant work. And just like we learned in middle school that you can’t self ID as cool, you can’t call yourself an ally either. Like coolness, allyship is something that gets said about you, not a badge you get to pin on yourself.

Follow the lead of POCs

Just like women lead the feminist movement while men play a supporting role, POCs should lead the fight for racial justice with white folks there to support us, but not usurp the movement. We need y’all, but our voices should be the loudest and our experiences should dictate the direction of the fight. The struggle for gender equality needs to have male allies…but in the back, not out on center stage. Women’s voices and experiences need to take that leading role. This is no different. A movement not led by those who have the most at stake is bloodless and doomed to fail.

Listen more than you talk

This is key and, honestly, great advice to follow in most aspects of daily life. What I’ve noticed about the times I’ve shared my experiences of moving through the world as a black woman is that white folks are very quick to recenter the conversation onto themselves. They really want me to know that they are not racist, that they have black friends, that they would never consciously oppress anyone! This is defensiveness rearing its ugly head, even though what I said probably had nothing to do with my white interlocutor. I could be talking about a situation that occurred years earlier that had nothing to do with them. If a POC is willing to open herself enough to share a vulnerable experience with you, make sure you’re listening to understand what’s being said, not necessarily to respond or rebut. Taking time to internalize what you’ve been told is okay. And if you’ve been called out for something racially insensitive that you’ve said or done, it’s even more critical that you internalize and fully process that information before responding.

Believe POCs when they share their experiences

I’ve had folks argue with me, shout me down, tone police me, and ask for hard proof of experiences that I’ve shared with them. I’m not sure how I’d come up with video of that time someone called me the N word in 1993, or why it’s even necessary for me to prove it in the first place. When this kind of thing happens, I know I’m dealing with a person that I absolutely cannot trust. It’s disappointing because we’re both supposed to be fighting for the same things–you’d be surprised how many white folks I’ve met in so-called progressive circles who routinely do this to POCs–but I don’t continue to waste my emotional energy. It costs you nothing to believe a POC when she speaks or to stop using racially inappropriate language. I moderate a page for a progressive, community based organization and I have had arguments with white folks over their liberal (see what I did there?) use of the N word. It just wasn’t enough to be told that it was insulting to the POCs on the page, many of whom had requested it be removed. I had another situation on that same page with a man who told me that he was deaf, and members of his community took offense at being called hearing impaired because it held a negative connotation. Now, I was raised to believe that was the polite way of describing someone who was deaf. But it cost me absolutely nothing to believe him and then change my behavior accordingly.

When you’re called out, put your defensiveness aside

This is critical. No one likes being called to task, and our natural response is to double down or attack the person calling us out. What I’m asking you to do is take the time to honestly reflect on what you’ve been told instead of letting defensiveness take over. When that defensiveness rises–and it will–wait to respond until it subsides again. Fully process that knee jerk emotional reaction of hurt, guilt, or anger on your own without demanding that a POC do the emotional labor of soothing you. Understand that this is not commentary on your character, but rather on your actions and/or words. Allowing defensiveness, hurt, anger, or guilt to infect your response will derail what could be an excellent opportunity for self-reflection and growth.

Impact trumps intent

Here’s how confrontations usually go down:

Me: wow, what you just said was really racially insensitive and hurtful.

White person: what?! I’m the least racist person in the world! Insulting you wasn’t what I intended at all! You just took it the wrong way.

I’ve been given ‘compliments’ before that are extremely racist. You speak so well (for a black girl). Also, there have been too many offhand comments to count or recall. What did you get your degree in again? African Studies? (actually, it was philosophy…and not African Philosophy, FYI) Sometimes I let these comments slide. Sometimes I don’t. But every time I’ve called someone to task, the usual defense is that the person didn’t intend to insult me, though that was the actual impact of their grossly insensitive statement, so I just need to move on and let it go. But, actually, what matters here is the impact of what you’ve said or done, not your intent. If the (unfortunately common) assumption that any black woman who went to college must have gone on a basketball scholarship and majored in African Studies causes you to be called out, the excuse that you didn’t intend to insult that woman is weak and not an appropriate defense. What matters is that your words were offensive and you need to stop saying them.

There are no rewards for behaving like you should

Because we’re talking about race much more than we used to, I unfortunately get to hear all about a white person’s racist uncle or cousin or some racist bullshit they heard at the store. Y’all, POCs hear this shit literally ALL. THE. TIME. If you hear some racist crap and you take a stand to put a stop to it (as any decent human being should), there is no reason to report back to a POC to let her know what you did. Tell a white friend if you really need to share. But the constant need for back patting and award-issuing is exhausting to black and brown folks. I’ve heard the N word more in the last three months from so-called ‘allies’ than I have in my entire life because they have felt the need to recount every single racist thing they experience during their day. We don’t need to hear it from you. There are no prizes or medals. Sometimes you are just doing a good thing for the sake of doing a good thing. Definitely don’t let racist shit stand unchallenged in your daily life, but POCs don’t need to hear about the racist cashier at the drug store when we’re just there asking you how your weekend went.

POCs aren’t here to educate you

When a POC calls you out for conduct that perpetuates racism and privilege, that doesn’t then mean she owes you a lesson complete with resources and ways to do better. We are tired, y’all. I mean bone tired. For black and brown folks, racism isn’t something they just realized was a problem in this country in the last few months. We have been living with this our entire lives. Sometimes it’s all we can do to point out when you’ve made a misstep into racist territory, and we just don’t have the emotional wherewithal to do the heavy lifting where educating you is concerned. There are literally thousands of resources available online. You can discuss with white friends. You can read books. Have you seen 13th on Netflix? Most POCs have lived through experiences that make it extremely difficult to find the inclination or the patience to constantly educate the white folks around them. It would be a never ending task. I enjoy an engaging discussion more than the average person, but conversations about racism tend to be frustrating and emotionally taxing, and I’m not always up for it.

If the last year and a half has taught us anything, it’s that we’re not nearly as far along in the United States as we’d hoped. But that knowledge is a good thing, because until we see the problem for what it is, there’s no hope of solving it. We need to keep having these difficult discussions, digging deep into uncomfortable territory, and then digging deeper still. At the other side of that discomfort is where the answers lie. I’m sure of it.

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