Saying No in the Year of Yes

Sometimes ya just gotta

So there’s this writers’ workshop I applied to last fall. And they said I had a strong application, but I was waitlisted. And that workshop filled up, so I didn’t get to go.

No worries - there was a summer workshop, too, so I applied for that. And I got waitlisted again. Whatever. My fate was to be forever waitlisted.

BUT THEN it was the first night of Spring Break, and we were 150 or so miles from home and eating dinner at The Rainforest Cafe, of all places, worried that our kid was going to have a meltdown before they brought us the bill, because seriously they were taking forever, and we had just gone “skydiving” (in one of those big air tubes) and I knew she was tired. And amongst that chaos, I got an email that said CONGRATS the people we accepted first don’t want to come to the workshop, so you’re in. Or something along those lines.

There were a lot of complications to my going to this workshop. It was really freaking expensive. Like, really. It was pretty far away and not easy to get to. We had made summer plans that were irreversible, and I would have to miss the last portion of the workshop. The grandma who does our summer childcare was not actually available the week of the workshop. It was not looking good.

But this was my year of trying new things and saying yes to the unexpected. Should I say yes to this, even if the circumstances weren’t great?

I reached out to my social network of writers and asked if I would be stupid for missing this opportunity. One said that I knew the cost and dates, and I said “Eff it” and applied anyhow, so that must mean something, right? Another one said to listen to my heart.

So I got real quiet and tried to listen to what my heart was telling me.

Here’s the strange thing. Literally, a week ago, I was emailing my best friend and I told her I was giving up creative nonfiction. I was tired of writing about myself. I had what I considered a great idea for a novel, and I was going to channel all my energy into that.

The workshop I was accepted to was to write creative nonfiction.

And I just…wasn’t sure I was feeling it. I wasn’t sure I was ready to drop some serious cash on a genre I wasn’t feeling 100% devoted to right now. I wasn’t sure I was ready to take the wind out of my new novel sails. If they had accepted me in February, when I had applied, I would have accepted immediately. But now? It just didn’t feel right.

To say yes to something always means saying no to something else. And I’ve figured out what I want to say yes to. For now, at least.

I said yes to “skydiving” but I did not say yes to looking this dumb.

There was an essay in The Cut this week written by Maggie Smith about when she realized her marriage was in trouble after one of her poems went viral. Her marriage had always been in trouble, really, because once hetero couples have kids, a common story that emerges is the husband does “real” work and the wife does the “fake” work, the “less important” work of housekeeping and childcare. Us wives who wake up one day in this common story know that our work is just has hard and just as important. So it gets to be a big deal when the wife has to go away, especially if she is going for other “fake” and “less important” work like writing or book promotion or craft talks, things that are also just as hard as “real” work, but still less valued because it falls into the category of art, and art surely cannot be “real” work. Allow me to pause for an eyeroll.

Anyhow, it’s a sad story that, unfortunately, I think a lot of women writers and artists deal with in their own families.

But shortly after that came out, I saw a recurring status on Twitter asking for women’s stories of supportive partners, husbands especially, who did not believe that housework/childcare/artistic work was less valued than whatever work they did. And there were a good amount of women who had uplifting stories to tell. Not enough women, sure, but a good amount.

I will say that when I got accepted to the workshop and told my husband all the complications that might keep me from going, his response was that, if it was important to me, we’d find a way to get me there. And that was pretty awesome. He is pretty awesome.

Even so, a lot of Smith’s essay rang true to me, mostly because of the patriarchy programmed in my brain, not necessarily out of anything that happens in reality.

For example:

I was having a good time — it was work, but I enjoyed it. And he was home doing my work. To be fair, I treated it that way, too. I had internalized that. He was “covering for me,” as if I were a coworker who’d gone on vacation and left my cubicle-neighbor with all my tasks while I was away. I should be thankful — and I was thankful! I should feel bad — and I did feel bad!

- Maggie Smith

Smith’s book You Could Make This Place Beautiful comes out next week, and you can bet I’m gonna be checking it out.

My daughter’s pancake lunch did not consent to being eaten, and I think its quite upset about it.

Seriously, all the essays this week were eerily tailored to my life. Nicole Chung wrote an essay for Esquire called “The Unbearable Costs of Being a Writer” and I’m glad she said it and I think others should say it, too. I have been writing and publishing now for six years, and the amount of money I have made from it is not even enough to attend that oh-so-expensive writing workshop I was accepted to. So many mags charge writers just to let them read (and then likely reject) work, and entering competitions can set you back hundreds after only submitting to a handful of them. I have a friend who is hybrid-publishing her book which cost her $5,000, and then had to shell out another $1,500 for editorial comments. Us writers who aren’t getting any traction and want to figure out why will pay hundreds of dollars per class. Writing is not a lucrative vocation, but writing is who we are, and all we want to do is be read by other people. All we want to do is change the world with our words. But someone is always making money off those words, and it’s not the writer.

There were stretches when I made so little money writing or editing that I couldn’t blame my parents for assuming they were hobbies. They used to wonder how I could spend weeks revising work I had already done, months on an idea or project that might never sell. It was hard for me to explain these decisions, explain why I made them even when I could not necessarily afford to.

- Nicole Chung

I feel that. Her memoir A Living Remedy came out this week, and I’m adding it to the list.

My kid: “Aw, I’m out of raspberries. But look, I made art!”

I have been fangirling over Rachel Yoder since her novel Nightbitch came out, so when I saw she’s got a new interview up, I had to read it. Seriously, her novel is brilliant, y'all. She says all the things I want to say about motherhood but way better and way more interesting than I ever could. If you haven’t picked up her book, do it! And check out her interview, too.

Before I had my son, I had a ridiculous image of a perfectly egalitarian parenting situation in which my husband and I seamlessly and happily shared all responsibilities and both felt like we had enough time to also have careers and watch movies and participate in the things we each found meaningful apart from parenthood. And I just had no clue. Thinking about having another child now creates a flurry of anxiety and worry in a way I was not in touch with when I was pregnant the first time.

- Rachel Yoder

What I’m Watching:

Absolutely nothing. We’ve been away on spring break this week and it’s impossible to watch anything grown-up when there’s a kid going to sleep at 8pm in the next bed over.

What I’m Reading:

The good thing about an early-to-bed sleeping kid in the same room as you is that you have a lot of time to read, and friends, I thought Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was gonna be good, and I was right. I’ve still got about 20% to go, but I don’t have to finish it to know you should read it, too.

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