On not taking your own advice
+ Summer Motto + NYC books + links
Hey! I’m Josh Spilker and this is about online writing, creativity, and culture. Let’s go:
It’s hard to be in the writing game each and every single day.
Especially if you don’t know what you’re writing.
That’s why every author Q&A is filled with people asking about their favorite authors’ writing routines, how often they write, and any “advice” on getting it right.
What’s even more aggravating for me personally?
When I don’t take my own advice.
Take this article for example.
I suggest writing down 10 ideas per day to help write Medium articles or newsletters.
That was 2 years ago.
Yet, I rarely ever do this.
I did it for a while and then stopped.
And to be honest, when I rebooted a weekly newsletter earlier this year, I completely forgot about this tactic.
I even have a better system now, a Notion dashboard to track all of this, yet often I run out of ideas.
My board of ideas is low.
I haven’t been following my own advice.
Where’s the grace?
It’s been an eventful year.
My wife quit her job about a year ago. Then we traveled in the fall, I lost my job, got another one, and now we have some more big personal news on the way (ok, we’re moving). Oh yeah, put raising kids and even homeschooling them for a few months into all of that.
However, every year is “eventful” in its own ways. I’m positive other years will be crazier than this one, many have been.
However: Where’s the grace for myself?
Grace, if you’re not familiar, is the idea that you get what you don’t deserve. In this case, not to beat myself up about it.
But yet, I still expect some level of success. To have thousands of email subscribers or to make more money on my personal writing when I’m fine (really!) with my regular job.
It’s true, you are your own harshest critic.
That said, I do think the 10 ideas a day is good practice (hat tip to James Altucher for that).
My own failure is really a lack of bad habits. I didn’t track the idea generation. I didn’t remind myself or have an app remind me.
Perhaps it was too big of an expectation.
Maybe it needed to be moderated.
Other habits take over: reading consistently, praying consistently, going to the gym consistently, and doing a weekly newsletter even if the daily writing isn’t always there.
You do what you can do.
Summer Motto: Be Patient, Be Kind, Be Flexible.
We live in the South, which means the children are released from their studies by Memorial Day.
The kids are at home.
There are also big, permanent changes afoot at my household (more on that later, just can’t right now), with a lot of travel and trips.
That said, I needed to lay down a nice, kind law for the amount of time that we’d be spending with each other, along with how much was changing.
We all came up with this (feel free to steal it)
Here’s how I explained it to my children (generally):
Be patient: You’re not going to get what you want right away. Even if you ask nicely. Sometimes you have to wait.
Be thankful: Fortunately, we have food, a nice place for shelter, warm beds, and many nice conveniences close by. We all love each other too, and we can be thankful for all of these things.
Be flexible: We have a lot of changes going on. That means we won’t always be sure what’s happening next. So don’t always ask. But you’re with us and you’re safe. Go with the flow. Entertain yourself. Be bored for a little while. Find something new to do.
Lots of other applicable stuff here! It works beyond just 7 and 9-year-olds, try it.
NYC Books, Books about NYC (Bullet points)
Hit a few bookstores in New York City last weekend, and I was struck by:
The number of books about New York
How addicting it is to read about where you are
How the publishing culture then publishes what is around them
Because there’s a predilection towards the familiar
Then the writers keep coming to New York City and then write about what’s around them
This can sustain itself because there are so many people there anyway
And the snake keeps eating its own tail
That said, I bought a book where New York City is a character. Totally enjoying Drifts by Kate Zambreno.
More Things To Read
The Every by Dave Eggers. Tech-phobic? This book is one of those not-so-dystopian novels where a huge tech company just takes over everything. Not really in a scary Minority Report way, only in our willingness to hand over the keys-type way. It’s honestly not that well-written, compared to his other books, but the scenarios he quickly describes about how we can judge the truthfulness of our friends, or have 11 screens going at once is frightening and all too realistic.
Can they save indie media? at The New York Times. I love the earnestness of young writers, who snatch a bit of cool and then want to see where it can go. Very much a New York tradition.
Streaming is broken at Vulture. This is so in-depth and I enjoyed the behind the scenes look and conversation about how yes, there really was way too much TV.
Molly by Blake Butler (memoir excerpt) at The Paris Review. Stop reading this Substack and click on that link. Truly amazing piece of writing, in the most elegant yet heart-wrenching way. This is from Blake’s memoir in process about how his wife committed suicide, and the ramifications of that. Very tragic, but an amazing piece of writing.
Last Week
Last Thing
“The advice I would give to someone is to not take anyone’s advice.” — Eddie Murphy
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-Josh Spilker