How to Stop Writing
An ode to waving.
If you made it to last night’s Book Club for Writers discussion of You Could Make This Place Beautiful, thank you so much for being there!
Hoping to make it next time? We’re meeting again this summer (Sunday, July 28 at 1PM EST, to be exact!) to discuss Jami Attenberg’s 1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round.
I’m in my waving era. That’s what I tell myself whenever I let my dog on the deck and she looks at me through the window and I wave to her, as if she were able to wave back.
I think waving is a precious adorable sweet angel baby of a thing to do. I love being at a Florida Theater concert or a Jags game and watching a stranger wave to someone they know in the crowd. What a tender thing. I love humans.
Every weekday morning in Morning Writing Club, after Chelsea pulls an Oblique Strategies card and reads it to us and types it in the chat and wishes us luck, we all wave to each other from our tiny Zoom windows before we turn our cameras off and start writing. It is so nice. Many of us have joked that it is Pavlovian conditioning: the simple act of waving will send us all into a writing tizzy.
I’m a big journal-er and always have been. The act of putting my anxieties down on the page and seeing that they only take up a few lines makes me feel like I have power over them. Like they’re contained. Sometimes, I’ll wave at them in their little container of a paragraph.
I have been revising my novel. I’ll share more about that another time. For revisions, I’ve been able to carve out a few chunks of writing time each week. Mostly, the time has been good. Productive. Fun, even! But somedays, when I write for many hours, I start feeling like my brain is getting steamy and poached and smothered in hollandaise.
For these occasions, I have developed a process. The writer Cal Newport might refer to this as a shutdown ritual. I call it “what I do when I can’t stop tinkering with my novel and I have a small headache and my back hurts and I just need to not think about the work for a while.” Here it is.
HOW TO STOP WRITING WHEN YOU CAN’T STOP TINKERING WITH YOUR PROJECT AND YOU HAVE A SMALL HEADACHE AND YOUR BACK HURTS AND YOU JUST NEED TO NOT THINK ABOUT THE WORK FOR A WHILE
Save the doc. (CRUCIAL.)
Slam your laptop’s lid as hard as you can without breaking it.
Wave goodbye to your computer.
Say “BYE!!!!!” to it as loud as you can.
Get away from the desk.
Get yourself a glass of water or a seltzer or a Diet Pepsi or whatever you want.
Enjoy your time away from the doc.
The slamming of the laptop is the second most important part of this. You need the drama!!!! If you write in a notebook, SLAM THAT NOTEBOOK. If you write on a desktop computer, I don’t know how to help you. Try tossing a tablecloth over it, maybe?
The most important part of this ritual is, of course, the wave. The slamming is assertive, but the wave is gentle and tactful. The wave ensures that you’re still on good terms with the writing. You’re still friends, even after a long day. Sometimes, when I’m feeling nicer, I’ll say, “See you tomorrow!”
If you think this sounds nutty, hear me out: at least I’m not saying what Cal Newport says to his computer when he’s done working. That nerd says, “Schedule shutdown, complete,” which is WAY DORKIER than “bye” or “see you tomorrow.”
But hey! Whatever works. Different strokes for different folks.
LAUNCH AND GROW YOUR SUBSTACK NEWSLETTER
On May 21, I’m teaching a class at the Jacksonville Public Library on launching and growing a newsletter on Substack. I’ll share everything I know about newsletter content strategies, the benefits of using Substack over other platforms, and monetizing your newsletter.
Tuesday, May 21, 6-7:30PM · Regency Square Branch Library · This in-person event is free and open to the public, though registration is encouraged. Hope to see you there, Jax pals!
Thanks for reading!
👋 Hurley
You Could Make This Place Beautiful is a delicate powerhouse of a book! I could relate to so much of it except (thank all the stars), my ex was a horrible husband but a decent ex.
Slam + wave!!! I love this!