Busy as a bee

Do the demands of being a writer (or an artist or performer) sabotage a creative life?

I’ve been pondering this as I commit hours every week to writing an often carefully researched, always carefully crafted essay to be posted on the blog I created and have been feeding for almost a decade. I then take the time to use all my carefully managed social media networks to get the word out. Between essays, I post curated images (my own photographs) and comments to maintain (and grow) a “presence” on social media. I take speaking gigs when offered, occasionally for real money, more often for a pittance, sometimes for nothing. It is good to engage with readers. It is a privilege to have a voice and to be able to spark conversation around issues I care about. But I also take speaking gigs (even the non-paying ones) to maintain a “platform,” because publishers demand it.

I teach writing workshops, sometimes for free—as I did in prison for the past four years—most often for below-market wages because I believe in the enterprise and crave the energy of novices. And because they are part of making a living. I take these responsibilities seriously. They demand enormous time and energy. I think about offering my own workshop series, online classes, podcasts, destination retreats–a number of my writer-friends do this—but I balk at how labor-intensive this would be.

I’m thinking about these things I do to make it possible for me to live a “writing life” because: One: It is no longer possible for a midlist author to even approach supporting herself through her published work. And two: Recent research shows that creativity suffers when you’re constantly busy. And I am constantly busy.

Busyness—handling tasks, juggling, toggling between to-dos, managing—requires linear thinking and intense focus. But creativity and innovative thinking requires idleness. Staring out the window time, solitary walk-in-the-woods time, daydreaming. In “daydreaming mode” (obviously not the fancy neurological language for this), the brain can shift into free flow and association, forging links and concepts that might not be “logically” made.

We already know we are drowning in information, that information overload is a real thing. That it exhausts all of us. We already know (or should know…the research has been out there for decades) that “multitasking” is stressful—and, counterintuitively, inefficient.

Now we are learning about the creative cost of being, having to stay, busy.

Believe me, friends, I know full well that it is PRIVILEGE to have this problem. Part of me feels guilty even mentioning it. But if I sound as if I am merely whining about the problems of the sufficiently housed and fed, it is to call out the publishing industry that demands busyness and platform development and social media management and “revenue streams” outside writing in order to be a writer.

Okay. Now to post this to my blog, to my FB page, to my FB author page, to tweet it, Instagram it. And then…get back to work on the book.