Here’s a fact: I feel a little self-conscious publishing essays about Jane Austen movies. I loved writing them – it felt fun. Maybe my idea of fun is a bit weird, but whatever! Watching the movies gave me something to look forward to at the end of a long day. Then I’d find myself thinking about them days later, my thoughts humming in the background while doing dishes or pushing my toddler on the swing at the playground. I’d mull over questions I had, make a sudden connection on a walk, and feel excited to get to my computer later so I could get it all down. I actually wanted to write. I haven’t felt that way in a long time.
When I was a teen, it was the golden age of social blogging: LiveJournal, Xanga, Blogspot. I had one, most of my friends had one, and we poured out our adolescent yearnings and musings on a weekly basis. It wasn’t all that long ago, but it feels like eons in Internet time. A different age: more innocent, freewheeling and experimental. Maybe I’m just nostalgic. Maybe I perceive it differently because of my own youth at the time. After all, I was more experimental back then. Reading those posts today is painfully embarrassing, but part of me misses that version of myself: unafraid to write about my feelings and completely unconcerned with monetizing my writing.
Now, roughly 20 years later, I’ve done something I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do. I’ve carved out a career as a writer. I think 15-year-old Ivy would be impressed! But I’ve also lost something along the way. It’s hard to write for fun these days. I have to fight a long list of mental “shoulds.” I should be more strategic. I should have a good elevator pitch for this newsletter. I should have a stricter schedule. I should be trying to get more subscribers. I should set up paid subscriptions. I should care about LinkedIn. I should, generally speaking, have a plan.
Writing multiple essays about Jane Austen adaptations was not planned. It was spontaneous, experimental, delightful. I don’t know if I’ll keep going with them or not. I sometimes feel like I’m just goofing off in a really embarrassing way. Like, I’m a grown up. Shouldn’t I be doing something more … impressive? But these days, I wonder, who am I trying to impress? At 35, I am waking up to the fact that most people aren’t paying close attention to me at all. It’s actually liberating.
Coming into adulthood can bring an oppressive sense of routine: work, pay rent, buy the groceries, cook the meals, do the dishes, sleep, go back to work again. Every day is Groundhog Day. And, let me tell you, maintaining routines for a small child makes that repetitive feeling even weightier. Once upon a time, I tried to push against that feeling by chasing “meaningful” jobs, creative jobs. These days, I try to keep paid work from taking over so I can play a little bit more. But that means I have to turn down the volume on the voice that tells me to monetize and strategize everything.
I’ve channeled my creativity into all sorts of things on the side of paid employment: a podcast, singing lessons, baking, sewing my own clothes. All the way, I’ve been juggling two competing impulses. One, the impulse to make stuff just because I enjoy it, and enjoy sharing it with others. Two, the impulse to never, ever risk failure or public embarrassment. Sometimes the embarrassment gives me a wicked emotional hangover – like the time I performed a music recital and (thanks to accidental circumstance) MY BOSS’ BOSS WAS IN THE AUDIENCE. I stumbled repeatedly and completely froze up. It’s a funny story now, but I was fairly mortified. Even though music was a low-stakes hobby with no bearing on my life at work, it still would have felt nice to nail it in front of the person who signed off on my annual review every year.
Even then, in my deepest mortification, it was worth the joy and the fun. It’s easier to access that sense of play with new skills like singing or sewing, and much harder with skills I’ve professionalized, like writing. But I want to bring the joy back into my writing. I want to love what I love, and share it with people who share my sense of enthusiasm. And that’s really what I wanted to say — to myself more than anyone else. I don’t have a plan. I don’t have a schedule. But I am having fun. I told a friend yesterday that I’m trying to reconnect with the things I loved about college (reading and analyzing texts, applying theory to pop culture, writing about it) without doing into debt. And, right now, I think that’s all the mission statement I need.
"I have to turn down the volume on the voice that tells me to monetize and strategize everything..." Please oh please keep turning it down. These goofing-off play dates of yours are good for the rest of us. Your delight leads us towards our own and helps energize our sometimes grim, difficult work-- especially the work against the Tyranny of Certainty.
There is a famous letter from Keats you might have come across? Talking about his hero, Shakespeare, he uses the phrase "Negative Capability."
"what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason..."
https://genius.com/John-keats-negative-capability-letter-to-george-and-tom-keats-annotated
Reminds me of when I discontinued a side job because it robbed me of my love of creating in the kitchen. How wonderful for you to rediscover the love of writing that brought you where you are today. It's been a joy to partake in.....please continue!