Earlier this month, I wrote to one of my editors and asked that some of the monthly content marketing work I’ve been doing for this non-profit organization be passed on to another writer.
There is no problem with this client. There is no problem with the editor. There is no problem with the work. It arrives like clockwork, I deliver like clockwork, and I get paid like clockwork. Easy peasy.
Except it isn’t. Hasn’t been lately.
But before I get into why, let me tell you another story. A different story. One from fifteen years ago.
I was a new writer. I was 19 years old and a college student in India. I had just discovered the freelance writing world online and I wanted IN! So I started pitching American publications, which seemed to be the only ones with online guidelines at the time.
I didn’t know then that this was a difficult thing, that other Indian writers weren’t doing this, that it was something people seemed to struggle with or take years to transition into. It didn’t even occur to me to start with my own country first.
I saw opportunity. I was eager to take it. I saw no reason not to.
So I did. Along the way I met far too many Indian writers who said that foreign publications didn’t want submissions from India and that no one had done it before. (They thought it wasn’t possible, so they simply hadn’t tried.) I am not kidding when I thought– and this is exactly the thought I had– “I guess I’m going to have to be the first.”
Later, when (again, far too many) American writers told me that it was so damn difficult to break into top publications and secretly scoffed at the idea that I thought I was going to do it from India, I only thought to myself, “I’ve been the first to do it already, so I guess I’m just going to have to keep going.”
I don’t actually know if I was the first, but I know that I would have been among the handful people making any sort of real living as a freelancer at the time in India. That number is still very small—thousands, maybe. In 2005 or so, when I got serious about it, it was probably less than a hundred, if that. There were hobbyists and people who were writing “on the side” but professional freelance writers making serious money in India at the time were pretty rare. My bank didn’t know what to do with me. Credit card companies called me all day long because I had a pretty high income but they didn’t know what the heck to do with me because they simply couldn’t understand what I did.
“No, but I don’t understand. Someone paid you Rs 70,000 to write one article?!”
Anyway, so I was among the very first professional freelancers in India making a serious income. And my attitude was always, “Well, somebody’s gotta be the first to do it. Why not me?”
I had similar conversations when I started writing my novel. My life goal has always been to be a New York Times bestselling author AND a Booker prize winner.
And I’ve been told—repeatedly—that it can’t be done. Literary novels don’t sell in large numbers, apparently. Booker winners don’t make money, I’m told. You can be a commercial writer and make money or you can be a literary writer and win prizes. Pick one.
So, again, the obvious thought in my head was, “I guess I’ll have to be the first.”
Except, I don’t have to be the first. Not by a long shot. Writers who say literary fiction cannot be bestselling fiction are simply ignorant. Because literary fiction lands on the top of bestseller lists ALL THE TIME. Not all Booker winners make money, sure, but many do. (Not all “commercial” writers make money, either. That’s the nature of life.)
But anyway, think of Jhumpa Lahiri. Salman Rushdie. Elizabeth Strout. Aravind Adiga. They’re NY Times bestselling authors. Booker/Pulitzer Prize winners or nominees. Just off the top of my head. I could go on and on.
Here’s the thing: People say this stuff all the time as if it’s fact. Instead of saying, “I couldn’t do it,” they say, “It can’t be done.” Because it’s true. In their experience, it couldn’t.
But theirs isn’t the only experience.
Go find the people who had a different experience. They’re out there. This is exactly what I did, by the way, once I got wise about things. Every time I heard it couldn’t be done, whatever that “it” was, I tried to find someone who had done it. And if one person had done it, others could do it. I could do it.
Which brings me to today’s story about walking away from my regular freelance work.
It drains me. That’s the long and short of it. I could obsess over the why, but I don’t care to. It drains me and that’s all that matters. And a couple of years ago, I found myself in a position where everything I was doing drained me and felt like it was pulling me away from what I should be doing with my life. And I said to my husband, “I have always loved my writing, my writing is my life. But I hate my writing and my career. Which is to say, I hate my life. And I don’t know what to do about it.”
I do know what to do about it. If I were in a relationship that I hated that intensely, I’d walk out, wouldn’t think twice about the financial consequences. So I had to do the same with my writing, which take note, I defined as my life. (We won’t even go near that one today.)
And I made the decision then that if a project drained me enough to make me resent it, I’d walk away. I could question the why later, if I chose to, but I had to take action immediately.
Not all at once, but slowly, I’ve been letting things go.
I’ve let go of work that doesn’t fire me up, that doesn’t make me wake up in the morning raring to go. If a project doesn’t excite me, I don’t even bother applying. I won’t create a course that I don’t believe in 100% and that I’m not dying to create. I won’t write an essay that I’m not staying up until 2am to finish.
This was scary, I have to admit. And I was only able to do it because the only thing that’s more frightening to me than financial hardship and losing everything we have, is losing my connection to my writing, which feels to me like the strongest connection I have to myself.
You know how this ends. Because this is how it ALWAYS ends.
I ended up having one of the best months of my entire career. Third-best, to be precise. (#1 was the month in which I earned $10k in three days, so I’m still trying to beat that one.)
But I can tell you exactly why my income has increased: Because I’m working more efficiently. I’m probably also working more hours because when you’re dying to come to the page and produce, you’re going to do more of it, with less resistance, less procrastination, and a lot more fun. It doesn’t feel like work.
There were weeks in years prior that I worked only 20 hours the whole week and felt like I’d moved a mountain. And this last month, I’ve worked 11-hour days and felt nothing but joy and love for what I’m creating. Because I got rid of the stuff that drains my energy and brings me down.
I chose to love my work by focusing on the work that I love.
But I had to be really sure of myself to do it. I had to challenge the common sense and common wisdom that advised me not to. I had to challenge my own fears and my own preconceived notions. I had to be committed to the idea that I was having it on my own terms or I wasn’t having it at all.
I’m not saying don’t do the hard work. I’m not saying turn down assignments. I AM saying don’t let other people’s success and failures define what you think is possible for you. Don’t let their limitations be your limitations.
Trust yourself. Know that when you hate something, there’s a reason. And then when you love something, there’s a reason too.
We can’t change everything overnight. We can’t let go of all our beliefs in one go. We have families to feed, after all. But we can start.
Let’s start.