Hey Coco: How do I know if writing is worth it?
Advice on timing, finding your path, & failing.
“I don’t know what I’m even waiting for"…”
I’m 38 years old. I work a day job that’s fine (I don’t love it), and it feels too late to really make it in an artistic career.
I’ve been writing here and there for years. Nothing I write has really gone anywhere. I’ve shared it with a few friends. Sometimes I post it. But mostly it’s just in a folder on my computer.
I keep watching my friends hit career milestones and I feel like I’m just biding my time until something happens to me, but I don’t know what I’m even waiting for. I want to get paid to write, but don’t really know where to start and the idea of jumping ship from my day job makes me nervous.
How do I know if it’s worth it to try and if I can actually make it?
Please tell me what to do!
Late & Lost
Dear Late & Lost,
You don’t realize it, but you’re poised on the edge of something. Can’t you feel it? I can feel it in the way you’re writing to me.
I can also feel that you are the only thing currently standing in your own way. I’m not suggesting you don’t have real world stuff going on — I’m not suggesting you don’t have systemic pressures and maybe even inequities holding you back.
But you didn’t write to me about those. You wrote to me about something going on in your head. Spirally, sticky thinking.
So, because you’re in your head, I’m going to meet you there. I’ve got three ideas for you. I want you to ingest them. Shoot them into your veins. Make a meal out of these ideas, and devour them. If you can, they may change you and the course you’re currently on.
3 Ideas to Change Your Mind
You’re not too late, because nothing is wasted.
When you’re lost, you’re on the right path.
You won’t make it if you don’t fail multiple times.
(Grandma Moses who started painting for real for real at 78.)
“Too Late” is Arbitrary and Dull
Honestly, I love you, but are we not past this? This “too late” thing? Too late for what exactly? Unless you’re attending a dinner party at 7p on the UWS and it’s 6:53p as you stand on the platform at 4th Ave in the Slope, then you’re not too late.
What’s the alternative L&L? Seriously. You can’t fight aging. No one can. Getting older isn’t what happens because you did something wrong. It’s simply what happens.
I am not going to bore myself with a long list of artists we all know and love who got their starts late in life. Because my guess is: it isn’t even actually about your age/life timing, but more about the nebulous feeling of your potential slipping away. And knowing Toni Morrison didn’t start writing until she was 42 doesn’t quite help the gnawing everyday feeling that you aren’t living up to whatever greatness is inside you.
I won’t lie to you, L&L. Watching the days pass without doing anything of particular artistic consequence… sucks.
There were three years during what should have been the height of my acting career, after being nominated for a big award, where I did not set one foot on a stage. I couldn’t get a job. I auditioned all the time. It just wasn’t working. It was excruciating.
Look, I’m not going to say that all of those years I didn’t perform added up to something. I’m just going to say: they weren’t wasted.
That wasted time sharpened me. Those years of nothing clarified me. I don’t wish you any heartbreak or despair, but I do know that both make you muscular. And from your message, it sounds like your vitality has atrophied. I hope that’s not too forward. Honestly, it takes someone who’s been there to recognize it; and I’ve been there.
There’s something happening to you during this time. I can’t say for sure what it is, but I do know it’s working on you.
One of the main rules of life is: you’ll have what you need at the exact moment you need it and not one second before.
You’re Not Lost, You Just Don’t Know Where You Are
Now, to the concern of feeling lost. You mentioned you don’t know what you’re waiting for. So how do you know that you’re lost? Is it the feeling of not knowing where you should go next? If so, then I’m going to share with you this spectacular video of David Whyte which should immediately quell all worries.
The TL;DR is — if you’re lost, then you’re on the right path. Because if you know where you’re going, you’re following a path that’s already been taken by someone else. And if you’re taking a path that someone else has taken, then it couldn’t possibly be yours.
You say you want to get paid to write, but I’m wondering if that’s true. Getting paid to write is cool. I’m not knocking it. But it’s a very different thing than getting to express yourself through writing. Those are both different objectives, and they each need different strategies.
To me (and forgive me for being so bold but after all you are asking for my opinion) it sounds like you want to express yourself. I hear a longing in your letter, for something to happen to you, to make it, to hit a milestone, to know everything you’re doing adds up to something. That’s not the same as getting paid. Maybe it would be nice to get paid along the way, but it doesn’t really sound like your main goal.
I think you’re lost because you haven’t articulated what you want. You don’t know where you’re going because you haven’t decided what you’re after.
So the question of course becomes: how do you decide what you want?
Follow me to the next point and I’ll answer it for you:
(Bob Ross says it’s fine, so it’s fine.)
You Haven’t Failed Enough
You won’t know what you want until you are willing to try something and fail at it.
There’s a lot of data that tells us making a decision is a really great way to feel better, even if (and this is the clincher!) it’s a bad decision. Even if you make a mistake, simply acting and doing something, anything will give you great happiness, satisfaction, and contentment.
That’s because decisions give us high quality info.
And if you fail through the decision you make? Even higher quality info.
And data also tells us that the only true way to become a “success” is to fail over and over and over again. Why? Because higher quality info compounds into wisdom, clarity, and vision.
You’re spinning your wheels in the proverbial mud. You’re sitting there waiting for something to happen, and as you say, you don’t even know what that is. Get up and go. Make a mistake. I honestly dare you. You know why? Because it’s not that big of a deal. Truly. No one is watching you. You are the only one categorizing your Ws and your Ls. Take a few Ls. Get smarter. Learn what you like.
The only way to self-trust, as far as I can see, is getting into some hot water and realizing you can find your way out of it.
You haven’t put yourself in any hot water yet.
Find it. Go there. Do something creatively dangerous. Be reckless with your ideas. Fail a million times.
I don’t know why it works this way, but I know it’s true: failing feels better than inaction.
Do This Next
L&L you have the world at your fingertips. Here’s what to do next to make sure you’re actually showing up to your life:
Look back at 10 years ago. What was happening then that you thought was the end of the world? What did you eventually gain from it?
Decide what your objective is. What do you actually want to do? Pick a few things if you’re not sure, and go after them.
Fail as many times as possible in the next month. Seriously. Post your writing. Do a table read. Share something creative for feedback. Submit to an agent. See how many Ls you can rack up. At the end of the month, you’ll feel better.
L&L, it’ll be okay. This is the journey. This is the process. There’s nothing different happening for better, smarter, or more talented people.
For all of us, it’s the same tedious trudge.
Oh well.
Take heart. You’re nowhere near as late and lost as you suspect.
Good luck out there,
coco