2015: The Year I Wrote Like a Motherfucker

Before 2015 came along, I hadn’t focused on my personal writing since 1996. Yup, almost twenty years. And even back then, “focusing on my personal writing” meant dicking around trying to write a novel one Saturday at a time as I sipped a latte and listened to NPR. I thought maybe, maybe, writing a semi-fictional-slash-highly-autobiographical novel about two people falling in love would be my ticket out of a burnout of a career. At the age of 28.

LOL, right?

I viewed the process of writing as something akin to waiting for the whispers of a thousand angels to descend upon me. So it’s no wonder it never went anywhere. Because writing isn’t about waiting for the angels, it’s actually just work.

But I never felt like a frustrated novelist. Or screenwriter. Or essayist. Or any of that. Copywriting and creative directing and collaborating with talented, smart, and funny people for my job was plenty. I didn’t fall into what I did (and still do) ass backwards, it was a career that I crafted and worked hard at. It was everything I wanted and I only wanted to get better at it, always. It was enough.

Until suddenly, it wasn’t.

The Year Everything Changed

This is what happened at the end of 2014:

I got tired of pissing and moaning about what other writers were doing. I got tired of telling myself that “I could do that too, only better (maybe)” without ever having tried. I got tired of the screenplay that I was too afraid to start, even with the most incredible sources of encouragement. I got tired of being someone who shit all over other people’s work but wasn’t brave enough to put their own out there. I got tired of wondering and hating. So I started doing.

I set out to write a piece every week starting January 1st (although I abandoned that plan two-ish months later once I realized it was resulting in forced writing that for the most part I hated)

In order to meet my initial goal, I ended up writing every single day, accidentally completing my own #100DayProject (now I write most days simply because it’s a habit)

I finished 39 pieces (and have 11 pieces in draft form)

I published 18 of those to Medium and one went viral

I had 5 pieces accepted by McSweeney’s

I co-founded the parenting humor site RAZED and edited 18 of those pieces

In other words, I did a lot of god damn writing and started projects I hadn’t even imagined on January 1st and then somehow I became an editor, too. I get that that may not seem like a lot if you’re a full time writer but, for me, a person who has a completely separate job as a copywriter and creative director and (not a small thing) is also the parent who’s at home during the week with a schedule that’s molded around my kids’ school days? Well, it was a hell of a lot.

THIS

I can’t sum it up any better:

“How many women wrote beautiful novels and stories and poems and essays and plays and scripts and songs in spite of all the crap they endured. How many of them didn’t collapse in a heap of ‘I could have been better than this’ and instead went right ahead and became better than anyone would have predicted or allowed them to be. The unifying theme is resilience and faith. The unifying theme is being a warrior and a motherfucker. It is not fragility. It’s strength. It’s nerve. And ‘if your Nerve, deny you –,’ as Emily Dickinson wrote, ‘go above your Nerve.’ Writing is hard for every last one of us. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig.

So write — Not like a girl. Not like a boy. Write like a motherfucker.”

— Cheryl Strayed, Dear Sugar, “The Rumpus Advice Column #48”

Favorite Children

My #1 goal of 2015 was to get on McSweeney’s. Since I already make my money doing something else (a point I can’t emphasize enough), I decided to aim high. If I was going to write for free, I wanted to write for the site I wanted to be on the most. To be honest with you, I still can’t believe it actually happened.

One of the best things I’ve learned in my career is, “The worst they can say is no.” And they did. But then they said yes. And the rest? Exploration, experimentation, weirdness, tears, and some meh for sure. Twenty years fit into twelve months.

Here are my favorite pieces from 2015:

McSweeney’s: Welcome to Our Design Studio Where You’ll Never See the Light of Day but You Can Bring Your Dog

March 20th, the morning I received an acceptance e-mail from McSweeney’s. I did more white lady dance moves around my living room and kitchen than you can even comprehend, so don’t even try. I celebrated for a week. Maybe two. It was the beginning of everything. And bonus: people in my own industry actually found out I existed.

McSweeney’s: Radiohead Song or Accurate Description of My Parenting?

The fact that I got a piece about Radiohead on McSweeney’s makes me happier than you can possibly imagine.

McSweeney’s: The Old Farmer’s Almanac Predicts “We’re All Fucked” This Winter

I had a lot of winter PTSD to work through. Plus it was fun to write. And I got the F word in the title! Wooooooooo.

Medium: Coach Taylor Now Coaching Couples Who Arrange Their Bookshelves by Color

The first humor piece that I liked enough to put out there. Rejected by McSweeney’s but forever in my heart.

Medium: Fuck. This. List. Subtitle: Returning to work after having a baby is a nightmare. It shouldn’t be.

My first deeply personal piece that got a big reaction. I received many heartfelt and heartbreaking e-mails and Facebook messages from other moms, most of whom I had never met. It helped me work through a lot of the bitterness I (apparently) still held from my kids’ early years. It helped me put it in the past while also being a part of the conversation that parents (unfortunately) are still having today.

Medium: If You Love Your Grandparents, Visit Them. Your Big Cool Life Will Still Be There When You Get Back.

The only piece I cried through every time I worked on it. I still tear up just looking at the cover image. It inspired friends and strangers alike to reach out, call, or visit their grandparents and I will forever be proud of it.

Medium: How to Talk to Your Kids About Bernie Sanders

I was planning on writing a piece for RAZED called “How to Talk to Your Kids About Joe Biden”. But RAZED hadn’t launched yet and anyway, that was an idea for the future. But then Bernie declared his candidacy on April 30th. A friend the night before had said, “I think Coach Taylor is getting lonely, he needs a friend” in response to my comment about wanting to take a break from writing essays and get back into writing more humor pieces. On the morning of April 31st those two thoughts collided in my head. Biden became Sanders, I scrambled to write something so it could post the following morning—and then I watched it spread like wildfire, setting off what was easily the most bizarre experience of my writing life.

What I learned: You’ll never know (at least I’LL never know) why a piece goes viral. Friends still say to me, “You must’ve known when you were writing it!” That’s a big NOPE. I can think of other pieces that I love just as much or more that I thought would’ve had that potential but there they sit, lonely.

I’m also grateful that the piece was about Bernie instead of, say, my kids or something else more personal. This was the first time I came face-to-face with my discomfort over feeling exposed (and it was a humor piece for god sakes!), getting e-mails from crazy people, and the realization that once you post something, it’s really truly out of your hands. It’s gone like a spooked horse.

Medium: “Do You Have Faith In Me?”: When Anxiety is Your Co-Pilot and I’m Not That Awesome. Neither Are You. And That’s Okay.

Related to the above, these two pieces are the most intimate and revealing, certainly not by most writers’ standards but definitely by mine. Being chatted up in coffee line over a deeply personal piece turned out to be my worst nightmare.

I’m still proud of these pieces and they helped connect me with many people (friends even!) struggling with similar feelings, challenges, and worries. But they were draining to put out and I still wonder when I’m on conference calls or in a meeting if the people I’m speaking to have read these pieces and are wondering, “Is she freaking out right now?” “Is this all a front?” Answer to those questions: “Mmmmaaaayyyybe?”

Medium: The Saddest Mornings, The Happiest Afternoons

I can’t even reread this right now because it’ll make me too sad, but don’t let that stop you.

RAZED: 51 Things You Should Never Say to a Mother Ever

Because I will projectile vomit on the next person who writes a “Things You Should Never Say to So-and-So” type article. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.

RAZED: How to Talk to Your Kids About Gay Marriage

Less than two months after my Bernie piece went viral, the Supreme Court handed down its decision making same sex legal in all 50 states. But it wasn’t until that afternoon that I texted my RAZED co-founder, Eric Olsen, with a “Oh fuck, do I need to write a ‘How to Talk to Your Kids About Gay Marriage’ piece now?”, he responded with “HELL YES” and we were off to the races. He reached out to Scott Lenhardt and we were super duper lucky that not only did he say ‘yes’ to illustrating it, but he’d have a first pass to us in just a few hours.

I stayed up until 1 a.m. to write the first draft and got up at 5 a.m. to finish it. I had to constantly tamp down panic that this follow up to the Bernie piece was going to bite. I had to push through what that worry did to my writing flow and work hard to set the insecurity aside. I still smile thinking of the text chain between Eric and I that afternoon, because most of my side was “WHAT IF I FUCK THIS UP” and his responses were mostly, “You got this”. I didn’t care if he was lying, it was good to hear. By the time it was done, it was one of the most fun and satisfying deadlines I’d been on all year. And the reaction to it made us happy. Win-win.

RAZED: What Do You Think of My Son’s Senior Picture That Was Shot by Annie Leibovitz?

Because it’s weird.

Take ’em off

My mother often tells the story of how I was the last kid to take off my training wheels. All my friends were zooming past and there I was, completely content to keep on keeping on even though I was nine. Finally, one day I turned to my parents and said “Take ’em off”. The training wheels came off and I took off on my bike, strong and steady, never falling.

I wish I had thought of this story more throughout my adulthood in general but certainly throughout my years of writing. I’m not—and never was—the first out of the gate at anything. I was never destined to be on a “30 under 30” or “20 under 40” list. I’ve always been a late bloomer, waiting to be sure, really sure, before I stuck my toes out. I still have a long ways to go but this year I felt the momentum of those twenty years behind me, all of the things I’ve learned, all of the connections I’ve made, all of the observations I’ve held in my brain, suddenly forming into something deep and tangible.

So when I think of this past year I think of it as the year that—at 46 and then turning 47—I finally set aside my complaints, my excuses, my jealousy (well, most of it), and I just dug in and did the work. I got rejected, I was humbled over and over again, and I felt proud and energized when momentum was on my side. On January 1st, 2015 I took off those training wheels and I never looked back.

Happy New Year, everyone.