Quit nibbling around the edges

A plan for 2024 / Issue 1,358

Oh, hi friends! 

This is not a recitation of the highs and lows of 2023. (Personally, I do chronicle those at the end of every year, by going through my calendar and writing down events under categories like "more of this" and "less of this" — try it if you'd like!)

But our collective annual wind-down has made me realize something.

I have spent a long time nibbling around the edges. Making half commitments to this or that. A launch and a little follow-up. And as much as I enjoy writing and talking about creative process and projects, that is actually not the entire body of work I want to create.

We saw Rachel Bloom's new one-woman musical Death, Let Me Do My Show last week. (It was funny and moving in equal measure.) She discusses the death of her collaborator, the brilliant singer-songwriter Adam Schlesinger. Rachel talks about visiting a psychic and trying to communicate with Adam. She also asks the psychic if Adam had any "artistic unfinished business."

That phrase got to me.

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My friend Charlotte committed to writing poetry this year — committed to being a poet. I see this in the way she shows up for her work, on top of showing up for her career and husband and two young boys. This is a full, wholehearted commitment to craft. After seeing one of her poems published, she texted me: "it feels like the right place for my energy."

What a feeling, to know your energy has both found a home and is at home.

I read her note and was so happy for her and also thought, "Oh, I do not feel the same about my energy at the moment."

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When I was laid off from The Daily Beast and Newsweek this time 11 years ago, I told my boss Tina Brown that I wasn't planning to find another staff editor position, that I wanted to "focus on my creative work" and write movies and plays. (I didn't know then that musicals were a possibility lol.) She looked at me and said, "Write the screenplay."

So I skipped out of the building and became a freelancing, freewheeling, freebird, pitching and editing and hustling and kind of, sort of, "doing creative work." 

But slowly becoming a one-woman hype machine for finding your meaningful work and for "creating instead of waiting" has inadvertently led me to wait. And sideline. And nibble. And distract. And wonder.

When will my real work begin?

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Paying attention to my envy also led me to this realization. Oh, look! I even wrote an article about envy for The Wall Street Journal! But in a beautiful twist of irony, if I came across this article as a passive reader, I would not envy the person who wrote it. I don't envy other people's bylines. That might be a snarky thing to say, because shouldn't we be grateful for opportunities, grateful for platforms, grateful for the chance to be a working writer?

You may have something that other people want, but that doesn't mean you have to want it forever.

I've seen this so often with readers of this newsletter, people in my life, and myself. Nervous to quit the "good-on-paper" job because they won't get another. Holding on to what their 25-year-old self once dreamed of. Chasing one deal but then hating the process.

And I’ve also seen the opposite. Getting clear on what is right for you right now. Adapting to a new phase and cadence of life. Launching the enormous plane.

It’s really hard, but we have to pay attention to our own experience. We have to calibrate our own antenna for envy. To notice, Ohh, that sends up a flare in my brain! A ping in my heart! A sizzle on the stove!

(Or, if envy makes you itchy, our own awareness of when something is no longer fitting.)

It's OK to want something new.

You can always pick a different color.

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Eek, maybe this is an end-of-year reflection?!

So I want to use a metaphor here about looking at the year and asking whether you feel like you've moved towards the right mountain.

It’s not even a requirement to move up the mountain. Moving in its general direction is progress, too. 

But that, to me, is the mark of a satisfying year: slightly closing the gap on your mountain. 

Leaving behind artistic unfinished business and knowing you could have done something about it…well, that's not a risk I’m willing to take any more. 

How about you?

What are your biggest visions for 2024?

I overshare this with a lot of hope and optimism, since that is my happiest resting state.

If you spent a lot of time nibbling around the edges of your dreams this year, I hope you find the courage to actually, truly, wholeheartedly go after them next year. I hope you can take the absolute biggest bite you can imagine.

And I hope this time next year, perhaps you can rest — we can both rest — knowing that we left nothing unfinished.

Sending you a big holiday hug.

And thank you for being with me all year.

PS — New version up of “You Got the Goods,” my favorite song that composer Ron Passaro and I wrote for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Musical, our second-year BMI Workshop project. Matt Lowy on keys, Julia Gannon as Susie Myerson, and the energy to shoot your shot. What more does a girl need?!

Everybody lives
Everybody dies
Don’t you wanna be
The kinda broad who tries?

That’s the one.