You can listen to this post read aloud or you can read it below for yourself.

Everyone needs voices and relationships in your life that call you on your own bullshit. Okay, I won’t speak for you. But I will speak for me.

[Note: I’m not going to apologize for use of this language because sometimes the thinking in my head deserves to be told off with such strong intonation. If it bothers you, find your own phraseology that does the same job and be brave enough to keep reading.]

I have an ongoing coffee date with a writing friend about every four to eight weeks. We were colleagues and acquaintances in grad school, ran into each other randomly at a writing center event ten years later, and have developed a friendship since. We have both been in and out of college work, have both married, become mothers, and are wrestling through this whole how-do-I-be-a-writer-and-make-my-way-in-the-world while simultaneously juggling full lives. We both put a lot of stock in our therapists. We both come to our writing in fits and starts, not fitting the idealized mold of what a writerly life might look like in some fantasized (and probably non-existent) version of our imagination. We both struggle with self-doubt or feeling stuck or shaming ourselves for not doing enough. And we’ve both come to take strength (I hope I can speak for her and not just me) from sharing these vulnerabilities, stuck places, hopes, and goals, and mutually cheering one another on.

I’ve written more since spending time with Caitie.

Her blogging gave me courage and hutzpah to start my own, which is why you are reading these words right now. She’s also introduced me to writing resources or online challenges that have kicked my butt into the chair to do the work more than I would’ve on my own without her encouragement. I hope I’ve been able to return the favor for her just as much.

Last week, I showed up to our coffee date with a question for Caitie. How can I play with my writing more? I’m currently working on a memoir that covers a lot of spiritual abuse and a broken engagement. It can be hard work to show up to write at all, and moreso when the content is full of emotional weight. Some days I find it a bit too exhausting to face and relive. Mornings like these, I wish I could turn to a more playful project, language that enchants or makes a person laugh. Children’s books perhaps, or reflections that just induce wonder. I wish I had the courage to be silly, but I tend to only give weight and importance to writing through deep and difficult subject matter. Even for these posts, I have a hard time feeling I can write something for the blog unless I have a clear lesson or some profound wisdom to impart.

“Bullshit,” Caitie said, losing no time in cutting to the chase.

I probably owe her a therapy fee this time around. She listened to me talk and then she called me on my crap. “That’s all bullshit. You’re talking yourself out of things before you’ve even giving yourself a chance to try them. How do you know you can’t write children’s books or something light and fun?”

It’s my new mantra. We joked about how she was going to write “Caitie says Bullshit!” on a stack of sticky notes so I could pull them off anytime I needed them. I probably should post a sign above my desk that says, “It’s all bullshit!” My long line of self-deprecating and limiting thoughts includes:

• I can only write about serious things.
• I don’t know how to be playful and have fun.
• No one will want to bother reading what I write unless it has some deep meaning or purpose behind it.
• If no one will read what I write then it’s not worth spending the time writing in the first place.
• My writing isn’t as poetic or as beautiful as X (so therefore it less valuable).

After each one, I can now hear Caitie saying (and sometimes myself), “Bullshit.”

This conversation reminded me of when I read the book Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking by Jon Acuff. The whole book revolves around the premise of realizing what kind of thought soundtracks play over and over in your brain and possible solutions for how to build in new ones. It’s a kinder, less crass way of saying, stop listening to your own bullshit playing in your head. He writes, “A plane can drop a bomb or food. A syringe can deliver poison or medicine. A stallion can start a stampede or win a race. The same is true of our thoughts. If you can worry, you can wonder. If you can doubt, you can dominate. If you can spin, you can soar” (28). If I can procrastinate, I can write. He adds,

“With neurogenesis, ‘every morning when you wake up, new baby nerve cells have been born while you were sleeping that are there at your disposal to be used in tearing down toxic thoughts and rebuilding healthy thoughts.’ Your brain is waiting for you each day. It’s waiting to be told what to think. It’s waiting to see what kind of soundtracks you’ll choose. It’s waiting to see if you really want to build a different life” (29).

One of the ways Catie and I are reaching for a different life is participating in an annual online writing challenge called 1000 words of summer. [It’s not too late to jump in and join.] It started last Saturday. The target goal is to write 1000 words every day for two weeks. I’m currently on day five.

The first four days I found success and was amazed at what I could accomplish when I stopped making excuses. Day one and two I was staying at my parents for the weekend with my kids, not usually my ideal writing setting. But I carved out time to go sit on the porch in the beautiful weather and make it happen anyways, while my mom was out having a Mimi adventure at the gym with the girls. Yesterday, I got up a bit early so I could be fully ready to leave the house when I dropped my daughter at preschool. I had a narrower window between drop off and an ultrasound appointment, so I camped at a Starbucks and told myself it was now or never that day. I surpassed my word goal.

Today, I am more tired, back in my office with more luxurious time, and I have frittered away the past hour on random tasks on the internet instead of writing these words. I texted Caitie for some accountability to finally kick myself into gear.

Each day of the challenge begins with a letter of encouragement to do the work. It often features a guest writer who shares about their own process or view of writing. On day two I was pleased to find Caitie’s voice echoed in a letter written by Karen Russell. She shares about exchanging weekly goals with a writing friend:

“My friend intimidates me, and I mean that as a compliment. I often found myself scrambling to meet a goal because I’d made the commitment not just to myself but to her. I think this is key: find someone who you love and admire, someone to whom you really matter, someone who can both cheer you on and also kick your ass and (lovingly) call you on your bullshit. I know it really mattered to my friend that I finish my book. It matters to me that she meets her weekly goals. We are sincerely overjoyed by each other’s incremental, steady progress. There’s no shaming on our thread, but we do check in with curiosity whenever some unmet goal keeps rolling down the calendar like a lost bowling ball.”

Last week I needed Caitie to call me on my bullshit. I probably need her to do the same this morning, which is why I texted her. Even if she doesn’t answer until this evening or tomorrow, her voice is now already in my head telling me to quit making excuses and finish this post. I’m not too tired. That’s bullshit. Just write.

Months ago, I helped call her on her own bullshit by telling her that she doesn’t need to know what will come of a piece of writing before she writes it. It might belong in that essay she’s working on, it might not. But that decision can be made later. You won’t know what happens until you write. Just write. I’m handing those words back to myself this morning. I don’t have to know what I’m creating before I create it. I don’t have to know who will read it when I’m done. I just have to be faithful to the messy, occluded process and trust something will come out of it in the end.

You may not be a writer, but you have tasks in front of you, goals that keep gathering dust in a back closet, soundtracks playing in your head that make excuses for you before you even try to begin. Do yourself a favor and stop listening to your own bullshit. Find a friend (or a therapist) who will help call you on it. Love yourself by noticing how you set your own limitations. They might be false limitations. You might be able to surprise yourself if you start listening to a different song.

Resources:

• 1000daysofsummer writing challenge
  • Karen Russell’s letter: https://1000wordsofsummer.substack.com/p/day-2-of-1000wordsofsummer-2024-d8e
• Caitie’s blog
• Jon Acuff’s website

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Shalom.