Well, if it isn’t another year hurtling at breakneck speed past my ability to keep up with flipping over my calendar pages. I had intended a nice chipper New Year newsletter with, you know, news, but suddenly it’s the end of February, and oops. Time, it’s linear. Who knew.
At any rate, some news: Bittersweet, but at the end of 2023 I signed off as a cohost of Worldbuilding for Masochists after five (FIVE!) years with the podcast. What started as an offhand Twitter convo turned into one of the best experiences I’ve had in writing and publishing—the opportunity to talk to dozens of brilliant writers currently putting out some of the most innovative, interesting, and enjoyable books out there. I’m not gone forever—I’ll be around as a guest, a substitute, and am still a co-editor of the anthology Traveling Light (WOW these stories are absolute bangers, and you are going to love reading them!).
Some other news: I’ve sold more books but there’s no official announcement yet so…um…a promise that I am writing more books that you will be able to purchase in most likely 2025 and 2026? Yes, that works. I am writing more books that you will most likely be able to purchase in 2025 and 2026.
But back to that part about time being linear and me blowing my good intentions to get a newsletter out sooner and then we’d have the part where you, the nice reader, says something like “it’s ok, you’re doing your best” and I suddenly realize—no, I am not doing my best.
And I shouldn’t do my best. And that’s ok.
If I take that phrase literally, my “best” is my highest quality work, in which I put in 100% and permit nothing less than full effort. Yes, I know, that isn’t what you meant, but let’s roll with this for a minute, ok? We use the phrase all the time—meaning actually “I don’t expect your best all the time, that’s ridiculous, I accept what you’re reasonably able to do with the finite amount of time and energy and resources you have.” We mean that, but we rarely say it. It would be considered rude, if we’re honest, to say instead of “You’re doing your best” something like “Well I guess you’re doing what you can given your limitations.”
We want to preserve our dignity, and our dignity apparently means never admitting we’re not doing our best, all the time. But this is exactly what we probably need to say and what we need to hear.
Don’t do your best all the time at everything. Why? It’s impossible. Also? It’s impossible. But for a third reason, it’s impossible.
Instead, I think we should probably decide and then focus on what deserves your best. This is something I have a very hard time with even though it should be easy, shouldn’t it—my kids deserve my best far more than my dirty stovetop. My writing deserves my best more than fiddling with a syllabus for the eighteenth time when it’s FINE it’s really FINE. My students deserve good feedback; my laundry deserves baseline acceptable folding.
The reality of course, is that we only have finite resources of time, energy, and mental and emotional bandwidth. We can quibble about the individual parameters and limits of the last two but the first is hard and fast—24 hours per day, per person. Not only is everything not going to get your best, it can’t even get your mediocre.
My students are often surprised, I think, when I acknowledge that my class is not their only class, and that school is probably not their only responsibility. I almost cheer for them when they confess that, actually, they are splitting their attention between a math test, a chem lab, and working extra shifts to make rent. When they say “I know I could revise this paper and do better, but I really don’t have time if I’m going to study for my math final.” They have to learn to prioritize—maybe they’d like an A in my class but it’s their overall GPA that matters to the program they’re applying for, and they can’t bomb chemistry and bio in favor of one more revision to polish an already-passing paper. Is it how I’d like their education in writing to work? Is it how I’d like education in general to work? Of course not—that’s another essay entirely. Is it reality? Yes, it sure is—and there’s point where you hit diminished returns and you have to dole out Your Best sparingly.
And there’s a lot of demands on Your Best. I have my students read an old but good essay, “College Pressures” by William Zinsser. In it he explores the societal expectations levied on the Yale college students he works with in the late 1970s, beliefs about “right” careers and “not good enough” grades that push them to conform to roles they might not have chosen for themselves. It’s a good essay. It asks a lot of still-very-pertinent questions about the real purpose of education and whether we have perhaps bastardized it. But putting a pin in that, I ask my students—what’s missing from this exploration of “pressure?” Does it seem like these students are anything other than…students? Sometimes they scan back over the pages or mull it over, sometimes they know right away—no. These students only student. They may dabble in extracurriculars, but they do not work full time jobs or even part time ones during the semester. They do not have to take care of their children—they don’t have any. They aren’t the primary translators for appointments and doctor visits for a family that speaks mostly Spanish or Arabic. They’re not caregivers for aging parents or grandparents. On the whole we have the senes that any economic pressures are removed (“will I get a good job”) not immediate (“which can I pay for, utilities or groceries?”). For most of my students, like most of us, their lives are not neatly compacted single-priority segments of time. They can’t just be students. I can’t just be a writer. We have to split Our Best between a bunch of different demands.
There we are, a very long explanation of why you haven’t gotten a newsletter in a while. It’s because I’m really not doing my best at it.
But if you’ve hung on this long, please enjoy a chicken—who I’m pretty sure is in fact doing her best at being a chicken each and every day.
I mean, really. Absolute chicken perfection (at least in her opinion.)