Why I’m trying to read LESS

Unexpected takeaways from a job search

Hello, friends,

There are a few hundred new faces in this crowd, so I’m going to start with a VERY SHORT intro about me and this newsletter. Let’s see, me: I’m a writer, content marketer and former magazine editor, and I wrote a book about the year I spent sending out 365 gratitude notes. I split up what I called my Thank You Year into monthly themes—neighbors, friends, authors, food, travel, etc. I launched this newsletter initially to lead readers through their own Thank You Year, talking about gratitude + travel, + friends, + teachers, and more. 

Then in December I was part of the tech layoffs, so I wrote about what to say to someone who’s been laid off. That one got a lot of nice feedback: People told me that they followed my advice when a family member lost their job, or that they shared it with their team after company layoffs. 

In the four months since, I’ve been in that “messy middle” (shoutout, not for the first time in this newsletter, to Bruce Feiler’s Life is in the Transitions). I’ve been looking for a full-time job, and in that process have found two terrific clients, so I’ve decided to rehire myself (shoutout to the content marketing agency I started when I left my last magazine job at Food & Wine) and quietly removed the “Open to Work” banner from my LinkedIn profile. 

It’s not a clear-cut, triumphant end to a transition, but I’ve found myself a good perch that I am enjoying for the time being. I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve learned in these four vulnerable, tough, transitional months, while examining old habits and making goals for the future. Here are three pledges I've made for myself as I move forward:

1. I want to ask myself for what purpose before I dedicate time to a project 

What this means for me, practically speaking, is that I’ve pulled way back on my social media. While promoting my book I poured a lot of time and energy into Instagram—reels and Live interviews and curated feed and and and—and it feels good for the moment to let that go. I’ll still share the occasional book rec or thought, but I wasn’t seeing a good return on investment, and the effort was wearing me out.

I’m also trying to stay off my neighborhood Facebook groups, where people post problems and questions—”I’m drawing a blank. What local bars have backyards?” “A friend wants to know where the best cheesecake to-go is from”—and where it’s so tempting to give advice and fix problems. (I have many opinions on outdoor bars and cheesecake!) It really scratches this itch that I think many women have, to fix problems and be helpful. I could spend all day planning and posting and commenting on social and feel productive, but to what end? 

For awhile there on LinkedIn I was aiming to post more regularly; people say to post once a day to increase your visibility. But for what? In case the right recruiter or job poster sees? Is this how I want to spend my time?

I also decided to stop accepting paid subscriptions for this newsletter, to take the pressure off writing more than about a month.

2. I want to read less

Reading books is my top coping mechanism. I was a bookish kid, disappearing into Little Women and The Babysitter’s Club and The Island of the Blue Dolphins when I didn’t want to be where I was, because my parents were fighting or because I was lonely. I’ve again been turning to books as I’ve been trying to find my footing since my book came out in 2021.

I didn’t know what would happen, career-wise, after my book came out. But I imagined everything would shift. How could it not, after I’d finally accomplished such a big, major life goal? 

I am currently listening to the audio version of Anne Lamott’s writing guidebook Bird by Bird, and as she read the below passage, I started laughing maniacally. 

God! I had a book published! It was everything I had ever dreamed of. And I had reached nirvana, right? Well. 

I believed, before I sold my first book, that publication would be instantly and automatically gratifying, an affirming and romantic experience, a Hallmark commercial where one runs and leaps in slow motion across a meadow filled with wildflowers into the arms of acclaim and self-esteem.

This did not happen for me. 

The months before a book comes out of the chute are, for most writers, right up there with the worst life has to offer… The waiting and the fantasies, both happy and grim, wear you down.

My book year was far from the worst life has to offer! There were so many joyful, incredible moments! But sales were modest. I put a lovely book I was so proud of into the world. It was translated into two other languages. I still on occasion receive a handwritten, very personal piece of fan mail about it. It was a wonderful experience, but it was not game-changing. 

As I was realizing that my book would not alter the trajectory of my career or life in any seismic way, I started reading. A lot. Mostly romcoms, whose rhythms and predictable beats soothed me. I read 100 romance novels in less than a year, from mid-2021 to mid-2022. I read 78 books last year. 

The good news about reading this much is it started replacing social media (see #1). The bad news is, I was slipping into childhood habits of reading instead of doing. So in these four months of my job search, I purposely cut back on reading. 

Since January I’ve read 10 books; if I keep up this pace I will read a much more reasonable 40 books this year. (Best so far: Sea of Tranquility, Wishful Drinking, Sorrow and Bliss, Run Towards the Danger, Sam, Truth and Beauty, I Have Some Questions for You. While there are no romance novels on this list, I still love them. Eagerly awaiting Emily Henry’s newest!)

To summarize #1 and #2 here, I am a goal-oriented person, and I realized that I need to choose my goals carefully make sure they serve my financial and creative needs. Otherwise I will dutifully read all the books or watch all the episodes or reply to all the posts.

3. I want to create more

So my book didn’t change my life entirely. So what? I’d never felt more like myself than I did in those eight months while writing it. But how do I write another book? What should I write about? 

I’ve been reading The Artist’s Way to help me figure it out, diligently doing my morning pages and taking my artist dates (IYKYK). I have a few ideas, and I’m in the process of figuring out what to commit to, and then I aim to write it like I did my first book—in the first hour of every workday, and then in a few weekends alone when Jake whisks the kids off to his folks’ house and leaves me in our home to have my own private writer’s retreat.  

For inspiration I’ve been looking to women I think of as my creative fairy godmothers: Phoebe Waller-Bridges (this Fleabag scene!), Pamela Adlon (the New Orleans episode of Better Things that includes this Randy Rainbow tearjerker), Sarah Polley (her incredible documentary and book of essays), Nora Ephron (Heartburn and everything else), and Carrie Fisher (Wishful Drinking on audio). 

What do these women have in common? They’re brave women who aren’t afraid to tell the truth. What would I write, what would I do, if I was entirely without fear? What would you do?

I’m going to end this letter with another Anne Lamott quote, this one from her recent appearance on the Good Life Project podcast. 

Expressing your creativity starts by being present in your life. Blink yourself awake again and again.

The forget me nots are out. The bluebells are out. Be with them. The wild mountain irises are in bloom and they’re like a Bob Dylan song.

Photo by Karen Cann on Unsplash

Thank you for being here!

xo

Gina