How to Write Less

How my year of no rest and relaxation changed everything

I know I should be happy that people often tell me that I’m “prolific” as a writer and they ask me how I do it. I do indeed write a lot, and I’m constantly thinking about how I could be doing more or working on becoming a better writer, but the truth is that my need to constantly create is part of my damage that connects back to two big things I’ve been able to nail down:

1. When I started making a living off my writing, it was the first time I understood how not being able to use my creativity triggers something in my brain and my mood starts to deteriorate. I’ve heard this is something people with ADHD often experience, and it definitely explains why my entire life I heard people tell me I was great at things I cared about, but terrible at anything that didn’t interest me. I understand now that the only job I was ever going to excel at was a job I loved, and that’s why I see writing as a job, but also believe the mantra of If you love what you do you’ll never work a day in your life. I love writing, but for the last 15 years, I did it almost nonstop because I wanted to get better and because I needed to work. I’m grateful I didn’t burn myself out, and I think I’m always getting better whenever I sit down to write, but I could tell I was heading in the direction of some rough waters by wrapping up my happiness in a constant need to work even when I didn’t have anything to do. It also doesn’t help that I’ve had jobs since I was 13, lived my teens and 20s broke, and knew too well what it’s like to figure out how to stretch 5 or 10 bucks over two or three days for food. It’s rough out there. I’ve seen it and lived it, and all I can say is poverty absolutely sucks.

2. I had no roadmap when I started, and driving without direction is tricky. All I knew was I wanted to be a writer. I had no idea what that really meant or entailed besides writing. I didn’t see a difference between journalism, poetry, fiction, screenwriting, criticism, or any other form that has a person sitting down with a blank page or screen that they’re suposed to fill up, and I still feel that way. I still believe a writer is a writer, but since I’ve dabbled in different forms, I know some people are better at one or two and maybe not so good at reporting or creating plots for movies. I’ve written plenty of stuff that will never see the light of day, and I’ve had to remind myself that I’m not on some imaginary punch clock; it’s all worth it when you consider it practice. Still, not having a roadmap meant I was learning in real-time. I don’t know exactly how long I’d say I was winging it, but I’ll still look back at things I wrote or the ideas I had 10 or 15 years ago and I’m like, Dude, seriously? That’s embarrassing. I’m glad I made it to a point where I don’t feel that way—as much— but all that learning on the fly gave me a complex. I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder from things that go back to my childhood, and starting at the absolute bottom made me feel like life was one long sports movie training montage. I couldn’t stop or I’d never advance to whatever the next round was. It sounds like work addiction, but it wasn’t—it was fear. I kept working because I never had a safety net below me, and at some point, I realized I was so far out on the rope that there was no walking back. I’m proud to say I kept going forward, but that wasn’t easy.

In 2021, after I was laid off from an editing job, I decided that trying to find another full-time job in media wasn’t exactly going backward or forward. Instead, I was just standing in the same place on the tightrope, and maybe I’d be able to keep my balance long enough if I found something else, but the likelihood was that I would either continue being stuck in place or I’d fall crashing to the floor when the next round of layoffs happened. So I struck out on my own. I was writing full-time, and to do that I had to publish at least one thing a week for two years straight. I was fine with it, but was surprised people considered it “prolific.” I just thought, “I’m worried if I don’t write another 1500 words that I’ll end up in some 19th-century debtors' prison.”

And that’s not good. I didn’t want to feel that way, but there wasn’t much I could think to do beyond complain to my shrink and try to look at my phone less. If it sounds dramatic that it felt as if my survival depended on work, then imagine how it felt to live like that for as long as I did. Friends would ask me what else I wanted and what would make me happy, that I was a working writer with a couple of books to my name and clips with all the publications I’d once dreamed about writing for. I honestly couldn’t give them an answer and thought I never would. And then, earlier this year, I learned the truth: there was no answer. I wasn’t looking for anything else from my writing besides trying to always improve and to continue exercising my creative muscles. Money is great, I love making it and it’s nice I make just about enough to live and enjoy New York City, but the happiness I was seeking was somewhere else, and it took a radical experience for me to understand that. I’m sure it won’t come as a shock when I say it was the birth of my daughter, but that was it. Lulu came into the world just before noon on a day in early May, and that was the moment it all clicked. Suddenly, I realized all I wanted and needed was to make sure my baby and wife were safe and happy, that I was there for them, and that we would all learn and grow together.

If that sounds corny, it’s because having a baby is the crazy, reality-altering experience people say it is. And since an adorable little child is looking at you once the birth part is over, it’s hard not to turn into a mound of cheese when talking about it. It’s why I’ve spent the last seven months less concerned about having to work for my survival, and more trying to experience and live in every moment since I’ve been told countless times “They grow up so fast.” I also have to think of another person’s survival—my daughter’s—and that puts things in a whole different context for me. I understood to do that—and since the agreement between my wife and I was that if we had a kid I’d be the primary caregiver since her job isn’t as flexible as the freelance life can be—I’d have to work less.

Before I go any further, I realize not everybody wants to have kids, and I don’t think anybody should have a baby simply because I say it is the closest thing I’ve had to a psychedelic experience without taking any actual psychedelics. The reason I’m recounting all of this is because I was looking at the number of things I published in 2024, and it’s far less than the previous two years. Part of that is because I had the good fortune of handing in a final manuscript for a co-writing project and I also sold my novel a few weeks before Lulu was born, so I could afford to work less for once. Add in becoming a parent and being forced to understand I can’t spend all day typing away anymore, and I came away with a new perspective, but I also realized that for the first time, I actually liked everything I wrote this year. It wasn’t all great, and some of it was maybe downright bad, but I enjoyed myself because I’d stumbled onto my way of alleviating so much—not all—of the burden I’d felt when it came to creating for a living.

All told, this was the longest, busiest, happiest, and saddest year of my life. Besides Lulu and my writing, we lost our beloved dog Max and cat Zoe. I try to see some grand cosmic reason that our two babies who’d been with us for over a decade passed on the same year our actual human baby arrived, but Emily and I are still grieving and sharing memories. I don’t know if we’ll ever stop, and I’ve accepted that. But since I’ll officially hit my mid-40s in 2025, and I’m currently feeling better than I’ve ever felt, I thought it would be a helpful thing to share this one very big lesson I learned this year. I don’t think it matters how you do it—let me reiterate that this isn’t something that you only learn by having a baby—but if you can get to a place where you can slow down even a little to appreciate your work, your situation, and the fact that you’re always getting better if you keep at it, everything will change.