“I should be writing right now,” I mutter to myself, as I sit down to begin this blog post.
Though I’m still partaking in the act of placing word after word to form what I hope will become semi-coherent sentences (one can only hope…) it’s not the same kind of writing. 

I write fiction, and this, as much as I would like it to be, is not.

And though I’m sitting down to work on this because my brain currently doesn’t have the capacity to continue with the slog of a chapter of my latest work-in-progress, I still feel it—that ever-persistent rash of self-reproach.

Writerly guilt.

Writing is not my full-time job. It’s not even any sort of job, but more of a ‘part-time hobby.’ (While I prefer the word ‘passion’ over ‘hobby,’ the classification is pretty much the same.) I do work a full-time job, and it’s the kind of job that sounds very impressive on paper, which means it’s also the kind of job that’s mentally taxing. Random fact: those ‘cool’ jobs you hear about are often not as ‘cool’ as you think they are. This is coming from someone who has built an entire career out of ‘cool’ jobs. Mental taxation or not, I come back to my apartment every evening and need to cook and clean and work out and do my 7491614-step skincare routine and whatever else needs taking care of that night before I can even get to ‘writing time.’

Here’s where shame begins to round my shoulders: I don’t always have the energy to write. Most days, lately, I don’t write at all.

Then, there are moments when I do have the energy and the time to write, and instead, I venture outside to explore or go watch a film or read a book or go for a lil’ walkie-walk to grab a bougie coffee that is honestly not worth the cost. It’s these times when I have the capacity to be writing but don’t, that I become so smothered in guilt that I end up curling up into a ball of regret with my goblin of an inner voice saying, “You’re never going to be a writer if you don’t write.”

The goblin has a point. I get it. In order to write, one must…um, write.

But then there are other moments, like when I’m filming and editing content for my writer account on Instagram, taking a writing course, sending out queries, or even writing a blog post about how not writing makes me feel guilty, that I feel…you know, guilty. Though these things are in service of my hopeful career as a writer, they’re still time away from my writing.

The worst is when I’m reading.

Pam Allyn once beautifully said, “Reading is breathing in, writing is breathing out.”

If that’s the case, I’m choking.

When I sit down to read, my mind will immediately start berating me about how I should be using that time to write. I don’t know why it’s worse then, as you’d think it’d be louder when I’m being less productive like during my 1000th re-watch of What We Do In The Shadows.

My writerly guilt, it would appear, is relentless and unpredictable.

And entirely unfair.

The creative pursuit is already one filled with sacrifice, and I have personally pushed many, many things aside to pursue my writing. It’s a priority for me, and yet any time not dedicated to the craft, that ugly voice rears its head and taunts me, prodding me in the side with its bony finger of disapproval. It’s like an extremely co-dependent relationship, where one person pays all the bills, does all the housework, and is run seriously ragged taking care of the other, only to be asked, “Why do you never spend time with mmmmeeeeee anymore?”

The thing is, I know this isn’t a problem that only I face. It’s something that so many of my writer friends have expressed difficulty in navigating – because, don’t forget, there’s also the reverse side of writerly guilt: guilt for when we are writing. My writing doesn’t pay me anything and it often means I’m neglecting other parts of my life, be it errands, self-care, family, or a social life (I had one of those once, I think…’tis but a memory now…) so, when I am writing, I’m ignoring something else. Admittedly, I experience this reverse side of writerly guilt a lot less than others, because I don’t have children or a relationship or that much of a social life, but no matter the situation, it seems as though guilt is part of the process for a lot of us.

But I wonder why.

I wonder why we are so hard on ourselves. Why do so many of us believe we must constantly have output in order to have value?

Why do we tie our worth to productivity?

Maybe it’s social media that has skewed our perception of what success looks like, as we compare ourselves to curated highlights of others. Maybe it’s seeing others achieve a tangible level of success at a young age, so we believe that we’re behind and need to race to catch up.

Perhaps the moment we stop attaching our merit to word counts or measurable targets, or to rare and sometimes staged achievements of others, the guilt will begin to dissipate. We are humans, after all, not metrics.

So, for now, I’ll just have to contend with my writerly guilt…and keep wincing when I’m prodded by that jeering goblin of an inner voice. If you experience this goblin too, know you’re not alone in facing it. All we can do is live our life and write when we can.

(Or spend all of our time re-watching What We Do In The Shadows...)