This is the Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 140: The Bulletproof Writer.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise, to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m your host, Sarah Werner, and I’m coming to you from the beginning of my favorite season, fall.

I was talking with a writer friend the other day about why writers tend to love the season of fall or autumn so much, because it’s kind of a thing. I don’t know if it’s a thing for you, but I’ve noticed it’s a thing among many writers and creators. “Oh, it’s fall. This is the perfect season for writing.” “Oh, it’s fall. I can put on a cozy sweater and make a cup of tea and sit down and focus on my writing.”

Fall is also, maybe coincidentally, maybe not, this season when NaNoWriMo takes place, at least if you’re here in the United United States. NaNoWriMo takes place in November, which again, here in the United States, comes during the season of fall.

Maybe it’s the shift to cooler weather keeping us indoor where our writing materials are. Maybe it’s melancholy walks through the rain and leaves. Or maybe, and I don’t know a hundred percent of this is the case for me, but I think it’s an interesting theory, maybe it’s the school cycle that got ingrained into us as children.

Late summer/early fall was always the beginning of a new school year, at least for me and maybe for you too. And I still associate the beginning of fall with the smell of new school supplies, with paper, with notebooks, with possibility, with learning. Yeah, I was the nerd that looked forward to the beginning of school.

But I think I’ve really held onto the concept of fall being a new start, the beginning of a creative season where the cooling temperatures, and rain, and eventually snow, and the darkness coming earlier and earlier, lends perfect conditions to focusing at our desks.

So if you would like to use the season that we’re moving into, or whatever current season you are in, depending on when you’re listening to this episode, to refresh and recommit to your writing practice, I’d like to invite you to do so.

Now don’t worry, I’m not going to be talking about this season of fall for this entire episode. In fact, we’re done talking about that for now. But it does segue into today’s topic. Something I said earlier may have thrown up a red flag for you. And that is when I talked about fall having the perfect conditions to write.

“But Sarah,” you may be saying, “you’ve said before on this very podcast that there is no such thing as perfect conditions for writing.” And you are absolutely correct. One of my favorite quotes about writing comes from author, Doris Lessing, who says, “Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.” And it really feels like that. Doesn’t it? I would write today, except I have a huge migraine. I would write today, except I have all these errands to run. I would write today, except the conditions are impossible.

I was thinking about this concept the other day as I was listening to one of my many writing playlists, specifically my Girl in Space writing playlist, on which is a song by LaRue called Bulletproof. It’s a catchy song and it’s been remixed a billion times. And it even appeared in the movie Pitch Perfect. But the lyrics go, “This time, I’ll be bulletproof,” referring to lessons learned in past experiences, and knowing better going forward.

If you’re listening to the Write Now Podcast, chances are you want to learn and improve as a writer. I think we’re all seeking to some degree to get better at our craft. And I think that we learn a lot of lessons as we go. And after each lesson, I think we’re tempted to say, “Okay, this time I’ll be bulletproof.”

And I can’t say that phrase without trying to put it in the timing of the actual song, and it’s really slow, so, “This time I’ll be bulletproof,” is what we are tempted to say after each lesson we learn. “I’ll know better next time.”

But after you say that a couple times, after you learn multiple lessons, and you keep thinking, okay, now I’ve got it, the conditions continue to reveal themselves as impossible. I’m recording this particular episode during the coronavirus/COVID 19 pandemic. We’re heading into fall of 2021. And we’re living in this weird phase of the pandemic, when for some people, the pandemic is over. For other people, as different variants of COVID continue to emerge, it feels like it just keeps starting over and over again.

Some people are done wearing masks, other are doubling down on it. And despite all of the politics going around, people are still getting sick and continue to die. I know a lot of us have been saying it this year, a lot of us said it in 2020, a lot of us said it literally every year that people have been alive, “This is a really hard year. Maybe the hardest year.”

We’ll probably say that next year and the year after. But speaking to the right now, see what I did there? That’s a little pun based on the show’s name. Speaking to where we are right now, the conditions are impossible, aren’t they? They seem impossible. In addition to all of these stuff that life normally throws at us, I’m seeing a spike in writers talking about anxiety, and depression, and imposter syndrome, and feeling overwhelmed, and confused, and hopeless.

I like to be very open with the fact that I struggle with anxiety and depression myself. And I’ve been on medication for it for, gosh, six, seven years now. And contrary to what I initially thought, the medication doesn’t make the anxiety and depression go away. Like they’re still here, throwing a terrible little party in my brain. The medication just makes the lows less low and helps me cope with them and with life a little bit easier.

So even when the conditions are decent, my calendar is free of meetings, I don’t have to teach anything, I don’t have to speak anywhere, I got my newsletter done and written, my desk is cleared off, a fresh cup of coffee is in hand, even when the conditions are pretty good, depression, or anxiety, or resistance, or imposter syndrome, or any of these things that we deal with can still hit at any time.

Maybe our kid starts throwing up, or a car alarm starts going off across the street, or any number of things. And we think back to all of the lessons that we’ve so painstakingly learned, all of the work that we’ve put in to improving ourselves as writers. And maybe we think, “Hey, aren’t I supposed to be past this already? Isn’t this supposed to not be a thing anymore? Haven’t I learned my lesson? Aren’t I supposed to be bulletproof this time around?”

If you’re feeling this, if you’re nodding along, please know that I see you. I don’t literally see you. I’m not watching you as you listen to this podcast. Because that would be super creepy. But I do understand where your heart is right now. I feel the frustration. I feel the overwhelm and the desperation, and maybe even a degree of the hopelessness that seeps in as we begin to understand that we are kind of on a Sisyphean journey.

If you think of Sisyphus, who every day is doomed to push a boulder up a mountain, only to have it roll down again, to be pushed up again the next day, I’m wondering what would it look like for things not to be like that? Or is it possible for things to not be like that? And what does it actually mean to get better, to better ourselves as writers?

And I think for a lot of us, we gain skills. We get better at our craft. We develop a better ear for dialogue, we read more, we watch more movies. We read more books. We into internalize what works. We internalize our voice. But despite all of that, it feels like the conditions continue to be impossible. So if you’re feeling this, if you’re with me here, I have some encouragement for you.

And that is that even though the conditions seem impossible, we can still do things that are impossible. We are wonderfully, beautifully and uniquely human, and human beings do things that are impossible every single day. Every single one of the books that’s on your shelf right now was born out of impossibility. Every single one of your favorite shows on Netflix, or Hulu, or whatever you use to watch TV, every single one of those was born out of impossibility.

Because the conditions aren’t just impossible for you, the conditions are impossible for everyone. And yet as a species, we continue to rise above those impossible circumstances. Now how do we do that? I think a lot of us want to think that it’s because we somehow become bulletproof. We somehow ascend. We somehow metamorphize, if that’s a word, into a creature or a being that isn’t bothered by the petty circumstances of life, who has maybe built some kind of system, a four hour work week, an atomic habit, an ability to perform deep work that makes us impervious to the stuff that gets everyone else around us down.

I’ve read enough non-fiction books, and I’ve seen enough talks, and attended enough webinars to know that society’s answer to becoming bulletproof is to develop the right system, develop the right habits, develop the right mindset. You do those things and you will become bulletproof. And I’ve tried these things and they seem to help, but the conditions keep being impossible. And as we adapt more and more systems and solutions in our journey to become better writers and creators, I think we begin to see the circumstances that we run into in life as faults in ourselves, as failings to perfectly adapt this system.

Because imperfections in life lead to imperfections in our ability to keep habits, or to write every day. Again, I don’t want to knock these systems because I think the elements of them are very helpful. But I also think that it’s human nature to see a system, point at it, and say, “Yes, that. That is the silver bullets that will fix everything. That. That is the system that will heal my life and to make me bulletproof.” But fortunately, or unfortunately, we’re human beings. We don’t come with Kevlar strapped around our bodies. We are in fact, soft, squishy bags of emotions and chemicals, and whatever else is in there. I’m not a doctor.

We’re not impervious. We’re not bulletproof. We weren’t made to stand apart from life. We were made to live life. And it’s not our job to overcome life, or to win at life. Like there’s never going to be a point where you can stand arms and legs akimbo and say, “Yes, have overcome every single bad thing that will ever happen to me.” That’s not realistic.

As artists, and writers, and creators our job isn’t to triumph over life. Our job isn’t to become bulletproof. Our task is simply to live and to explore what it means to live. Whether you’re writing poetry, a memoir, a novel, a science fiction audio drama, a play, a TV pilot, the beauty of your craft is that you get to explore, and share, and develop the human condition, not overcome it.

No person, no writer is immune to life. No person, no writer, no creator is bulletproof. Even the people who come up with the systems that say we can be bulletproof. They have good days and bad days, just like the rest of us. So what are we going to do when life happens? And that’s life with a capital L and perhaps a trademark symbol after it.

I know I’ve been talking for years about Stephen King’s wonderful book On Writing, which is really interesting to talk about in this context, because I think a lot of writers see Stephen King as bulletproof. But I think that Stephen King would tell you he is not bulletproof.

And in fact, he talks about his relationship with the difficulties of life, in the book On Writing, when he says, “Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.” I’m going to say that again. Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other around. And what he’s talking about here is using writing, using art, using our craft as a coping mechanism for surviving. Life has thrown a lot at Stephen King, if you know much about his story. From poverty, to drug problems, to getting hit by cars. And he explores these within his art, within this coping mechanism that he has set up because he can’t be bulletproof.

Honestly, I’m going to tell you, I get a lot of hope out of this thought. And it makes me think of Grace Paley’s wonderful quote that, “You might as well be who you are.” And that maybe instead of trying to fix ourselves to become bulletproof, to inure ourselves against life, maybe we can just move forward with it. Maybe the faults in the systems that we try to adopt aren’t faults within ourselves. Maybe there’s really nothing more we could have done to be more productive during a pandemic. Maybe we’re doing the best we can with where we are and what we have. And maybe life will never not get in the way.

But humans consistently do the impossible, humans just like you and me. We accept ourselves and our conditions as imperfect. And yet we do cool stuff anyway. We write the novel, maybe more slowly than we wanted to, maybe less coherently than we wanted to. But we do it. We start the podcast. We pitch the TV pilot. And we do these things not because we’re bulletproof. We do these things not because we’ve discovered a perfect system that takes all of the complications of life away from us. We do this because our art is a way that we cope.

We do this because we make friends with other writers and creators and artists who understand what it is to live in a world like ours, and to encourage us to keep going, to keep writing, to keep painting, to keep dancing, even when conditions are impossible. We continue moving forward because we become part of a larger community. We form networks and support groups with other writers and creators, people who get it.

And we learn to ask for help. And we learn to ask questions. And we learn to take care of ourselves. During my Wednesday night create a long live streams, I often joke that, “Hey, does everyone have a glass of water? I want everyone to take a sip of water with me right now, because if you don’t hydrate, you’ll die-drate.” And I’m not kidding, our bodies are vessels that carry us through life and we need to take care of our vessels.

We need to drink water. We need to get good sleep. We need to eat healthy-ish food. And as we move forward in life, we need to curate a sense of both curiosity, so that we never stop moving forward, we never stop trying to untangle the impossible, we never stop learning, and wanting to learn, and wanting to create. And also a sense of audacity.

I’ve been reading Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, which is a resource that’s not for everyone, but I have found it helpful lately. And she says that, and this is a quote, “Very often audacity, not talent, makes one person an artist and another a shadow artist, hiding in the shadows, afraid to step out and expose the dream to the light, fearful that it will disintegrate to the touch.”

Very often, it is audacity and not talent that helps us do the impossible, to put a book on the shelf, to publish your podcast, to get your TV show made, to finish your memoir, to write the next poem.

I want to reassure you today with the seemingly not reassuring thought that no human is bulletproof. No writer is bulletproof. And yet we do amazing things anyway. We do those things by using our art to cope, we lean on other people, other creators, other artists, other writers. We ask for help when we need it, we take good care of ourselves. We practice self care. We cultivate curiosity and audacity. We continue to live extremely impossible, but wonderful lives.

So out of all of this, I want you to remember, you’re not alone. If you are struggling right now with anything, with life, with illness, with anxiety, with depression, with imposter syndrome, with getting your kids to school on time, whatever it is, you’re not alone. And maybe to paraphrase the serenity prayer, our job is to do the best we can with what we have, where we are, and accept or make our peace with the things that we can’t change.

I think that is how we will move into and continue to do the impossible. And in doing so, realize it might not be so impossible after all. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts about this episode of the Write Now Podcast. And I would love for you to leave a comment on the show notes for today’s episode. So this is Episode 140, and you can find the show notes out at sarahwerner.com. That’s S-A-R-A-H W-E-R-N-E-R.com.

Once you’re there, navigate to the show notes for this app episode of the Write Now Podcast. Scroll down to the bottom of that page and there should be a comment box there where you can submit your response. I do read and respond to every single comment I receive through my website. So I would love to have a conversation with you there, about being bulletproof, about doing the impossible, about this wonderful, beautiful, paradoxical situation that we find ourselves in from the moment we’re born.

I’d also like to say thank you to all of the folks who are supporting me out on Patreon. Patreon is a secure third party donation platform that allows you to donate a dollar per episode, $2 per episode. Whatever you feel is within your budget and your ability to help keep this show going and to help keep it ad free. If you’re interested in becoming a patron, again, you can go to the show notes for today’s episode and click the button that says Help Support This Podcast. I would greatly appreciate your support.

Special thanks for making this episode, in particular, possible. Go out to Tamara K Selman, Amanda King, Christine Black, Laurie, Regina Calabrese, Amber Fratesi, Dennis Martin, E. K. Knight, Mark Bullock, Michael Beckwith, Mike Tefft, Sarah Banham, Summer, Tiffany Joyner, and Whitney McGruder. Thank you all so, so incredibly much for your ongoing financial support of this show. I could not do this without you. So thank you very much.

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So again, that’s all out at sarahwerner.com, S-A-R-A-H W-E-R-N-E-R.com. Just lots of free stuff out there, a lot of resources for writer, including links to my live create alongs, my Discord Mastermind, my Facebook groups, all of the things, all of the things.

Thank you for listening today. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being you. Thank you for continuously improving yourself as a writer, for continuing to give the best of yourself to the world. No one can do that but you, and I’m very grateful for it.

And with that, this has been Episode 140 of the Write Now Podcast, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring professional and otherwise, to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner, and I am not bulletproof, but I’m going to go ahead and do the impossible anyway.