Ask Tina Returns: Your Writing Questions Answered
Drawing from her two decades of teaching experience and consulting with other writers and educators, Tina Goodyear provides comprehensive, actionable advice that goes beyond quick fixes to help you develop sustainable strategies for your creative work.
Have a writing dilemma you’d like Tina to address? Send your questions to asktina@projectwritenow.org. Selected questions will be featured in upcoming columns, and Tina will ensure her answers offer valuable insights for writers facing similar challenges.
Dear Tina,
Last year, I offered to help a friend write short stories. Since he is visually impaired, I agreed to transcribe audio files of his stories. While transcribing, I find myself making edits and suggestions for revision, but he does not always welcome my feedback. In short, what started out as a fun project has quickly spiraled into a time consuming obligation. I don’t know what to do. Being of service to others is important to me, but I think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. I have even started to avoid seeing my friend, and I have been neglecting my own writing because I have been devoting so much time to his project. What should I do, Tina? Please help!
Signed,
Overwhelmed
Dear Overwhelmed,
Your problem is an age-old one. It goes beyond writing, of course. It is a messy morass of wanting to help, wanting to do it all, and not wanting to be disagreeable. What happens, of course, is the opposite of what you set out to do: you likely feel resentment, a recipe for disaster for your friendship and your own writing journey.
On the surface, it may seem like a writing time management problem. However, instead of pretending there is some easy solution to your time dilemma, I will borrow the philosophy of Oliver Burkeman in Four Thousand Weeks and conclude that all the time management techniques, fancy date books, and colorful sticky notes in the world won’t solve this problem. You can’t, in fact, do it all. It is best to reframe the question in terms of “What can I reasonably expect to do on any given day?” As the author reminds us in his follow-up book, Meditations for Mortals, you are, after all, only human.
Still, I’ve heard it said the way to get better at anything is to teach it to someone else, and it is only natural that you want to share your passion and talents with others. However, it is also possible that you might be using your friend’s project as a way to avoid your own writing. Surely, Stephen Pressfield, author of The War of Art, would lump this problem under resistance. I had to admit to this self-destructive tactic myself. I have spent two decades teaching others to write and revising and editing for students and friends, and guess what? I haven’t focused on my own writing. It is great to share a gift as long as you don’t abandon that gift in the process.
I also want to address the claim that you don’t know what to do. Of course you do! I recall saying a similar phrase to a therapist once about some long-forgotten problem I was having at the time. She looked bewildered and feverishly opened and closed her desk drawers as if looking for an answer, then asked: “Did you think I’d know?” Trust your instincts, Overwhelmed, and do what you know you must do.
Finally, I did a search to see if some famous writers might weigh in on this problem, but I was met only with some lovely, albeit trite, quotes about lifting others up. I do recall Ann Patchett, in These Precious Days, lamenting the growing pile of books authors and agents sent to her, hoping for her official endorsement. The struggle is real. Even when we want to be of service, we have finite resources.
Maybe help is best delivered and received when it is given freely yet with structure. Just because you chose to help your friend without clear boundaries at first doesn’t mean you can’t make a boundary or two now. Maybe setting a time limit on the project will inadvertently help get him to the finish line and encourage his self-efficacy. I would argue that you may be doing more to lift your friend up if you can be clear about what it is you are willing and able to do for him. Service to others, just like a languishing writing project, may benefit from a clear stop date.
Please send your writing-related questions to asktina@projectwritenow.com.