You'll never believe this
Taking a month off
I’ve been thinking a lot about the marketing email vs the essay. The personal essay vs the promotional missive. The email subject line that says You’ll never believe this …. just so you open the email. I’ve been thinking a lot about days off, weeks off, hours off, time off. How do you save and vision and plan for a social media detox, a newsletter hiatus, or an overall pause in teaching? How does an artist take time off and how is time off different than a retreat or a residency? Taking time off from one thing doesn’t mean we have to take time off from everything. What you’ll never believe from this workaholic is : I am planning to take a month off.
My job is to be a writer, my devotional practice is to be a writer, my longing is to be a writer. Yet there are so many hidden factors to the trade. Be really good at making up a subject line, make sure the tagline is also catchy but very clear, think of things to write about, don’t be too specific, don’t be too vague, tell them just enough, give them a deal, don’t give too many deals, write from the heart, not too close to the heart though.
Send the email, promote the email, respond to the emails, let them comment, respond to the comments, don’t respond to all the comments because then you won’t have time to write. Let the people into your process but don’t let them too far in because they are strangers. Some of them are your students though so they aren’t complete strangers in fact they have become peers and readers and sacred parts of the ecosystem of care and business. The art of boundaries in parasocial relationships has its own system of fine tuning.
The job title of writer isn’t so simple. It includes teacher, facilitator, program chair, creative consultant. It includes promotional director, advertiser, communications manager, HR person, and whatever it is called when you are in charge of making the schedule. The scheduler. The planner. The google calendar wizard. Thank you to god for making Virgo season and giving me my Virgo rising placement so that I somehow excel at many of these jobs in a seamless way.
Yet as vibrant as these many moving parts are it can also be so exhausting. I have visioned taking time off for so long, but in my whole career I don’t know if I can say I have ever even fully taken a week off. No emails, no newsletter, no social media, no teaching, no 1:1, no writing. A full amount of time where all of the job titles fall to the wayside and I am just myself. The privacy of my experience, not being a person of the internet variety, and wholly dedicated to learning and noticing without reporting back.
I of course think of the irony, or perhaps the spiritual path, of writing a book like How to Not Always Be Working, and my relationship to work. My obsession with productivity. Yes it’s true even when I’m not working I feel like I should be working. This is one of my greatest hauntings, even in rest I am filled with shoulds. The idea that labor should be hard, not enjoyable, working should be filled with discomfort. So I make myself uncomfortable even in the down time.
I have set out to do something I have never done before : Take a whole month off of public facing work. I will be taking the month of October to solely focus on school and wrapping up final edits of my prayer book
and working on another book that I am looking forward to sharing more details with you soon. So while it isn’t complete time off, I will be focusing only on the job of writer in private and being a student amongst my peers.This means no newsletter, no Landscapes, no social media, no teaching, no classes, no zooms, no creative advising. I will say in part this is possible because of the student loans I am taking out for school to cover my mortgage, and making the decision to not pause payments during this time off. I want to be an example but I also don’t want to be a financial mystery as to how it is possible.
I was inspired by
paid time off after having a kid, paid time off while hiking, and many others who have showed examples of models of writing and business where we don’t have to take a pay cut just because we are self employed.I am curious to see what happens. Anyone can end their own paid subscription to my newsletter or subscription to Landscapes. Before I leave at the end of September I will give a full financial report of where things are for paid subscribers and when I return I will report back as to how they plummeted, stayed the same, or grew.
This is terrifying. Or maybe it isn’t because I am so tired of being addicted to productivity that it feels like a huge relief. I am willing to risk this lowering of income for the possibility of coming back to myself. Of trying on one hat at a time. Of nurturing my craft and letting the influence of other people fade away for some time.
Years ago I made the jump from Patreon to Substack as a platform shift and at first it was a huge pay cut, in the many thousands a year. I knew I would have to increase my teaching to close the gap, and eventually my newsletter started making more than my Patreon did. I trusted the leap, the net caught me. I am trusting that the web I have woven will hold me close and not let me slip through the cracks.
Experiments in business! Experiments in art making! I am in the sweet in between place where I feel like I have no fucking clue what I am doing and like I know exactly what to do.
Today is the first day of my MFA in Creative Writing program at Naropa and I feel excited about all of the possibility, nervous about the amount of reading, tender toward the questions I have for professors trying to make sure I understand due dates and how the pacing of discussions goes. I got a nice dopamine hit getting to order books and bought a new printer to print out my readings because I simply do not like to read on my computer.
While I subscribe to and support many newsletters I do not read that many to be honest. Reading on the computer makes my eyes hurt, I get easily distracted, and I don’t like taking notes in a digital way. I also find that the more similar writing to my own that I consume the less my creative output is.
I like to scribble in the margins, highlight my favorite parts, and scan with my pen because I have to reread sentences twice to truly comprehend them.
My office is covered in sticky notes, journals for different subjects and task lists, file folders with readings, and binders with folders of this week’s assignments. I already see how my school organizing and research is helping me refine the process for my work.
Thank you for being a reader, paid or free. It means the world to reach your inbox every week and share my findings. Like a grown up Harriet the Spy I take a look at what grows under the tree of spirit and inquiry. It delights me to have you reading along.
SEEDS OF HOPE : This beautiful print from Issue Press + Kim Nguyen
A fundraising edition to support families in Palestine. All proceeds from the sale of this print will be donated to organizations providing on-the-ground assistance to the victims of this ongoing genocide, beginning with the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund
Current Mood
Listening : Writing music
Reading : Wool Gathering by
Reading :
new book Becoming Little Shell : A Landless Indian’s Journey HomeToday was the first of five mornings writing in Landscapes at 5:30am EST - would love to have you in this sweet time while the sun rises.
While I am preparing to teach Echoes of Self : Collecting research for personal essays and non fiction projects on Sun Sept 8 I absolutely loved reading
newsletter this morning about naming and organizing files on the computerMy beautiful friend Samantha Cooper and reader Andrea Grabowski are part of organizing many efforts of water protection here in Michigan. This work is vital and important for protecting it from aging pipelines and they have a fundraiser happening now as well as programming in Petoskey this coming weekend!
Check out the fundraiser to Shut Down Line 5
And follow here for more info on events and ways to get involved. You can also email them directly at greatlakescreatives@proton.meAll of my classes are 50% off for the rest of the day only! Use code SALE50 at checkout. Writing the Personal, The People’s Research, Newsletter Class, Cultivating Creative Attention, and so much more
I ordered A Radical Alteration: Women’s Studio Workshop As A Sustainable Model For Art Making by curator Maymanah Farhat
info@codycookparrott.com
PO Box 252 Cedar, MI 49621
Landscapes : A writing group for all genres (Members get 10% off of Echoes of Self and the recording of the workshop with is now available)
Wishing you a beautiful, magical, spacious October full of the best kind of focus, Cody!
thank you so much for sharing our water protector work💙 and for transparency in how you are giving yourself what you need, i hope october will be nourishing!