Something I’ve been having to do a lot lately is lean into my boundaries. I am busy, y’all. Life has not been gentle with me, and every time I turn around, something else is on fire. It’s been nuts. I think a lot of us are feeling this way, so I wanted to talk about it.
Whether you’re dealing with people infringing on your writing time, people trying to wring free things out of you, or whatever else you might be dealing with, boundaries are a vital part of protecting your ability to continue functioning.
Being a freelancer, boundaries are a massive part of ensuring I don’t end up out over my skis. For example, I don’t really negotiate on my rates because my editorial rates are what I absolutely need to continue doing the work I do. They are fair compensation for the time I put into a project and are what I need to earn to pay for both my business costs as well as allow me to do things like buy groceries.
However, I often have people attempt to convince me to work for less than my stated amount. In fact, it happens more often than it doesn’t because folks think they can haggle for it because they don’t understand the value of a good editor. It’s not malicious. Editing is expensive, and I know it. Unfortunately, living is also expensive, and in order to edit people’s books, I need to live. Pesky existence.
What are boundaries?
Contrary to a lot of the pop psychology out there, boundaries are not about what other people can and can’t do. They are, in fact, about what we can and cannot do. For example, a good boundary would be, “If you raise your voice at me more than I feel comfortable with, I will end the conversation until we calm down and can continue it.” That’s a healthy thing with a few specific, measurable details.
At their core, boundaries help us decide what we can and cannot tolerate and will and will not accept. Whether it’s refusing to answer work calls after you are off the clock or telling people to please give you an hour to write and not disturb you unless the house is on fire, these are direct, clear things we set up around ourselves to communicate our needs to others.
Boundaries can be hard or soft in the sense that hard boundaries are not negotiable (e.g. “If you call me names, I will not continue the conversation.”) and soft boundaries have a little more wiggle room (e.g. “I am going to be writing from 5 pm to 6 pm, but if my child comes in a 5:55 pm, I won’t be too upset.”)
What does this have to do with writing?
Our world spends a lot of time trying to push things on us. Constant “productivity,” for one. We are told we have to hustle all the time in order to be successful—something my friend Russell talked about a few weeks ago when he was on the podcast. We’re informed we need to always be writing, always be creating content, always be marketing, and always be doing in order to be “successful.” And if you aren’t doing those things, you are lazy or not motivated.
Just writing about it in that way tired me out. I’m just throwing that out there.
We are so frequently told that we have to hit specific daily word counts in order to be valid, people around us are constantly launching books (and sometimes giving us FOMO if we don’t have anything to launch), and marketing gurus pound the drum of needing us to constantly be producing in order to be worthwhile. Consistent posting three times a day on social media platforms (who has time for that?) and so on in order to grow your audience and platform. It’s never-ending.
That kind of mentality and experience sucks the life out of us as creatives and as human beings.
How do we fight back?
What kind of things can we do and not do in order to preserve our sanity and our joy? We got into writing because we love words and telling stories, so how do we keep that joy and protect it against the tide of constant pressure?
Fighting back against these endless pressures loops back around to boundaries.
My writing schedule is chaotic, but I have a few set things I do and use to keep myself sane. To explain a little of what I mean, I’ll share my own specific boundaries.
I write and record marketing content on Mondays, not all week
I stay out of my work email after my work PC is off unless I have a specific emergency
I give myself time to consume media as part of my planned downtime
I don’t have any word count goals for writing sessions; I write as much or as little as makes sense to me.
I have many non-monetized hobbies and fun writing projects where I don’t expect a ton out of myself (I write fanfic, for example)
These are a few boundaries I have set for myself that I hold to. And yes, I have a separate PC for my work. It’s an inexpensive, small PC on a dedicated desk in an office. Other than the occasional check of my email if I am expecting something or need to communicate with somebody, I do not do work things on anything but my work PC. My gaming desktop is for fun time or art only. The only exception to that is if I need to do any significant video editing because my work PC is not powerful enough for that. Alas!
Creating these boundaries and developing these fenced-in spaces for myself allows me to genuinely rest when I’m not working. Having a day of the week that is entirely devoted to administrative tasks saves me from having to worry about them the rest of the week and gives me freedom to really focus on whatever writing and editing projects I have cooking. Not checking my work email obsessively after I get out of work (around 5pm most weekdays) means I can actually enjoy my life rather than constantly be working. Having hobbies that have no income expectation allows me to enjoy things and even be bad at them with no guilt.
Constructing your boundaries
There are a ton of ways you can identify and create boundaries for yourself, and most of them will be too personal for any advice I have to be useful. Your individual life and needs are unique to you, and while I have (and will share) some general guidance, make sure you understand that you are the captain of your own ship in this regard. Whatever I say here may not work for you, and that’s just fine. Take whatever does work, or any ideas these things spark, and run with them.
Creating boundaries for yourself requires a few very specific things. The first of which is identifying your needs in the first place. Spend some time figuring out what it is you really need in order to balance your life with your work. This might mean a very tight schedule that has a clear cutoff, after which you do not work. For others, you might have disabilities that mean you need to take days off (as I frequently must due to my various issues). It may mean learning to say “no” to things here and there and balancing what is necessary with what is possible.
Secondly, when looking at boundaries, we have to think about what is reasonable. For example, I don’t check my work email after I get out of work. However, if I have a client I know is only available at times when I am not usually around (time zones are a joy), then I might need to be somewhat flexible about when we set meetings. It’s very reasonable to set meetings when I’m free, but some degree of grace has to be extended for situations where our needs are not the only ones in the picture.
The final piece of this puzzle is knowing when a boundary we have set isn’t actually working for us. It’s okay to try something and discover it doesn’t work. Life sometimes has other ideas about what is reasonable to expect, and we will learn we have no say over that. If you haven’t learned it yet, I will tell you that at forty, I’ve come to realize life often doesn’t care about my plans.
Also, I have learned that sometimes what I think my needs are sometimes aren’t. For example, I sometimes identify that I need a nap and later learn what I really needed was to eat lunch. The nap wasn’t wrong, but eating lunch was the real core of that exhaustion I was feeling. You may have times where you think your need is one thing, but… surprise! It’s something else. In those cases, we have to be ready and willing to readjust our thinking to accommodate our actual need.
The crux of the matter is…
…you are a human and need time to breathe. Creatives are not machines. In order to have a longer term career than just a few years. There is a ton of pressure in our world to be “productive” all the time and to keep grinding and grinding and grinding, but the reality is that we can’t. Regardless of what our current model of capitalism thinks, we cannot continue grinding forever and still be functional.
Furthermore, if you don’t take time to actually live some, you won’t have anything to write about. Writing often comes from experiences we have, and time to rest, live, and consume other media is an absolute requirement for our ability to continue creating. Artists need to see things they want to paint. Writers need to encounter things that spark an idea in them. Musicians need to hear music.
Creating these boundaries around yourself will help you preserve your sanity as well as allow you to have a career rather than just be someone who writes a few books and then burns out so hard they never bother again. I’ve seen that happen more than I wish it did, too. Particularly to those who do the whole “rapid release” strategy long-term. It tends to thrust them into creative burnout so hard they stop writing altogether—sometimes for years or even permanently.
Thanks for joining me on AUTHORiTEA, where we spill the tea on the publishing industry with heart, humor, and hard-earned insight. If you found today’s episode helpful, share it with a fellow writer, leave a review, or tag me on socials—I’d love to hear what resonated.
Your voice matters, your story counts, and if you’re still wearing pants at this point in the writing process—congratulations, you’re ahead of the curve. I’ll see you next week.
