Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

By Brendan O’Meara

You know what this is. You have a pile of books you want to read. And the pile keeps growing.

The only way to pay off the debt is read through the pile, but the pile keeps growing.

Your unread to read ratio far exceeds your capacity to keep up.

The pile starts to stress you out.

You start reading only to get through books, not because you enjoy them.

Interest keeps growing. The pile gets bigger.

You must stop going into debt. You must pay down the principle.

Stop going to the library. Stop buying books.

There is book debt forgiveness. You can hold that book that’s been in the pile for ages and ask yourself the hard question: Will I read this? If not, either donate it, return it, or shelve it.

Do yourself a favor and read down your book debt.

By Brendan O’Meara

We are always aspiring, no matter our degree of mastery.

Few things grind my gears more than hearing people say they are an “aspiring” fill in the blank. Especially in Twitter bios.

Aspiring is a way for you to cop out when your work stinks. Well, I’m just aspiring, I haven’t made it yet.

None of us ever “make it.” We are all aspiring.

Strike that word from your bio and own what you are. You aren’t an aspiring writer; you’re a writer. You’re not an aspiring stand-up comedian; you’re a stand-up comedian.

Using a word like aspiring makes you look like the amateur you’re trying to avoid.

By Brendan O’Meara

The problem with hack culture is that many people seek the short cut before they’ve even taken a step on the longer path.

People are seeking the hack before they’ve muddled through the brush.

You earn smart work by working hard through endless drafts and frustrating hours in the workspace.

And you can never know what smart work is unless you’ve put in the time and realized, oh, yes, this makes way more sense. But until you’ve put in enough repetitions, you can’t make that discernment.

And even when you’ve earned smart work, you might find the longer path is more scenic and takes you places you might not otherwise have gone.

But, please, for your own sake, quit looking for the smart way until and unless you’ve put in the long, hard work to know the difference.

By Brendan O’Meara

The people we admire are rarely farther away than a tweet or an email.

My suggestion is to find a way to thank this person with no expectation for anything in return (I mean, didn’t they create the art the inspires you? Isn’t that enough?).

If you can track down a mailing address (footer to a newsletter), write a thank you note.

If you can’t do that, send an email thanking them for the work.

If you can’t find an email, write a physical note, take a picture of it, and tweet it out or post to Instagram tagging them. Again, don’t do this for any reply, but do it from a place of genuine gratitude.

That sort of energy will ripple out. It’ll feel good. You’ll do better work. Then maybe someone, some time in the future, might send you a note thanking you for doing what you do.

By Brendan O’Meara

Whatever the craft, all drafts are rough, some are just rougher than others.

The people who succeed, or the people who are able to keep playing the game, are the ones who can endure all the bad work to get to the good work.

When you realize this, it’s incredibly liberating. The more bad work, the more bad track you lay down, the greater the likelihood that something good will stick.

Art is a numbers game. There are nine bad, unpublished novels behind the author’s brilliant “debut.”

But she had the courage to write badly. Remember, all drafts are rough.