Pressing Pause
An update on book writing and why I'm hitting pause on Love Story for two months.
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Last week, I emailed my agent requesting a 12-month extension on the book I’m currently writing. At first, I felt the glorious uprush of relief that comes from an extended deadline or canceled plans. More time! Less pressure! Spaciousness! But in the days since, I’ve felt increasingly depressed and anxious.
This book, a memoir about romantic relationships, is part of a two-book deal with Push Off from Here (which came out in March 2023). The original due date for the manuscript was January 2024. By late 2023, when all I’d completed was an arrangement of notecards on the wall mapping out the book timeline, I asked for an extension to May 2024.
Then, my relationship/engagement ended in February 2024 and I knew that the May deadline was a hahaha HAHAHA. My agent and editor were/are wonderfully gracious and told me not to worry, to keep going, that we could adjust. I got another extension to September.
But I found myself so incapacitated by grief (and perimenopause) that I could barely work last year. Month after month, I kept expecting it to get easier, and it kept…not being easier. I did the minimum to keep the lights on, but had zero capacity for the kind of focus and intensity that writing a book requires. I could barely stay out of my bed for more than three hours.
Mid-summer, I requested another extension to March 2025.
Late last year, I signaled to my agent that I probably-definitely wasn’t meeting that March deadline, and she told me to keep going; my editor is on maternity leave, so we couldn’t address the contract until she was back anyway.
In January, I buckled down and even booked a three-day stay in a hotel to focus only on the book. I was decently productive while there but found that as soon as I got home, I desperately wanted out of “the writing room.” I wanted to return the book to the Thinking About It shelf and focus on less taxing tasks (literally anything else). So I did that for about two weeks, each day promising myself I’d return to the book in a couple of days after I caught my breath, and then each day, found I was not returning to the book.
So, a few weeks ago, I created a pretty hard-core writing schedule for myself, and stuck to it for two whole weeks. It felt like going from sitting on the couch for a year to running a marathon. My brain hurt. I wasn’t sleeping enough. Anything that pulled at my attention irritated the shit out of me: texts from friends, emails about retreats I’m teaching, the stream of WhatsApp messages from the TLC team, my teen daughter and her many, many needs. Even going to the gym felt strained because I was now carrying around the organism of my book in my head.
This is how it is, though—at least for me, at least so far as I can tell after writing two books. When I’m in “the writing room,” meaning I’m actively working on a book, the project of that book is ever-present. Even when it recedes to the background, like if I’m at dinner with friends or one of Alma’s soccer games, it’s still there, pulling at my resources. I’m always consciously or subconsciously trying to solve some problem: the perfect phrasing to describe a feeling, the correct framework to set up an argument, the way one idea connects to another, the best way into a story, and so on. It’s a little like having a persistent ringing in my ear.
I remember hearing Elizabeth Gilbert say, or maybe she wrote it in Big Magic, that she’d decided at some point to let her writing be joyful and easy. And I remember hearing that or reading that and thinking, Oh! I’m going to do the same! I’m going to make this fun! But I have not been able to come anywhere close to that yet. Writing is not fun for me. It is hard, 98 percent of the time. Book writing especially, but even this kind of writing. I love it and find catharsis in it only in retrospect. While I’m doing it I find it incredibly unpleasant.
One strategy for getting the ringing to stop is to leave the room. Put pause on the book. Ask for another extension, like I did. This works, and it’s necessary—sometimes, like last year, we really do need more time—until it doesn’t, and it isn’t.
The other way to get it to stop is to write the book. To stay in the room until it’s done.
And this is where I am. I had a come to Jesus moment with myself last night as I was trying to make my first focaccia bread: it’s time. I can’t kick the can down the road any longer. I have to get back in the room and stay there. I have to work within the confines of the life and limitations and I have today, not some imaginary one where I’m somehow less busy or more energetic or whatever in the future. I don’t need another year; I need to write.
So I sent my agent another email, told her about the come to Jesus, and when we got on the phone this morning the first thing she said was, “Laura, thank God. I’ve been waiting for that email from you.”
We discussed my various work streams and what is moveable, tweakable, delegatable, etc. to create more space for the book. Here’s where I landed.
Pressing pause for two months
I’ve been writing here more or less weekly since October 2022. It’s been a total gift and I like it so much more than I ever thought I would. And, it pulls from the same muscles I need to write this book. I’ve been trying, but I can’t get the momentum I need on the book and show up here at the same time. I need a real breather.
That said, I’ve paused all subscription payments until April 28. I wish I wasn’t nervous about doing this, but I am. I know it’s the right decision in the long-run, though. I have to get this book off the ground. I want to! I hope everyone sticks around and it’s also okay if you don’t.
I will still be leading my regular Tuesday morning 8 am ET meeting at The Luckiest Club and will be on Instagram here and there, though not much.
Thank you, as always, for being here. Thanks for going along with me. I’ll see you again very soon.
xo
Laura
In Case You Missed It
Seeing What I Find - Reflections on heartbreak, one year later.
Maybe your friends are the love of your life - Rethinking romantic love.
Attractions of Deprivation - Pulling the thread on my pattern of attracting unavailable men.
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You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life and Push Off from Here: 9 Essential Truths to Get You Through Sobriety (and Everything Else).
See you in two months! I'm so glad to hear you're doing this, and you've got this!
Your humanness is what makes you such a wonderful teacher. You walk the walk. Thank you and we’ll still be here when you’re back :)