Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    College Advising
    Serving Higher Ed
    Chronicle Festival 2025
Sign In
Page Proof

Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Writers

It’s hard to avoid intertwining your work with notions of your value as a person

By Rachel Toor February 2, 2015
Careers- Young Writer
Prisoner 5413 / Creative Commons

Asked if he thought he had evolved as a writer, Patrick Modiano, the most recent Nobel laureate in literature said, “No, not really. The feeling of dissatisfaction with every book remains just as alive. I had a longtime recurring dream: I dreamt that I had nothing left to write, that I was liberated. I am not, alas. I am still trying to clear the same terrain, with the feeling that I’ll never get done.”

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

Asked if he thought he had evolved as a writer, Patrick Modiano, the most recent Nobel laureate in literature said, “No, not really. The feeling of dissatisfaction with every book remains just as alive. I had a longtime recurring dream: I dreamt that I had nothing left to write, that I was liberated. I am not, alas. I am still trying to clear the same terrain, with the feeling that I’ll never get done.”

George Orwell said, “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”

Hemingway was, as usual, more blunt: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

Poor Joan Didion: “There is always a point in the writing of a piece when I sit in a room literally papered with false starts and cannot put one word after another and imagine that I have suffered a small stroke, leaving me apparently undamaged but actually aphasic.”

And who (except Geoff Pullum and his grammarian friends) could argue with Dorothy Parker: “If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

More recently Amy Poehler, an actor, a comedian, and now a published author, has written, “The truth is, writing is this: hard and boring and occasionally great but usually not. … I have told people that writing this book has been like brushing dirt away from a fossil. What a load of shit. It has been like hacking away at a freezer with a screwdriver.”

I collect comments about writing the way other people curate home exhibits of cat figurines or have closets full of black chunky-soled shoes. When I find one of these bits from fellow sufferers I think: Thank you! It’s not just me! Friends, do you see what excellent company I keep?

Writing is hard. For most writers, the financial rewards are few. I know the best I can hope for—and I hope for this daily—is a nice email from a stranger letting me know that something I wrote helped. Or moved them. Or made them laugh.

In a way you’re more fortunate if you view writing as a necessary task required by your job, rather than as a major part of your identity. When your work is intertwined with notions of your value as a person, you’re pretty much screwed.

Not long ago a friend called with a long lament about how he was afraid he wasn’t a writer anymore. He had, he said, spent seven hours on one paragraph and it still wasn’t good enough. He thought he was going to have to become a bus driver or a janitor. (Those are your choices? I asked). He said he was a failure, a fraud.

ADVERTISEMENT

I took a deep breath and tried to say soothing things. But I thought, Shut the hell up. How tiresome it is to hear these jeremiads, especially from people who are, on the face of it, prospering. This friend has had a long career as a writer, and his latest recently published book had been a commercial and critical success. He had, really, no freaking right to complain.

And yet complain he did. For a while I was a good friend, listening with cuticle-picking patience and reminding him of his successes. Finally I’d had it, mostly because in that moment he reminded me so much of myself. When I realized he’d become a magnifying mirror of my own bad habits and irritating tics, I said to him: “Stop having so many feelings and just do the f-ing work.”

Then we both laughed really hard.

My friend told me my outburst helped him. He realized he needed to stop wasting time and emotional energy and live the old Nike slogan: Just do it. Our exchange made me wish at times my tactful friends had told me to stuff it when I went on and on (and on and on) about how hard my life was because I had to spend mornings working on a book.

ADVERTISEMENT

During the last World Cup, many Americans, even those like me who don’t give a hoot about soccer, learned about the practice of “flopping.” Was that guy really hurt? He looked hurt. When I learned it was a performance, I had a moment of recognition. Yes, he may have been hurt, but nowhere near as badly as he made it out to be. I began to see myself and many of my writer friends as floppers.

I’m most likely to flop when I meet people who say they love to write, or those who don’t see writing as anything more than a chore to be done after the real work has been accomplished—the “I just have to write up the results” kind of folks.

Surely there’s some middle ground here, between those of us who feel like we’re bleeding on the page and those of you who are quickly wiping down the kitchen counter after the meal has been prepared and eaten. On either end of the bell curve stretches a dangerous flat line where you care either too much or not enough and the work suffers, often by not getting done.

If you want to craft something that people will want to read, you’re going to have to work hard, and in ways that put callouses on your brain. You have to get used to the feeling of stuckness. You have to show up and do the work even when it feels stupid and meaningless. Sometimes it will take a whole day to write one paragraph. You must learn to sit quietly and listen to criticism, if you’re lucky enough to find someone willing to give it you. It’s excruciating to reread pages you’ve sweated over and realize you can’t use any of them. They may be fine—good, even—but they don’t belong in this book. Highlight and delete. And think about how much the whole process sucks.

ADVERTISEMENT

Though let’s be honest. No matter how awful it feels, it’s far from the pain of a real illness, or not being able to afford to get your car fixed, or having to teach five classes a semester at three different campuses. Yeah, writing is hard. But if it’s what you get to do for your job, it’s also a luxury.

When my students start to experience the inevitable thesis meltdown two months before the final result is due, when they think they won’t be able to do it, to produce anything worthwhile, that it’s too hard to finish, I tell them: This is what it’s like to be a writer.

Then I turn to my own work and find it lacking. I want to throw everything out. I tell my friends I’m not a writer, I can’t write. When things get really bad I’ll send an email to my editor detailing my plight and explain to him how much the book he’s been working with me on sucks. Because he knows me and because he’s an experienced editor, he’ll fire back a simple response: “Your demons are right on schedule.” I’ll think, Right. Stop having so many feeling and just do the f-ing work.

Yet I continue to collect quotes and quips from good and famous writers to remind myself my demons have a great pedigree. I try to keep them stashed away because I know they are also unsightly.

Rachel Toor is an associate professor of creative writing at Eastern Washington University’s writing program in Spokane. Her website is http://www.racheltoor.com. She welcomes comments and questions directed to careers@chronicle.com. Her first novel, On the Road to Find Out, was published last year by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and she is now working on a book about rats.

We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
Portrait of Rachel Toor
About the Author
Rachel Toor
Rachel Toor is a professor of creative writing at Eastern Washington University’s writing program, in Spokane, and a former acquisitions editor at Oxford University Press and Duke University Press. Her most recent book is Write Your Way: Crafting an Unforgettable College Admissions Essay, published by the University of Chicago Press. Her website is Racheltoor.com.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

More News

Vector illustration of large open scissors  with several workers in seats dangling by white lines
Iced Out
Duke Administrators Accused of Bypassing Shared-Governance Process in Offering Buyouts
Illustration showing money being funnelled into the top of a microscope.
'A New Era'
Higher-Ed Associations Pitch an Alternative to Trump’s Cap on Research Funding
Illustration showing classical columns of various heights, each turning into a stack of coins
Endowment funds
The Nation’s Wealthiest Small Colleges Just Won a Big Tax Exemption
WASHINGTON, DISTICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES - 2025/04/14: A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator holding a sign with Release Mahmud Khalil written on it, stands in front of the ICE building while joining in a protest. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators rally in front of the ICE building, demanding freedom for Mahmoud Khalil and all those targeted for speaking out against genocide in Palestine. Protesters demand an end to U.S. complicity and solidarity with the resistance in Gaza. (Photo by Probal Rashid/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Campus Activism
An Anonymous Group’s List of Purported Critics of Israel Helped Steer a U.S. Crackdown on Student Activists

From The Review

John T. Scopes as he stood before the judges stand and was sentenced, July 2025.
The Review | Essay
100 Years Ago, the Scopes Monkey Trial Discovered Academic Freedom
By John K. Wilson
Vector illustration of a suited man with a pair of scissors for a tie and an American flag button on his lapel.
The Review | Opinion
A Damaging Endowment Tax Crosses the Finish Line
By Phillip Levine
University of Virginia President Jim Ryan keeps his emotions in check during a news conference, Monday, Nov. 14, 2022 in Charlottesville. Va. Authorities say three people have been killed and two others were wounded in a shooting at the University of Virginia and a student is in custody. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
The Review | Opinion
Jim Ryan’s Resignation Is a Warning
By Robert Zaretsky

Upcoming Events

07-31-Turbulent-Workday_assets v2_Plain.png
Keeping Your Institution Moving Forward in Turbulent Times
Ascendium_Housing_Plain.png
What It Really Takes to Serve Students’ Basic Needs: Housing
Lead With Insight
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin