Issue #78

Thinking Counts

In October of 2024, I was laid off from my job as a project manager in the financial services industry. For the past two years, everyone in my location (12,000 of us) walked on eggshells the Tuesday after payday, which became known as Terrible Tuesday. That was the day layoffs took place. I’d survived two rounds of layoffs but I knew my number was up soon – I figured January 2025. It came a little earlier than planned, but I got a decent severance package, PTO payout, and access to a national recruiting firm to help me find another opportunity, which is what a job is called when you don’t have one.

Since I finished my MFA program (mumble, mumble) years ago, I regularly complain that I can’t find the time to write (I could, though, if I looked hard enough). Last October, while being a little unsure of what the next few months would look like, I was sure of one thing: I had time to write! I would get up every morning and show up to the page! I have three essays that I could finish! Eight months later, I don’t have any of them finished and I don’t have a job/opportunity. I beat myself up about this, but rationalize that I am being useful in other ways – volunteering at an elementary school, the local food bank, and working on Mud Season Review, all of which have given me experiences to write about. Those essays aren’t finished, either. But at least they’re started, right?

It seems as though I subconsciously find reasons not to write, like going down the rabbit hole of research (my favorite place to be), watching documentaries, buying books and finding new places to stack them until I get to them which is likely to be a few years because I have three To Be Read (TBR) stacks that are taller than I am. The book I found recently, though, got the coveted spot on the top of TBR stack 1: Dear Writer, by Maggie Smith. It’s been enlightening. The concept that sticks with me the most so far and has helped me get past the guilt of not writing every day is this:

Commit to doing at least one thing in service of your writing every day. This one thing can be a small thing. …[scrawling] notes…revise an existing piece…do some background reading. Yes, reading counts. Thinking counts [my emphasis] (8).

Thinking counts! I feel like a cloud has been lifted because I’ve done all of those things, and I’ll bet that you have, too. I’ve been told several times by others that you’re not a writer if you’re not writing, and now I have my clapback! I’m thinking! I just can’t let thinking overtake getting words on a page, though.

Have you beat yourself up because you don’t follow the writing practice of someone who writes daily from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.? Or, do you discount the time you spend researching your subject and maybe getting a little off topic if you find something else to investigate? What are the ways that you’ve resisted writing? How do you break through that barrier? Let us know! Send an email to sguess@mudseasonreview.com and we’ll share some in our next issue, which happens to be our tenth anniversary!

While you’re thinking about that, check out the words and art in our issue 78. You’ll love what you find.

All the best, and thank you for reading.

Suzanne Guess, MFA