Elissa Stein is an author, graphic designer, and mother in New York City. Her recent book, Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation, with Susan Kim, is now on sale. Some of Elissa’s other works include: City Walks With Kids: New York, Prom Night: The Best Night of Your Life!, and Cheerleader: Ready? Okay! In addition, she blogs for Hufiington Post, BlogHer, and Bust while maintaining her own blog, Spiritual Pedicures.
Last fall, before my latest book was published, someone asked what my writing practice was. I didn’t have an answer. Because, I didn’t have a writing practice. FLOW (as in FLOW: the Cultural Story of Menstruation) was my 11th book but even after all that I never thought of myself as a writer. I was great at ideas, at putting proposals together, at designing pitches—graphic design is my day job—that get people to pay attention, but writing was the hard part for me. I’d never taken a writing class, never kept a journal, never felt there was a story in me that needed to be told. I thought in ideas, images, concepts, not words. I’d save the writing for last on every project and would struggle through every word.
But, with the biggest book I’d ever worked on coming out, something had to change.
In a yoga class last October, the teacher talked about sadhana, making a 40 day commitment to something, the thought being that after those 40 days what had once been a struggle would became part of your routine. And so, I committed to blogging for 40 days. I figured this would be a way to writing regularly, hone my skills, discover my voice.
It was harder than I imagined. Every morning I’d wake up early so I’d have a chance to get ideas down before everyone else woke up. And every morning I’d have nothing. NOTHING. No ideas popping into my head. No brainstorms. No lightbulbs. I’d angst, stress, suffer trying to figure out what to write about. While I posted every day, I’d agonize every word, every thought, for hours.
I was determined though to stick with it. And, much to my surprise—shock really—it started getting easier. I’d wake up with an idea in my head, a title that inspired a direction, or I’d go through something I needed to process and writing it out was helped. It also helped knowing that no one was actually reading anything I’d written.
But, the more comfortable I felt writing, the more I shared my posts with the outside world. At first I’d nervously email a link to people I thought might appreciate what I’d written about. And, then I went bigger. I posted links on facebook, on twitter. I started hyping myself, building my brand, hawking my ideas. A friend in PR said all this was necessary as a writer and I took his advice to heart.
Turns out this was almost harder for me than writing. I’ve always been a behind-the-scenes person and here I was opening much of my life to anyone who cared to go along for the ride. But, as time passed, both people I know well and those I’ve never met have been reading, commenting, sharing, judging. I've been called a hero, inspirational, over-the-top whiny and undeserving. While I started writing to establish a personal writing practice, it's turned into far more than that.
Besides blogging every single day, I write for Huffington Post, for bust.com. I’ve started posting at Seventh Generation and am about to share my journey at blogher. I’ve got a website, a facebook fanpage, thousands of twitter followers. Both my personal and professional lives are tightly tied to social media these days.
I’ve often wondered why people take time to read my words. In the end, I think people read because what I write about is what we all go through to a certain extent. Feelings are feelings and knowing other people understand what you're going through helps. I write about struggle, pain, frustration. About being a parent. Being a woman who's getting older and dealing with more changes than I want to. About my body and how hard it is to accept what it is, who I am sometimes. About the overwhelming juggle life can be when you have so many roles to fill. I write about moments of pure joy, pride, excitement. Others of panic, shame, fear. Of over-the-top experiences I've been lucky enough to live through. About others that are so quiet and small they could easily be overlooked, but resonate nonetheless.
A regular writing practice has changed me. Getting words down, organizing thoughts, putting structure to feelings helps me cope.
That others have found me is the icing.
Taking time for myself is the cake.
