On sitting with yourself...

...in order to figure stuff out

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I work now, compared to how I used to work. I’ve written before about my fatal flaw of impatience and how it has been the driving force in my life, but when I look at that from a professional angle with the benefit of hindsight, it becomes very interesting indeed.

My first break in to magazines came out of impatience. I was facing in to my final year in Trinity, my fifth due to an unfortunate late realisation that my initial CAO-offered course was not for me. I knew my final year would be extremely light - 4-6 hours of lectures and tutorials a week.

I was antsy at the tender age of 22, desperate to be done with college and out in the world working. I have always been strange like that, absolutely mad for the next thing - the day I started Junior Infants, I asked the teacher when we’d be learning to read and write properly, and when we’d have homework. She still remembers that! See, a little weirdo.

Anyway, those crappy hours in college weren’t going to satisfy me. I didn’t love my university experience; I was living at home in Tallaght throughout, commuting on the brand spanking new LUAS and I never really forged a core group of friends that saw me through it all. Great people came and went, but it wasn’t like you see in the movies - not for me, anyway.

So I started applying for jobs. I wanted money, sure, but what I really wanted was a foot in the door. My impatience would turn out to be fortuitous, because the recession hit soon after and I doubt I’d have been offered a paid position in any media house then.

I sent an email to the editor of KISS Magazine, Susan Vasquez, and enclosed samples of the column I’d been writing for the Trinity News. It was called Sex and the Students (LOL) even though I knew precious little about what the student body was doing with their bodies, being an accidental serial monogamist myself. My email was earnest and eager, and it clearly struck a chord because I was invited for an interview.

This was 2008. The Hills was the hottest show on television, and everyone wanted to intern at Teen Vogue like LC and Whitney. I was working part time in telesales for Cuisine De France, selling bread and frozen pain au chocs, so heading in to the magazine’s offices off Baggot St was incredibly exciting. I remember exactly what I wore, and that I had a big pimple on my chin. I left that interview on cloud nine. Finally, I was being taken seriously. Finally, people saw my potential.

Long story short, I was offered the job. In the end, I actually had to choose between a paid internship at Google or a paid let’s-see-what-happens position at KISS. I delightedly accepted the latter, and often wonder how my life might have turned out if I went the other way.

Suddenly, I was a salaried employee. Not only that, I was writing for a living which was a dream come true. It was agreed that I’d definitely work the summer there and figure things out when it was time to go back to college. Right away, I was thrown in to it - interviewing celebrities, writing features about virginity, periods, friendship drama. I remember being SO HAPPY, so absolutely thrilled that this was my life. I moved out of home and in with my then-boyfriend. I was an adult, a grown up. It was all I’d ever wanted.

I also briefly replaced Bryan McFadden in Westlife

From then on, I didn’t stop. I was kept on, attending lectures when necessary and in the office the rest of the time. I wrote my thesis at my desk (on the surrogate mother figure in the maternal melodrama, if you’re interested) and I said yes to everything. I graduated with a 2.1 BA Hons in Film Studies and English Literature, but I was already a working woman of the world.

A couple of years in, I became deputy editor of the mag. A couple of years after that, I decided to spread my wings and go freelance. Before long, I ended up at a national newspaper, entirely out of my depth but still saying yes to everything. That’s how I found myself editing not one, but two weekly magazines at the tender age of 27. It was around that time that burnout started creeping in to my life, but I still couldn’t stop. I was a prodigy! I was so lucky! People would kill for my job!

Eventually I went freelance again, but that made me work even harder. In my mind, I simply HAD to be the very best at it. My life was a whirl of pitches and commissions and invoices and anxiety, but I was determined to succeed, to make enough money, to prove myself. And then in 2017 I went back to my old KISS stomping ground, this time as editor-in-chief of STELLAR. I looked upon that as a bit of a rest, because there I had a team, a salary once again. In my mind, I thought I was slowing down. I was in my shite.

In that role, I took it wholly upon myself to revitalise a struggling industry. I was going to save print media! What a gobshite. When that didn’t work, I was going to diversify. Podcasts, events, supplements, anything to just take on more and more so I was never bored, never had room to wonder what else was out there.

But eventually, through the crack in the veneer that was the pandemic, I had time to wonder. I had time to do very little. I was forced to slow down. And that changed my life. It gave me the space and perspective to see things as they were. To really accept that I had been on a treadmill since I was 22 years old, one I was terrified to get off. I did a lot of thinking, a lot of work on my ego and over-identification with my professional life. Could I live without the perks, the reputation of a successful editor? I found then that I could.

Today I read this quote from Oprah, who turned 70 this year. She was asked about her regrets, and she said this:

“I would not have taken on the responsibility of trying to build a network [OWN] while still ending the [Oprah] show. That is my one regret. I should have handled all of that differently, I think. I should have completed one thing, taken a year to do nothing, and then decided what was the next thing for me to do… I would have done the thing that I tell everybody else to do: ‘When you don’t know what to do, do nothing. Get still with yourself and do nothing.”

Now, Oprah is obviously coming from a place of enormous privilege. I am too, except my gaf in Stoneybatter is a little bit smaller than hers in Montecito (only a little bit, mind). Yet the advice is still sound. You don’t have to know what is next to make a leap. You might have to go backwards before you move forwards again. You might keep going sideways. But you don’t have to have it all figured out. You have to get comfortable with giving yourself space and time, whatever that means for you. I’m not advocating leaving your job with nothing figured out, but I am advocating not feeling like everything has to be 100% aligned before you make a change of some sort.

As someone who loves lying down and switching off, I thought I could be comfortable with doing nothing. But nope, it’s extremely difficult for me actually. Because no matter what I’m doing physically, I’m always thinking and planning. Always jotting notes, brainstorming ideas. Somebody saying I’m a dosser is the worst insult I can imagine. Breaking that habit has been the hardest part. Sitting with myself and forcing myself to just turn off my overactive brain is HARD and can even be painful. But always being on will drain your battery more than anything else, until it is stone dead.

Books aside*, I have taken my time in figuring out what else I’m going to do with my life. I’ve tried on a lot of different hats over the last eighteen-plus months, and I’ve finally landed on something that feels right. It takes in so many of my favourite things, and all the best parts of my career so far. It’s something I get to share with you all really soon, and hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

*This sounds odd - writing fiction is my truest love. But it does not yet make me millions, sadly. You don’t write a debut novel and suddenly find yourself rolling in it, nor does it take up all your time. It’s a long process with lulls and waiting. So this new project will plug those gaps, while also feeding the beast that is my unending proclivity for productivity.

Thank you all for reading my Substack. I’ve found it works best if I write when inspired, rather than holding myself to a schedule. See, progress!!!! This time last year, if I didn’t send you all something every Tuesday, I’d see it as slacking off. Personal growth, y’all. Personal growth.

My debut novel REALITY CHECK is available in shops, online, on Kindle, Audible, Spotify and in your local library. It is the current pick of the month for the An Post Book Club, where you can get 10% off a paper copy in certain retailers, see www.anpost.com/bookclub for info