Like Being a Good-Enough Mother, Being a Good-Enough Writer Is Enough
I love and care for my child unconditionally. Maybe I can do that for my writing too.
If you can be anything other than a writer, be that. If you can’t do anything else, write.
I’m a writer because I have to be. I’ve always known I would be a writer. If I don’t write every day, I go crazyWriting is like breathing, or like air. Write every day You’re a writer if you write.
If you can do anything else, do it.
[title of show]
enough
When you have so much less time, you’re suddenly motivated to use the time you have better.
How can I tell myself “I’m doing my best” if I can see all the ways I could be doing better?
Whatever you’re doing now is the best you can, with the resources and skills you have available. You can build your skills, change your resources. Situations change. Your best tomorrow may be different.
Jaime Green is a full-time freelance writer and editor. She received her MFA in Nonfiction from Columbia, and she has taught writing at Columbia, The New School, and the Sackett Street Writers' Workshop. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, BuzzFeed, The Cut, GQ.com, Popular Science, Backstage, American Theatre online, and elsewhere. She is associate editor at Future Tense and series editor for Best American Science and Nature Writing. Her book, The Possibility of Life, will be published in 2023 by Hanover Square Press.
Enter your email address to receive notifications for author Jaime Green
Success!
Confirmation link sent to your email to add you to notification list for author Jaime Green
More by this author
The Beautiful Ego Death of Having My Book Fact-Checked
Every nonfiction book should go through this vetting, and every author should have this experience.
Teaching Freshman Comp Was the Best Writing Education I Ever Got
As part of our Education Week series, Jaime Green describes how teaching the fundamentals in undergrad writing comp made her a better writer.
What If We Taught Writing the Way We Teach Acting?
Actors studied movement, script analysis, emotional connection, our bodies, our voices. In my writing MFA, we got . . . workshop.