Recent small or smallish consumer purchases that have surprisingly and dramatically benefitted my creative career and might do the same for you (and no, none of this is spon con)
In which I rip off the podcast "Gee, Thanks, Just Bought It" for writers, agents, editors, artists, and other creative types.
This is a shopping listicle for writers, editors, agents, and other creative types. It’s not paid advertising. The brands involved—several of whom might be more accurately characterized as random consonants slapped onto drop-shipped Amazon merchandise—have no idea I’m recommending their stuff. I just really like this stuff and suspect some of you will, too.
Before we get into it, though:
“Money can’t buy happiness.”
^Do you believe this? Have you recently said it out loud?
If so: tell me you’re under 30 without telling me you’re under 30. Because unless you’re young and supple or dying in the next, I don’t know, three hours?, it’s bullshit.
Money buys a lot of happiness, TBH—a fact which only becomes more and more true as you get older. Most of us live in a country where healthcare costs money, after all.
Not everybody has disposable income to throw at their own happiness, which isn’t fair. Also unfortunate is the fact that so many of the retailers people “love” are in fact talented marketers selling literal junk (Kendra Scott subtweet).
I know money is tight for most writers. However, I also know that a lot of you who subscribe to this newsletter struggle as I do with stress and people-pleasing.
As a result of your codependent tendencies, you might or might not engage in the following two forms of self-sabotage:
CATASTROPHIZING, i.e. the subconscious or conscious belief that every single one of your problems is gargantuan, metaphysical, and too much for you to tackle, when in fact at least some of your problems are probably solvable with a good lumbar pillow
SELF-ABANDONMENT in the form of being weaselly about your own biophysical needs. You fail to meet them because you feel they shouldn’t exist, which doesn’t really work, because they don’t go away and you end up staving them off with ad-hoc stale cupcakes and dissociation (or worse).
You are the people for whom I’m writing this newsletter, because meeting your needs and solving as many of your soul-sucking little problems as you can? Those are urgent requirements for quality writing and a sustainable creative career.
People who proactively meet their needs—even the small ones—are much, much, much more capable of creative brilliance than people who don’t. They’re more present and less procrastinatory. They’re capable of longer, deeper mental focus. They’re capable of synthesizing high-level concepts and noticing things in their peripheral vision.
Most people in survival mode just plain can’t write well at length. Meeting your own needs so you never get there is therefore ALWAYS worth the money.
ALWAYS!!
But of course, if you’re looking at Amazon or at Instagram ads or the Sharper Image catalogue, it can be tough to sort the treasures from boondoggles that will sit unused in your closet until they spontaneously catch on fire.
Anna is here to help. Below is a list of small purchases that have been treasures for me because they’ve met my needs, solving or ameliorating petty little irritations that in hindsight were draining a lot more of my energy than I realized.
I think you deserve little treats like this. Maybe they’re not the right specific items for you, but if that’s the case, I do hope you come away from this list full of ideas for what might be. (And if it doesn’t exist yet: time for that side career as an inventor!!)
VARIOUS SMALL PURCHASES THAT HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE AND MADE ME MUCH BETTER AT MY JOB
In no particular order: