Hello Maker,

Recently, a podcaster had the audacity (and I say this with love) to ask me how I’ve been taking my own advice from the book Making Time as I launch it. The nerve! But also... great question.

I only know this much: Asking myself, “How can I just make sure I do enough?” gives me terrible answers.

This week I’ve been experimenting with a different question, “How can I receive what is happening?” For example, can I actually sit with the attention of a lovely podcaster asking me questions? Or do I brace against it, look away, and move on to the next thing as quickly as possible?

We are in hot, electric times.

I’m looking at how intense this all is (and I really do mean, as I scroll, all of it) as an electric current that can light us all up. I’m watching the charge move in, through, and around me.

Just another experiment I’m trying.

Now, onto another edition of the Anti-Advice column.

It’s the kind of thing where you ask your burning questions, and I ask questions right back. Because the answers that emerge from your own wisdom will serve you best.

Hit reply to send me your questions.

This week’s reader question:

How did you know when you were ‘ready’ to write a book?
[I interpret this to mean: How do you know when you’re ready to start something big?]

I wish I had a very reasonable, wise-sounding answer to how I knew I was ready to begin write a capital-b Book, but it started as a prank.

The algorithm showed me a really cheesy ad for an online course about how to write a short nonfiction book. A guy with a goatee made the process sound so easy — almost silly — that I thought, “That’s hilarious; I could do that.” Be warned, this story doesn’t end with my whimsy.

Had I wanted to write a book since I was a kid? Yes. Had my fearful questions about the “what/how/when” stopped me every single day before that moment? Also yes.

Despite that, sometimes I summon the swaggering confidence of a hockey player. This tends to happen when I access a sense of playful absurdity that distracts me from being precious about myself or my work. (I think that’s why I reference the absurd so much in my work; there’s freedom there.)

So I bought the goatee guy’s course on an installment plan, read the guidelines — then used just enough to get started and ignored the rest.

I told nobody what I was writing in my barely legible handwriting, 500-word sprints at a time, because this wasn’t a Book. It was a fun, personal challenge to meet what felt like a medium-to-low bar.

I never would have written a word if I was aiming for a Good Book. I simply decided I could write something better than the goatee guy thought I could write.

I didn’t have to become someone else to do it. There was no need to be better, faster, or stronger to begin. (The process itself does that much better, as I’ll explain.)

And it wasn’t just about lowering expectations; it was more like jumping off from an inspiration that felt relevant and real now, as opposed to trying to match a lofty ideal that appeared lightyears away.

I’m on a big Octavia Butler kick right now, and her origin story is similar. As a kid, she watched a silly B-movie called Devil Girl from Mars. She thought, “Somebody got paid for writing that story!” Then, “Geez, I can write a better story than that.”

I tricked myself into being ready by aiming for delight, not impressiveness. Delight exists in the now. Impressiveness — or good-enoughness — is a mirage of the future.

Of course, the truth is, I both was and wasn’t ready at all.

If being ready means I got through the whole thing without wanting to give up, needing help, wondering if I had made a huge mistake, and also wondering if my publisher made a huge mistake, and maybe I should have never started writing anything ever and become an orthodontist or something… I was not ready.

The book acquired deadlines — and with them, real people waiting to hear from me. This shouldn’t have come as a shock; big creative projects grow more serious as they mature. The problems get bigger too, like parenting a child who’s suddenly old enough to drive a car.

After a year into the project, after signing a contract, after I told everyone it would be a thing with a publication date, the freedom and fun had drained completely from my process.

By the summer of 2023, just before my first deadline, I was Not Okay. I stayed awake at night and crawled through brain fog in the day. I will tell the fuller story of this moment another time.

This is the important part: taking on the project led me to places within me filled with bigger dragons than I had ever encountered before. I probably knew intellectually that this would happen, but you can never know exactly what it will be like until you’re there. Thank goodness — because if I’d known, I probably would’ve put it off.

I was not ready to face the dragons before I did it. I didn’t welcome them graciously. I said, “No thank you, please go away. I’d like a different problem please; one I’ve handled before.”

Alas, it was one of those “you have to go through it, not around it” situations.

In the thick of it, and mere weeks from my first deadline, going through it meant surrendering — asking for help.

Maybe that sounds like a cute little moment, but let me be clear: I never would have done it unless I absolutely had to. It felt like a complete failure to say, “I can’t slog through this the way I have been.”

It was less like a smiling trust-fall in a team-building exercise and more like a series of snot-nosed, voice-trembling phone calls and experiments.

I called my agent in tears, who gave me gentle perspective. I got major organizing and editing help from my husband. I got nutritional support (magnesium! It’s amazing!). I learned from somatic practitioners. I leaned into my faith and spirituality in ways I never had before. This barely scratches the surface of the people and practices that supported me.

My old way of working could only take me so far, and I’m grateful for how far it got me. Without getting into the knotted middle of this project, I wouldn’t have been moved by, changed by, and connected to the support that existed all around me.

The project prepares you for itself through delight and failure in equal measure. Just like parenting teaches you how to parent; most of the time you’re saying, “Welp, that didn’t work.”

In conclusion:

You’re ready when you’re willing to respond to what’s in front of you, and inside you, right now.

You stay ready by being with yourself as you encounter all the ways you are not ready.

Your turn:

• What would make your project so easy, it’s almost, but not quite, a personal inside joke?

• If your current project is secretly preparing you to grow as a person, how might that be?

• How have you faced surprising “dragons” in the middle of a decision or project before? (If you’re adult, I’m sure you’ve faced many surprising ones just to get through school.)

• What’s a dragon you’re carrying around right now, thinking you have to slay it before you begin? What if it’s just supposed to walk alongside you for a while?

• Who or what in your life might already be trying to support you, but you’re not quite letting it/them in? How would it feel to take one step toward receiving that help?

Delight, curiosity, and the occasional dragon-sized tantrum are all part of the deal.

Starting where you are is the only place to start. And if you find yourself crying on the floor or Googling “alternate career paths,” congratulations — you’re doing it right.

Until next time,
Maria

P.S. Got a question for the anti-advice column? Click reply.

P.P.S. Let’s start 2025 together focusing on our creativity instead of our productivity. Join the Maker’s Lab for free (or, almost for free. The only cost is pre-ordering the book MAKING TIME, and you get to read it early!)