An Abdication of Should

None of My Nevermind

Hello friends,

I am tired of the internet. That means, personally, I’m getting more books read (up to 75 so far this year and gunning for 100 by 12/31/23!!) Should have #76 done by the end of the week. I am, of course, tired of the terrible, horrible, senseless news on the internet, but I am also tired of everyone’s pointless takes. I’m not going to go into who gets to weigh in on whatever they want to weigh in on. That would be having a take on who gets to have takes. I have many opinions about who should be sharing their takes (tl:dr government officials 👍, reliable news agencies 👍, corporations 👎) but guess what! Those are just my opinions and you don’t have to do a single thing with them!!!!! You can absorb them into your brain and forget them forever or forward them to your friend and say get a load of this idiot (just be sure to hit forward and not reply) or whatever you want! What you do with anything I say is none of my nevermind.

As I mull and turn and worry everything that’s going on in the world, big and small, earth shattering and inconsequential both, I keep saying to myself well, you know what they SHOULD do… What should they do, Kate? Hmmm? Any grand ideas?

I frequently have an opinion about what people should do. Hell, that’s half the reason most of you are here, for me to tell you what you should do to get an agent and/or a book deal. And, well, I’m usually right about that stuff. (lol) But I’m not talking about that stuff. I still do think you should tell me about your book in your query letter, as that is the most effective way to get my attention as an agent, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. You can tell people what they should do until you are blue in the face and they’re just going to do what they want anyway.

There’s advice, of course, and then there’s should as a cover for judgement. People should read more books. And they should read more books I think are of value (not any of those other books). They should respond in the way and the time frame I think they should respond, or else it can only mean all my worst thoughts of them and/or myself are true. I should be able to do X and Y and Z without breaking a sweat, and if I can’t, I must be failing. I should reach <important goal that is not wholly within my powers> by <an unrealistic date> or else I am not hustling hard enough.

I should read 100 books there year, not because I have to or because it makes me better than anyone or because it means anything specific about my personhood, but because I want to and that goal is fun for me. I should because I am setting out to do it. I should because I expect that I can. If I can’t, well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I will be annoyed at myself if I’m reading #98 at 11:50 on New Years Eve¹ not because I failed to meet my goal, but because I got so close! I will be annoyed in the same way I am when I cannot win a prize for my kid out of an arcade claw machine. (My kid has never met a claw machine they didn’t love.) So close! But the prize wasn’t that special anyway.

There are important things to should. I don’t need to list them here because they’re different for you than they are for me and you already know all of them. The harder ones to shake are the persistent, yet pointless, shoulds. The shoulds about other people’s behaviors, thoughts, and actions that you cannot control. The shoulds about systemic problems that no amount of shoulding will fix. Giving up shoulds does not mean giving up action, resistance, advocacy. It’s giving up pointless bickering about shoulds INSTEAD OF action, resistance, and advocacy.

What does this have to do with books, Kate? Yeah, I know I got off the rails there a bit. But it indeed has a lot to do with books. Lamenting that people should read one kind of book over another is pointless. Instead, tell someone you know about a great book and encourage them to read it. Readers should read MY book because it’s really important. Well, write it in a compelling way that makes them want to. Agents and editors should get back to authors faster. Instead, give these human begins grace and remember they are completing tasks for a job, not a public service. Publishers should publish one kind of book and not another. Instead, go out and buy, borrow, and spread the word about the books you like, and don’t give airtime to the ones you don’t.

Tell people what you think! That’s great! But getting mad at them because they aren’t doing what you think they should be doing is wasted energy. Do you really have time for that? Is that what you want to do with your one wild and precious life?

XOXOXOXOX,

Kate

1. Let’s be honest. I will be asleep then.