The Happiness Project: How To Be Happier

A Little-Known Occupational Hazard Affecting Writers.

There’s a very common occupational hazard that affects writers, but I’ve never heard anyone talk about it: the desire to write outside your main field.

I know a journalist who took a sabbatical to write a novel, which turned into a short story. I know a science writer who is writing a play. I know a novelist who is writing a memoir.

This change can be exhilarating and fun, because it’s a new creative challenge – and that contributes to a happy life.

It can also be a bit of a pain, because these projects can feel…oppressive. With writing, often, there’s a strange feeling of compulsion. You just have to write about something. I remember hearing Kathryn Harrison remark on a panel, when asked how she chose her topics, “You really have surprisingly little control about what you want to write about.” I knew exactly what she meant. I had to write a book about power, money, fame and sex -- when I was clerking for Justice O’Connor, I was writing that book on the weekends. A few years later, I felt I couldn’t go another day without working on a biography of Churchill.

Of course, you can choose what you write about. You just can’t choose what you want to write about.

Although I write non-fiction, three times in my life, I’ve had an uncontrollable urge to write a novel. My problem is that I’m not much of a storyteller, and these were “novels of ideas.” Which, I know quite well, is not a good way to write a novel. One novel was about the apocalypse, one was about why people destroy their own possessions (I later wrote a non-fiction book, Profane Waste, on this subject, in collaboration with artist Dana Hoey, and it worked much better in that form), and most recently, I wrote a novel-in-a-month about the happiness consequences of two people having an affair. (I describe this experience in The Happiness Project book.)

One of the reason I love Chris Baty’s novel-in-a-month approach is that for a writer, it can be a gigantic distraction, and therefore a work liability, to have these projects press on you. They get in the way of the work you really need to get done. It’s fun, it’s creative, it’s satisfying, yes, but writers, like everyone, need to be productive in the work for which they’re paid.

This has happened to me, yet again. I have this idea for a novel – but for once, in a nice change, it’s not a novel of ideas. Well, it is a little bit. But it has more plot than usual. And it actually has some real characters in it. It’s also a young-adult novel, which I’ve never tackled before, although I’m a huge fan of children’s and young-adult literature.

But what’s the point of view? I imagine it like a movie, distant third-person narrator, but I need to locate it in my main character’s point of view…but then how to handle the gradual reveal of the secrets I want to emerge slowly?

And how do you kill someone without killing him? I need one of my likable main characters to kill another of my characters, but not really kill him. Any ideas? For example, in Harry Potter, one character dies but doesn’t really die; another character is killed, but isn’t really killed, because he was already mortally injured. In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi tells Darth Vader, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.” He gets killed, but not really killed. I think I need to re-read Plutarch’s Lives and Polti’s The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations…maybe there are some ideas there. (Speaking of Polti, has anyone ever updated his scheme, to provide more modern titles to illustrate his thirty-six situations?)

I can’t say describe the plot, because it would sound utterly ridiculous, as is always true of fantasy novels. Let’s just say there are no dragons, but there could be dragons. People have super-powers. It has a lot to do with honor and vows, and it would let me write about “symbols beyond words,” one of my untapped major interests. Tree. Horse. Blood.

But I really don’t have time to be fussing with this right now!

I mentioned this dilemma to a friend while we were waiting in line to see New Moon on Friday night (yes, I went the first day, I love the Twilight saga). She’s an editor and a YA writer herself, and she said, “You should just write it! That’s the happiness project thing to do!”

She’s absolutely right. It would make me very happy to write that novel, and I could again follow the scheme in No Plot! No Problem to get it done. But while it would be fun, it would also be draining and difficult and distracting. Plus, I would really try to make it good, but it probably wouldn’t end up being good – and if I go to the trouble to write a book, I really want it to be good. It would be “play,” in that I’d be doing it for fun, but it would use up precisely the same energy that I use for “work.” More time at the keyboard, can I stand it? Of course, it might energize me as well.

Two additional factors loom in the background: first, I’m extraordinarily lucky to be a working writer, debating whether to do this extra project for fun. I never forget that. Second, the writing world as we know it is collapsing. I’m not sure how to factor that fact in.

So what to do? I can’t see past the publication date for The Happiness Project, looming so close and yet so far on December 29, so I think I’ll hold on to my idea, try to come up with a way to kill my character without killing him, and promise myself that I’ll make a start on this novel this summer, if I still feel the urge.

* So much fun to read through 1000 Awesome Things -- and the book is coming out soon, too.

* Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

Francis Ford Coppola's Insight About Sin

A smart friend told me that I had to read The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film by Michael Ondaatje. Even though this wasn’t a topic in which I had much interest, he spoke so highly of it that I decided to read it.

He was right. It's a fascinating book, on many levels. I love finding a book like this—which gives me entry into an entirely new world (sound and film editing, in this case) and also insight into a great creative mind like Walter Murch. There are a lot of almost throw-away lines that really struck me. I've quoted Murch for my weekly happiness quotation.

Another provocative line appeared in the book's discussion of The Conversation, a movie written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, with Murch as the supervising editor and sound designer.

Coppola’s notes for the script of The Conversation include this line: 

There is always the idea that the sins a man performs are not the same as the ones he thinks he has performed. …

What does this mean, exactly? How do we take this observation into account as we reflect on our actions?

Are the sins I think I’m performing not the ones I think I performed? Very likely. How, then, does one become virtuous? What do you think? I can't stop turning this line over in my mind.

* Last week I had coffee with Amanda Freeman, a friend who is one of the creative minds behind Vital Juice, the free daily e-mail that gives info about fitness, nutrition, health, etc. Funny and useful.

* As I posted the other day, I'm trying to figure out the level of interest for a book tour. If I did a book event in your town and you'd come, it would be very helpful if you'd either post a comment below or drop me an e-mail at grubin[at]gretchenrubin[dot com]. (Sorry about the weird format—trying to thwart spammers). Just write "tour" in the subject line, and be sure to include the name of your city! Thanks very much to all the people who already answered; the information is enormously helpful.

Fun and Creativity in the Kitchen

My fellow Huffington Post contributor Karen Leland is an expert on increasing efficiency and happiness at work, so she spends a lot of time thinking about how people can manage their time to get the most satisfaction and productivity out of their workweek.

She has a new book out, Time Management in an Instant. I love this approach—thinking about how accomplishing manageable, concrete tasks can make a difference in your daily life. It seems to me that feeling out of control of time is a major happiness challenge for many people.

Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Karen: Keeping my home, office, and e-mail relatively organized. While it might sound trivial, when I know where things are and can find them easily, I stay out of overwhelm. For me, overwhelm is a definite happiness stressor.

What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?
That it's not a constant condition, and it's not supposed to be. The amount of happiness I experience ebbs, and flows and that's OK. Sometimes I'm superjoyful, sometimes content, and sometimes down. It's a cycle, and it all changes.

Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?
I'm embarrassed to say that I still have a tendency to compare myself to others with some degree. It's not as bad as it was in my youth, but it's one of the patterns I need to continually fight.

Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you’ve found very helpful? (e.g., I remind myself to “Be Gretchen.”)
Yes, my happiness mantra is "Follow my own path and truth, and trust that the right people and results will appear. Be grateful when they do."

If you’re feeling blue, how do you give yourself a happiness boost?
Three things are guaranteed to give me a happiness boost:
1. Singing along to any musical.
2. Talking to my girlfriends on the phone.
3. Doing something new, creative, and fun in the kitchen.

Is there anything that you see people around you doing or saying that adds a lot to their happiness, or detracts a lot from their happiness?
The people I know who are happiest seem to protect their time and space. In other words, they don't spend a lot of time doing things that they don't want to do, or being with people they don't want to be with. They also say what they mean and mean what they say. The unhappiest are those who are blaming others for their woes and can't seem to shake off being bitter about a wrong that was done to them.

Have you always felt about the same level of happiness or have you been through a period when you felt exceptionally happy or unhappy—if so, why? If you were unhappy, how did you become happier?
When I got divorced from my first husband 25 years ago, I went through the unhappiest period in my life. The grief and unhappiness were profound, but that experience really taught me a lot. Since then, I would say my level of happiness goes up and down, but always seems to settle in the same place. Whenever I'm in what I consider to be a less happier place, I do things to fill the tank of my happiness. For me that is art, cooking, being with friends, spending time with my husband (no. 2 for 17 years), singing, and being in nature. All of those things fill me up in a way that can shake me out of my unhappiness—usually.

Do you work on being happier? If so, how?
I would say that I work on being more content. In other words, I try and take things as they come and not get too caught up in how it is on any given day. Recently, I've been working on being more serene—which to me is a form of happiness. I do this by simply stopping and taking a breather, when I start to feel anxious or stressed. I find that if I let something upsetting sit a bit, its unhappy quality diminishes—at least somewhat.

Have you ever been surprised that something you expected would make you very happy didn’t—or vice versa?
You know that expression "Be careful what you ask for, young lady, for you shall surely get it"? Yes, I have often thought something was going to make me very happy, and it made me crazy! Then again, there are things I have gone into that I had no expectation about, and they have turned out to be among the happiest experiences of my life. I think in many ways having an expectation about how happy something will make me is a setup for failure. For me, I think it's better to bring my best self to something, which includes my enthusiasm, but stay away from expecting it to bring me a certain level of happiness and just be open to the whatever the experience delivers.

* Zoikes, this is happy news: I just found out that the blog search engine Technorati ranks this blog among the Top 2,000 blogs. Given that as of December 2007, Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs, that sounds pretty good.

* If you haven't watched my one-minute movie, The Years Are Short, you might enjoy seeing that.

Jung, Buffy, Twilight, Virginia Woolf—and Happiness

I love Carl Jung (the bits of his work that I understand, which isn’t much), and one of my favorite Jung quotations is “The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.”

This video clip is a perfect example—found on my friend Lev Grossman’s excellent blog, Nerd World. I love the fact that Jonathan McIntosh had the creative energy and interest to create this mash-up of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight:

[If you can't see the video, the URL for "Buffy vs Edward (Twilight Remixed)--OFFICIAL" is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZwM3GvaTRM]

I connected with this remix on several levels:

— Take time for projects. Clearly Jonathan McIntosh is following that very important resolution.

— Though I’m not a historic Buffy fan, my TV-writer sister has worked a lot with Joss Whedon, so I always take an interest in his work.

— I love Twilight, books and movie alike. How much, you ask? I’ve read Midnight Sun. And The Host.

— There was a split-second clip from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which I recognized, of course. Huge, raving Harry Potter fan. I’ve got a ticket to the very first showing, at midnight in a few weeks, of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

— Even my former lawyerly self got engaged in considering the assertion at the end that “This transformative work constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright law.” Why didn’t a case like this come up when I was hanging around courthouses?

Perhaps I should make a new resolution, to “Play with the objects I love.” I’m already doing this with my passion for J.M. Barrie’s The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island. A friend and I are doing an homage to Barrie’s brilliant skeletal picture book—ours is called “Four to Llewelyn’s Edge.” This has turned out to be an enormous undertaking, and so much fun.

Along those lines, I wonder if I could use popular new tools (YouTube, as in the example above, or Twitter, or Facebook, as well as my blog) to shine a spotlight on my more obscure and more demanding passions. I want to highlight the things I love, and to try to entice others to follow me—just as this video made me want to watch old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

One idea: I’m considering sending out daily Tweets that are quotations from one of my favorite books, Virginia Woolf’s The Waves (bizarre: this book doesn't seem to be for sale on Amazon). I would love doing this. I wonder if the book would be interesting to anyone else in that form—if the beautiful writing would be engaging out of context like that—or if it would be too reductive. Perhaps, as in the video mash-up above, new pleasures could be revealed in a work that is usually read in a different way.

Hmmmm.

* Very apt for this subject: Bricolage Life. Looking at this blog made me want to sit down and MAKE something.

* Follow me on Twitter. I may or may not be sending out Woolf quotations in the near future.

Embrace a Milestone Moment—in My Case, No More Editing

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

I’m a big believer in using milestone moments as cues for evaluation, action, and reflection. Even though it’s a bit of a cliché, I’ve seen many examples—including in my own life—when people were prompted to make positive changes because they’d hit a milestone like a major birthday, marriage, the death of a parent, the birth of a child, loss of a job, or the accomplishment of a career marker like getting tenure or making partner (or not). For example, our wedding anniversary is our yearly Be Prepared Day.

Major milestones don’t happen very often; minor milestones are more frequent, but it’s easy to let them go almost unnoticed.

I’m trying to pay more attention to milestones—including one I just passed.

My book, The Happiness Project, is due out in January, and about 10 minutes ago, I completed my work on the stage called “second pass pages” (why it’s called this, I have no idea). After this, NO MORE EDITS. This is it. When I send this stack of pages back to my editor, my book is out of my hands. We still have to decide the cover art and the jacket copy and a million other details, but my work on the book itself will be finished.

In my rush to go through the book this last time, and to take care of all my other daily duties, I almost didn’t appreciate this milestone. In fact, as a relentless editor of my work, I was more inclined to view this stage as the terrifying point at which I lost control.

But thanks to my resolution, I paused to give myself a moment to reflect. For better or worse, I’ve achieved the vision that I had that April morning, several years ago now, when I was riding on a bus as it passed through the intersection of 79th and Park and asked myself, “What do I want from life, anyway? I want to be happy. But I never think about what it means to be happy, or whether I am happy. I should have a happiness project!” I didn’t have the idea to write a book about my happiness project for a long time after that, of course. But I had an idea for what my happiness project should be, and in my book, I’ve explained as best I can how I’m doing it.

This is a happy moment! I’m just going to sit here and drink it in. I feel so grateful for everyone who has helped me, and I feel so lucky that I do for work exactly what I do for fun. I wonder what the last word of the book is? Ah, it’s “window.” I love my book!

Transitions of any kind can be a helpful prompt to a more thoughtful and grateful frame of mind. Have you had an experience when passing a milestone spurred you to greater reflection or action?

* I'm sure there's a study that explains why nothing makes you smile faster than watching babies smile, coo, and laugh. (Evolutionary reasons, right?) Check out this video on Gimundo of four laughing babies.

* Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just e-mail me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.