On the night that my writing group shows up, usually once a
month, I scurry around dusting and vacuuming. I make sure the kitchen counters
are clean, the floor washed, and the tea things laid out neatly. By this I only
mean hot water, tea bags, and mugs. I have known these women for twenty years,
and we’re comfortable with each other.
All this came to mind recently when I heard someone make a
remark that I had heard before, some years ago. At the end of a small
conference showcasing successful women, one of the participants said in an
aside to another, Why do the writers dress so badly?
Really? We dress badly? Who knew? I hadn’t thought about it,
so I decided to think about it.
The only comparisons I had were from the 1970s and 1980s, a
few from the early 2000s. I scoured my memory and came up with what I regarded
as evidence. I ran the mental film of a national conference, in Chicago, of
women who were mostly well-to-do involved in the social services on the patron
level. In a word, philanthropists. They not only dressed well, they had cases
and cases of computers that traveled with them—this in the 1980s. They had
money and it showed. Another conference, this one of academic professionals,
was minus the computers in the 1980s but well-tailored suits and evening
outfits ranked high on the style chart. A Boston conference of writers in all
categories in the 1980s brought together a crew of such disparate styles and
outfits that even I noticed how badly dressed some of them were.
Okay, I concede that most of the writers I know have as
little interest in fashion as a Lap heading out for a seal hunt. But is there a
reason for it? I decided to think about it. And the only answer I could come up
with is this. I am lazy.
I have finite resources to dedicate to making choices and
decisions, let alone money, at the early hours of the day. If I spend my time
thinking about what I will pull out of the closet, I’m likely to wear out my
brain and sit in front of my computer all day unable to write anything at
all—except perhaps what the character is wearing. For those who are stylish in
dungarees, this may not matter. But I don’t wear dungarees. I’m a New Englander
and I wear khakis. Those are my default wardrobe. Needless to say, I have
several pairs.
There’s a serious side to all this. I don’t like thinking
about what I’m going to wear, when I’m going to clean, what to make for dinner,
because all these decisions, which don’t have to do with writing, wear me out.
This is a real phenomenon called decision fatigue. In a study conducted in
Israel, the investigators found that a person applying for parole had a much
higher chance of getting parole if he or she appeared before the board early in
the morning; by late in the afternoon, a prisoner’s chances of parole had slid way
down. The members of the parole Board were simply tired, whether they knew it
or not. They had run out of mental energy to make a good decision.
President Obama is said to have solved some of the risk of energy
depletion by having suits in only two colors—black and navy. (My kind of
wardrobe!) He doesn’t use up his quota of mental decision-making energy before
he has even left the family suite and made it to his office.
This phenomenon may be one reason writers are thought to
dress badly. Another might be that we are so concerned with issues of life
below the surface, perfect or otherwise, that we can’t bring ourselves to spend
a whole lot of time on appearances—our own. I think my writer friends dress
just fine. But I have to admit that as well turned out as they appear to me,
they wouldn’t make it into the lobby of that hotel given over to the national
conference of women philanthropists. Those women would know in a nanosecond
that I shopped at thrift stores (and not very upscale ones either), couldn’t
find the makeup counter in a mall, and had no idea what the current fashionable
colors were. On the other hand, I can dress my characters any way I want, with
no fear of running out of money or fashion.
I offer this little meandering as comfort to those who think
writing is all about taking control of your time and computer, and still
struggle to compose a decent story. Success in writing seems to be dependent on
intangibles no one ever considered. I doubt MFA courses include a section on
storing up ego energy for the long haul.
If you’re interested in reading more, see below.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
