Boundaries Are About More Than Simply Carving Out the Time to Write | Jane Friedman

Today’s post is by writer Mirella Stoyanova (@mirellastoyanova).

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There are a select few life lessons that I am fated to learn the hard way. As a therapist, a trauma survivor, and a consummate people pleaser (not to mention a woman), setting healthy boundaries is one of them. 

So I should have known that establishing my own boundaries would be an important part of developing my identity as an emerging writer. Yet, what little I had read about boundaries when it came to writing (Protect your time! Don’t compare yourself to others!) and how much I’ve learned since I began the journey, have revealed a lot about the ways I still need to grow to become the writer I want to be. 

Before we dig in, I first want to introduce boundaries as an expression of what you need to sustain yourself in any given endeavor. Boundaries could be limits or standards—I think of them as two sides of the same coin.

• Limits refer to what we do not have the capacity for, or what is unsustainable to a particular relationship.
• Standards refer to various behaviors that sustain a particular relationship that you either accept from others or attempt to embody yourself.

We think most often about boundaries in the context of relationships with others. But I would argue that boundaries are equally important to consider as they relate to the relationship we have with ourselves (the relationship from which all others are based)—and also, how they relate to various other facets of our lives, like our work. A job description, for instance, is a contractual set of boundaries you agree to with an employer based upon the scope of work you are being paid to perform.

Now, as a quick aside, it is both striking and, sadly, unsurprising to me (given how much talk there is of exploitation in the writing world) that more is not said on how new and emerging authors can sustain themselves in the work of writing. Author Courtney Maum wrote an excellent piece about this on her Substack a few months ago. 

But boundaries are important whether you are published or not. And when it comes to building a career as a writer, your boundaries are about more than simply carving out the time to write. 

For aspiring authors in particular, there are two separate but interrelated areas around which a better grasp of boundaries could prove useful, especially for those of us attempting to build a writing career without the benefit of an MFA.

These two areas involve (1) the way we write and shape our own writing identities and (2) the way we consume content and services designed to help us write. One is about the way we negotiate boundaries with ourselves as writers, the other is about the way we negotiate boundaries with others—and the two are inextricably linked.

The way we write is all about making decisions.

At a basic level, if you write an essay or a book or really anything for that matter, you have to decide what to include or omit, what you want to say, and how you want to say it.

These decisions are informed by broader questions that determine your personal set of boundaries as a writer. For instance, what will you write about? What topics are off limits? What opportunities do you pursue and which do you kindly decline? What are the issues so important to you that they come to define how you show up to your writing (otherwise known as the hills you will die on)?

To make these decisions, you first need to know yourself. To make these decisions well, you have to honor what you know. In other words, you have to uphold your boundaries.

As a personal example, I have strong feelings about presenting in a way that is congruent with who I am in real life. So when I write or present myself to the writing world, one standard I strive to maintain is to be open about who I am. Sometimes that means acknowledging my shortcomings with a healthy dose of levity. Other times, that means standing up for what I believe in. 

Here are three more examples of boundaries that could be related to your writing identity:

1. I will not be a part of a critique group that does not value my feedback or offer me feedback that I value. 
2. Instead of pushing to exhaustion when I notice I have nothing left to write, I will stop writing for the day.
3. I will not spend more time consuming than I do creating. 

That last one is a nice segue into the second area in which I think we all could stand to benefit from better boundaries: consuming writing-related content and services. 

Most of us think we are, at least, within reach of making our personal publishing dreams come true. It’s why so many people think they can write a book—and probably why so many of us try (and then quit when the going gets tough). 

For better or worse, an entire industry has been built to profit off of these hopes and dreams.

Thankfully, whistleblowers like Writer Beware exist to call attention to those acting in bad faith, but what about those well-meaning writing professionals who are not a good fit to provide the services we need, who underdeliver, or who act poorly or in ways that leave a lasting negative impression?

Unless you have a strong sense of your own boundaries, it can be hard to have the courage to give feedback or to ask for what you need. And frankly, your own boundaries might get overstepped multiple times before you realize that the problem is actually something you are responsible for—because our boundaries are our own responsibility to protect.

But it’s not just services. It’s opting into the mailings that crowd your inbox each morning. It’s going down the YouTube or TikTok rabbit hole for hours on end. It’s subscribing to more paid Substacks than you could ever hope to read (it’s okay, my eyes are bigger than my stomach, too).

Because as it turns out, much like with writing, boundaries require us to make decisions.

Boundaries call for discernment about the quality of our interactions. And if you’re feeling resentful about the way an interaction went, anxious about something you put out into the world or if you’re feeling frustrated with your own writing productivity or habits, you may actually have a boundary issue on your hands. 

To assess your boundaries in a particular area of your writing life, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is something bothering me more than it should?
• Am I comfortable with this?
• Does this align with my goals?
• What is my desired outcome?

Truth be told, I am still figuring out my boundaries with writing because—and this is crucial—I am still figuring out the writer I want to be. The wonderful thing is that the clearer I become on who I am, the better I become at understanding my boundaries—and honoring them. 

Boundaries empower me to take responsibility for my own writing life and the pursuit of my goals as I continue to revise my WIP and establish myself as an emerging writer.

Perhaps boundaries can empower you, too.