Sometimes the Best Thing You Can Do is Nothing

Hello friends,

First off, don't forget! I'm teaching at a non-fiction (including memoir!) retreat in TUSCANY in September. Won't you join us? Spots are limited!

Now, please excuse this newsletter's absence on last Thursday, July 23rd. I was taking a few days off, which, if you know me, will come as a shock. Those of you with flexible careers will understand that when you can work whenever you want, you end up working all the time. I can take off any day I want. So I usually only take off the days I'm traveling with my family, or my kid is off school and I don't feel like paying $$$ to put them in a day camp, or it's like Christmas or whatever.

But last week, said kid was at sleepaway camp and the load that took off my day-to-day was considerable. My husband is 100% reliable and involved, but you know what? Caring for a house and a kid and yourself is A LOT of work and when you don't have to plan dinner for three people most nights, worry if there's the right food for lunches, think about what laundry needs to be done or what needs to be purchased, etc etc etc, it feels like a luxury. So, you know what I did? NOTHING.

Well, I did some things. I got an iced latte and browsed B&N for an hour and bought too-expensive pens. I went to yoga. I forced myself to not think oh, what can I get done right now? and instead what do I want to do? I read two books, published ones! I spent a whole morning at the Rose Reading Room at the NYPL and worked on a picture book manuscript, which is fun-work, not work-work. Then I spent too much money at Muji, browsed Kinokuniya, and ate sushi, to complete my little Japanese tour of midtown New York. That's a lot of doing things, but because I was guided by my inner workings and desires, and not outward schedule or demands, it felt like a vacation.

And it worked. I feel refreshed and ready to tackle my inbox and tasks, which lately, has felt like climbing Mount Everest. It's still a lot, and always will be, but I'm a little more fortified for the climb. It is incredibly hard for me to do nothing. I usually take a day "off" and think about how much other work I can get done. (I know my sister is the same way. Hi, Erin.) But sometimes you have to do nothing and/or do what you want to do. And because this is a newsletter about publishing and writing and not just about my mental state, here is how you can apply this thinking to wherever you are in your writing/publishing process.

Leave your manuscript alone.

On submission? Out with queries? Beta readers reading? DON'T TOUCH YOUR BOOK. Seriously. I would say a full 10% of the messages I get on Query Tracker are since I sent this I've adjusted the beginning. Can I send you new pages? (Btw, the answer is yes, but you have to withdraw the query and resubmit. There's no other way to do it.) If your agent is reading your ms, DON'T TOUCH IT. It is annoying to give feedback and hear oh yeah, I already fixed that while you were reading. I mean, I can deal, but it's frustrating to spend that time on something that's already been fixed. STOP TINKERING. LEAVE YOUR BOOK BE.

Stuck? Go write something that will never see the light of day.

You don't have to be endlessly productive. You don't have to, and shouldn't, and WON'T, publish everything you write. If you're feeling sluggish or stuck in your current WIP, take a holiday from it. Go write something fun. A poem. Fanfic. That bonkers idea that won't leave you alone. You may never publish that and that is FINE. You will not publish everything you write. But go find that place where writing is fun again, and not a productivity slog. Do it for you, not for us publishing people out here. You're allowed. We'll never know and that's the point.

In a reading slump? Don't read.

Sometimes you need a break from books, especially if it's starting to feel like homework. I used to feel VERY anxious about all the hot books I thought I was supposed to read, to keep up with the market, to join in on publishing discussions. And that made reading suck. So I stopped doing it. I probably won't read Theo of Golden, or Yesteryear (Jo Piazza's Everyone Is Lying To You is better.) or Dungeon Crawler Carl (though I hear the audio is really good). I will live and my career will thrive, I'm sure of it. Heck I just read Trust by Hernan Diaz (STUNNING!!!!!) and that won the Pulitzer Prize four years ago. Books exist beyond the initial publication/marketing push, and you can read them later. You don't have to read everything now. You can watch TV, go see a movie, stare at the wall. (Try not to endlessly scroll. That eats time and brain cells at an alarming rate.) But if you need a break from books, take it. They will be there when you get back.

Post About Other Stuff, or Log Off

If you're marketing a book, or yourself, you know it's an endless task. But also, you can post about something else in between your regularly scheduled stuff. It's ok. It makes you human. I'm not even going to say and maybe it'll even drive more engagement!! because who cares??? You can just...post, if you want. Or not! You can take a social media break! I promise you will not lose 347 sales if you don't post for a while. The world will continue to spin. You don't have to apologize to your followers. You can just not. You will not ruin everything. Most people won't even notice, and that's a good thing.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is to not. Endless hustle and grind will wear you down. Give yourself permission to take a break. Do what you want to do, not what you think you should do. There are no emergencies in publishing. Everyone, including you, will live if you take a break.

OXOXOXOXOX,

Kate

Who am I and what is this? This is Agents & Books, a twice-weekly newsletter about writing, publishing, and the creative life. I've been an agent for 20 years, most of it at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency, and I'm the author of two books: Write Through It: An Insider's Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life (Simon Element, 2025) and a picture book called Pay Attention to Me!, with illustrations by Rob Justus (Sourcebooks, 2026). If you haven't already, become a subscriber today. $5 a month or $50 a year. Same price since 2019! Need to cancel? Look here.