Wants and Needs

Are you paying attention to both in your work?; my no-buy year; makeup; the last drink.

Hi everyone,

First let’s just start here, with one of the most amazing paragraphs on why to write I’ve ever seen. This is Dorianne Laux. My best friend Genevieve Hudson texted this to me, always with the best poems and snippets.

Wrestle with the angel, feel the devil gather on its haunches and rise. To be doing something while I wait to be called to my appointment with death. Oof.

Thank you, Dorianne.

Okay, a quick run down of today’s content: we have a bit of a craft moment where I discuss an important aspect of novel or story writing that I believe to be instantly clarifying, then I write a bit about how I arrived at a no-buy year (I know I am not alone in this which is sort of thrilling to see it spread in the collective!), and a reflection on my last and final drink in the glimmer of celebrating seventeen years of sobriety and rock bottom moments that evoke the greatest changes.

Please note: I, like all of you, am heartbroken and without the right words over at the devastation of beloved Los Angeles. I have so many beautiful memories and so many beautiful friends there who are grieving enormous loss. This post will talk about not buying in a moment that many are without their beloved things and are facing having to replace everything. I am not tone deaf to this fact. I only share my isolated experience with consumerism as a way to parse out my complicated relationship with purchasing and being “influenced” online, knowing that this is not everyone’s option or story at this moment.

*like always, the sensitive goodies in this post are paywalled :) Thank you for supporting this publication.

Wants and Needs and the Tension Therewithin

I recently read The Thorn Necklace by Francesca Lia Block, a writer in Los Angeles who teaches workshops and has written many books. The Thorne Necklace is sort of a craft book weaving her “12 questions” method for writing a novel throughout a memoir-style meditation on the writing life. Two of the questions really jumped out to me—what does your character want, and what does your character need? It’s something that feels like at once an obvious consideration, but then also a groundbreaking one, and something that I do believe can be instantly useful in your process of writing a novel or story.

From The Thorne Necklace

Essentially the idea is that we need to be aware of both, and that the wants of the character are rooted in conscious desire, while the needs are far deeper, more psychological, and often unconscious. “The want is the initial obstacle that the character faces, while the need is the deeper story problem,” Block writes.

I would add that the most important thing beyond identifying what these things are your character, is that there must be tension between the two. Let me demonstrate with Madwoman as it’s a story I know well. Clove’s wants are to have a stable, “normal” life and for the secrets of her past to stay buried. She wants to not carry her story around. Her needs however are in direct contrast to this—for her highest good she needs to confront said secrets and bring the truth of the past into the light if she wants to ever be truly free. This is a deeper, more difficult, more painful, and ultimately more full and beautiful path than what she wants. What she wants isn’t sustainable though it is easier in the moment. The path toward the need is the novel itself and the journey the character must take. It’s the path of facing the worst possible thing, the path of honesty, and in the character’s resistance to all of that, you have humor, foibles, heartbreak and life. In her case, her wants and needs are in contrast to each other. Lots of natural tension there.

Sometimes when I read a book that isn’t working yet, it’s because the writer is not utilizing these two forces to their ultimate power. Or, they might not even be aware of those deeper needs. It’s not surprising that this happens—so often we’re told to lead with what the character wants and that their desire is the ultimate guide, but that’s only the first part of it.

We must also consider: What does your character need?

It’s sort of the same thing in life, too, right? I want certain things maybe on a surface level but they may actually not match up with what I need to experience for my highest growth. I may want to keep the peace in a relationship, but if it’s at the cost of my own peace then it’s not really what I need. I think often our needs will boil over and grab our attention if we ignore them or get lost in the land of want. And this is a good thing, an instructive thing.

Often my needs present themselves as little blips of thought. Just tiny moments of knowing that if I’m paying attention I can grab onto. Sometimes they are booming loud and impossible to ignore. We usually know deep down what these things are and when we allow for a moment of meditative consideration, they come and say hello.

Social Media

This connects to my next topic in terms of my own wants and needs. I realized late at the end of 2024 that if I wanted to make the art I want to make and live creatively and be tuned in to my deeper waters, that I would need to step aside from social media being available on my phone. This isn’t new news. I’ve always known having it off my phone is optimal for me, but with a book coming out, I had started feeling like it was acceptable to do drugs around the clock. What if I missed a post about said book? What if I didn’t respond to someone? Did my sales depend on this? Was my connection with my audience on the line?

I think this being my third book I can finally say where I’ve landed with this after multiple release experiences: the book is ultimately the offering. I already wrote the thing and offered it, and so in a way have already completed my communication. In addition to the book, I have made available everything I possibly could for someone to find such book, to understand what it’s about and why I wrote it, and much more. I’ve said yes to interviews, and I’ve written the essays and I did the stuff you are supposed to do. But social media has a way of making us feel that nothing is ever enough.

(I’m not naive enough to think we as writers can forego social media promotion. That’s not what this is about. I think we have to do it smartly and be aware that we also need to know when to call it. When to be like, okay, I did enough.)

Finally, an intuitive healer told me that my book was a “hard worker” and was out there connecting with people, and also that I had said everything I needed to say about it. This registered as totally true to me by that point. There really wasn’t anything left to say. I could step out of the torrent of constant checking, constant replies, and the feeling that the job was never done. What was harder for my ego was not posting every little bit of good news as it came in. In general I’m a huge proponent of posting alllll the good shit because it’s expanding for us all to see writers succeeding out there. But posting it would mean putting the app back on my phone and entering back into the spiral. It didn’t seem worth it.

No Buy Time

I also realized around this time I would need to step aside from buying more shit, namely clothing and cosmetics. A small digression perhaps but it feels related: When I started this substack the name Make Up Your Life was a play on both makeup and also the choices that make up our lives, like ‘make up your mind’. But I soon realized after a few posts I didn’t actually care about makeup in a real way. That while I was initially interested in the ways my use of products had a psychological underpinning, I quickly ran out of gas and mostly became more aware and increasingly disillusioned with the amount of time and money I’ve already spent on cosmetics in the pursuit of a feeling that is so short lived, so fickle, and is mostly draining of both time and resources. It turns out for the most part, a blush is a blush, and there is only one mascara to rule them all and I already found it ;)

I wore a dress to a recent event I’ve worn many times before, and you know what, it was great.

While I am quick to acknowledge makeup’s empowering aspects, I also feel uncomfortable when I notice my ten year old daughter and her friends already attuned to that industry and its promises. What started as a fun time with lipgloss and what seemed like an innocent desire for face masks, made me have to contend with the fact of her absorbing the promise that still lies beneath it all—that she will be somehow enhanced or better after using the product. So here she was digesting that faulty message, and also we were out $5 a mask.

I love the ways that women bond over beauty rituals, I love the way it can feel so nourishing to engage in self care, the emotional nature of my mother’s trademark lipstick and I love the fun my daughter and I had putting on the masks together. But lurk lurk lurk. Wants and needs again. I want to connect with my daughter. And I need to check in with some of the deeper layers.

The other thing is that in this inquiry I’ve really been more and more happy with how I look and feel without makeup. Several people sent me this clip of Pam talking about her love of Carl Jung sporting her now trademark no makeup look. It was interesting to me that people thought of me when they saw this but it also makes sense to me. It’s an energy I’ve been enjoying for myself lately.

So, without buying and without social media, other things fill in. I nearly instantly snap into a more authentic connected version of me that is very clear about what I actually like and naturally desires less. I like yoga pants and giant wool sweaters everyday in the winter with Blundstone boots. I like sweating and swimming. I like how it feels when I can rub my eyeballs and I love short unpolished nails so I can write as fast as I wanna. This is just what my body wants right now. It’s what feels good right now. It has nothing to do with anyone else, but social media makes us feel interconnected in ways that can be false and by now this falseness feels draining. I want real connection. I want to sit quietly and think about the imaginal and…soups.

Real connection; also do you spy The Body Keeps the Score in the background?

The Last Drink

Finally feeling tired of spending money on things like clothes and makeup felt akin to the relief of taking one’s final drink—you just know it ain’t working anymore.

It made me think of one of my final nights drinking.