The Publishing Grind is Not Your Friend
Picture this:
It's 6 AM and you're reaching for your phone before your feet hit the floor.
Instagram story posted? Check.
Twitter engagement? Better respond to those mentions.
Email newsletter draft? Still sitting in your inbox, taunting you.
And you haven't even had coffee yet.
You mentally run through today's writing goals while brushing your teeth, calculating whether you can squeeze in 2,000 words between your day job and that book marketing webinar you signed up for. Again.
Sound familiar?
If this exhausting routine feels like your reality, you're not alone.
You've been caught in what I call the Publishing Grind—and friend, it's not serving you, your creativity, or your readers.
What Publishing Grind Culture Actually Looks Like
The grind has convinced us that the "successful author" is always visible, always producing, always marketing.
We've internalized a hamster wheel mentality where we believe we must write faster, publish more, post daily, and engage constantly just to stay relevant.
The messaging is everywhere:
"Real authors write every day" (even when they're sick, grieving, or uninspired)
"You should be building your platform while you write" (because apparently, creativity and marketing should happen simultaneously)
"Successful authors never stop hustling" (rest is for people who don't want success badly enough)
But here's what nobody talks about: the hidden costs. The creative depletion. The loss of joy in the process that made you fall in love with writing in the first place.
The burnout that leaves you staring at a blank page, wondering if you even have anything meaningful left to say.
Where This Pressure Actually Comes From
In her powerful book, We Will Rest! The Art of Escape, Tricia Hersey exposes how capitalism has invaded our creative spaces.
As she writes, "We subject our bodies and minds to work at an unrealistic, damaging, and machine‑level pace –– feeding into the same engine that enslaved millions into brutal labor for its own relentless benefit."
The publishing industry hasn't escaped this influence.
Market demands have invaded the creative process, turning what should be a deeply personal, iterative practice into a content creation machine.
We're told to treat our creativity like a factory, pumping out products at machine-level pace.
But here's the thing—you're not a machine. Your creativity isn't a factory. And the systems demanding this pace from you?
As Hersey reminds us, "Our worth does not reside in how much we produce, especially not for a system that exploits and dehumanizes us."
The Real Cost to Authors
The grind culture doesn't just make you tired—it fundamentally changes your relationship with your craft.
Creatively…
Constant pressure stifles authentic voice and risk-taking. When you're always focused on what will sell, what will trend, what will build your platform, you stop writing from your soul. You start writing from your anxiety.
Personally…
The costs pile up: strained relationships because you're always "working," health issues from chronic stress, and the gradual erosion of joy in the process that once energized you.
Professionally…
Burnt-out authors often produce lower-quality work. Rushing to meet arbitrary productivity goals leads to books that feel forced rather than authentic. And readers can tell the difference.
As a community…
Grind culture isolates authors from each other. Instead of celebrating each other's successes, we start measuring our worth against other people's social media metrics and publication timelines.
Case Study: When the Grind Catches Up
I knew an author whose career perfectly reflected the grind culture mentality. Every post screamed productivity: "I write 5,000 words daily!" "New book every six months!" "Follow my writing journey live on social!"
Her brand was built entirely around being a content creation machine.
Until it wasn't.
After her third book launched to lukewarm reception, she found herself completely creatively depleted.
She said she wanted to rebrand, but what she really needed was permission to rest.
Her career rebranding became an exercise in reclaiming her humanity—moving from "productivity performer" to "thoughtful storyteller."
The result?
A brand that felt authentic, sustainable, and actually attracted readers who connected with her stories rather than her output metrics.
Signs You're Caught in the Grind
Take a moment and honestly assess where you are:
Do you feel guilty when you're not writing or promoting?
Does your worth feel tied to your daily word count or social media metrics?
Are you constantly comparing your productivity to other authors?
Have you lost the joy in your creative process?
Does your website feel like a constant sales pitch rather than an invitation into your world?
Do you find yourself saying "I should be writing" more than "I want to write"?
If you nodded along to most of these, you're not broken. You're human. And you've been conditioned to believe that your creativity should serve a system that, frankly, doesn't deserve it.
Permission to Resist
Here's what I want you to take away from Hersey’s book: Rest becomes "an act of resistance and a reclaiming of power because it asserts our most basic humanity."
When you step off the hamster wheel, you're not being lazy. You're being revolutionary.
Your creativity belongs to you first—not to the market, not to social media algorithms, not to arbitrary productivity standards.
As Hersey reminds us, "The systems will never give us rest. It is something we must create for ourselves and each other."
This resistance isn't just about self-care (though that matters).
It's about preserving authentic creativity in a world that wants to turn everything into money-making content.
Imagining a Different Way Forward
What if your author career felt spacious instead of frantic?
What if your website reflected the depth of your creativity rather than the speed of your productivity?
What if you measured success by the resonance of your work rather than the frequency of your posts?
This isn't just wishful thinking. There's another way to approach your writing career—one that honors both your creative process and your humanity.
In my next post, I'll share exactly how to channel what Hersey calls "trickster energy" to transform your relationship with your writing career. You'll learn how to subvert the grind while still building a sustainable author platform that serves your actual goals.
But for now, I want you to try one small act of resistance:
This week, write something that will never be published.
Write a scene that serves no platform-building purpose. Create something purely for the joy of creation. Notice how it feels to write without the weight of productivity pressure.
Your creativity has been hijacked by systems that don't understand its true value. It's time to take it back.
