“The Bear” is one of my favorite new TV shows, for all the reasons the critics and viewers love it: the rich characters, the toxic-family and mental health backstories, the soundtrack (it’s essentially a “favorites” playlist for me), the food porn and love letter to Chicago.
But another thing I adore is when an episode cuts to a shot of the notes the chefs write to themselves and each other. Over and over, those notes include the reminder to Keep going.
When the doors open for service at the restaurant, no one in the kitchen has the luxury to stop. Not to contemplate next steps, to freak out and become paralyzed, to throw a temper tantrum and stomp away. They have to keep cooking and serving—through anger, humiliation, grief, fear. Yes, even through self-loathing.
Every time I see this reminder, it's like a nudge.
I become easily stuck, by anxiety and self-doubt. I worry about what others think, become downhearted when I feel like I’m failing, start to feel exhausted by dwelling on all those other emotions. I overthink a lot. Then I get mired in worry, procrastinate by doing things like mindlessly scrolling social media or lying in bed playing word games on my phone.
The reminder to keep going inspires me. It helps me to put all of those emotions out of my mind to focus on the thing in front of me and make progress on it, even if it’s just a few steps forward. If I can carve out even a little space and time to work on something I care about—putting aside self-criticism, worry, doubt, and pessimism to simply move a story forward and lose myself in the fun of working out a creative problem—over time that starts to add up to something bigger.
The message also applies to the stories themselves. After I wrote the (very, very long) first draft of my novel, my editor Ericka’s main piece of feedback was that the story got “a little baggy” in the middle. It’s one of the things new writers tend to do, to fall so in love with writing detail and setting scenes that we don’t move the story forward. Getting pacing right is one of the toughest parts of telling a story, and it takes some practice to get a feel for when you’ve lingered on a detail or a moment too long and need to move forward.
I’m not under the gun like a chef. Writing for me is a hobby, not a job. Nothing falls apart if I don’t continue writing. But getting better at this, figuring out how to tell stories better and better, matters very much to me. So when I aspire each morning to make progress toward my goals, I think of Carmy and Syd and Richie and Sugar, and I remind myself that—even if every second doesn’t count—I need to shut out the mental distractions and keep going.
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