In this first installment of Margin Notes—a new series on the big decisions writers face—we explore a question many writers quietly carry:

When life falls apart, do you keep writing… or step away?

Jennie Nash is joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Diana Hill, author of Wise Effort, for a conversation about grief, illness, recovery and the psychology of returning to your work. Dr. Hill will help us explore the emotional and cognitive side of a creative life.

Together, we discuss:

• Why “little by little becomes a lot” matters in recovery

• How grief, illness, addiction, or heartbreak reshape your creative capacity

• The two common paths writers take: stepping away vs. writing to survive

• What negativity bias is—and why it gets louder during hard seasons

• When writing supports healing—and when it becomes avoidance

At the heart of this conversation is a simple idea:

You don’t have to return to writing all at once.
Sometimes, getting to the “mailbox and back” is enough.

Whether you’re navigating loss or a major life transition, this episode offers a compassionate way back to the page—on your own terms.

Books Mentioned

• Wise Effort by Dr. Diana Hill

• Little by Little Becomes a Lot by Eric Zimmer

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  Transcript

(00:00:03):

Hi,

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I’m Jenny Nash,

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and you’re listening to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast,

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the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life,

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love the process,

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and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most.

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This is Margin Notes,

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a new part of the podcast where we’re talking about the big decisions writers face

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in their work on creative lives.

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I’m here today to talk about

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this idea of recovery from illness or a breakup or a major life transition and how

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you get back to your work.

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And I have with me the most of special guests,

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uh,

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Dr.

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Diana Hill,

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who is my friend and my client and my colleague.

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She’s a clinical psychologist.

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Who’s the author of wise effort, how to focus your genius energy on what matters most.

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And she’s going to help us dig into this.

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Welcome Diana.

Diana (00:00:57):

I am so glad to be here.

Diana (00:00:58):

And another form of recovery, recovery from addiction is another one.

Diana (00:01:02):

Like if people are prioritizing their health and recovery in that way,

Diana (00:01:07):

how do you write through that?

Diana (00:01:09):

So I’m super excited to talk with you because I think I’ve been through every

Diana (00:01:11):

single one of those recoveries in some form or another.

(00:01:15):

Well, yeah.

(00:01:16):

And we don’t have to get into it, but you have recently been through some big grief.

(00:01:21):

You’ve been through all these things in your life.

(00:01:23):

So how do you counsel somebody who’s trying to get over something or get through

(00:01:28):

something and also doesn’t want to abandon their writing?

Diana (00:01:33):

Well, there’s a great book that’s coming out.

Diana (00:01:36):

We have to mention a book, support our fellow writers by Eric Zimmer.

Diana (00:01:40):

And I always pick books by their titles in some form or another.

Diana (00:01:44):

And so there’s a great, how about this?

Diana (00:01:46):

There’s a great book title coming out, which is Little by Little.

Diana (00:01:49):

becomes a lot.

Diana (00:01:51):

And I think that’s something to remember in recovery.

Diana (00:01:54):

I remember after I had a C-section,

Diana (00:01:57):

I had two C-sections with my kids and the little by little was,

Diana (00:02:01):

you know,

Diana (00:02:01):

first you make it up to the mailbox and back,

Diana (00:02:04):

right?

Diana (00:02:05):

You’re trying to get back to that three mile walk that you used to do,

Diana (00:02:08):

but up to the mailbox and back was pretty darn amazing after you had a C-section to

Diana (00:02:12):

get to that milestone.

Diana (00:02:13):

And when you’re in recovery from something, you need to shift that

Diana (00:02:19):

the expectation to what is a lot.

Diana (00:02:21):

It’s what is a lot in the context of what you are going through.

Diana (00:02:24):

When you’ve had a C-section, a walk to the mailbox is a lot.

Diana (00:02:27):

When you are in recovery from losing a family member,

Diana (00:02:31):

writing 10 minutes in the morning is a lot.

Diana (00:02:34):

And being able to shift that expectation would be the first thing and remembering

Diana (00:02:37):

that little by little becomes a lot.

Diana (00:02:40):

That’s how we grow it.

Diana (00:02:41):

That’s one of the most foundational aspects of habit formation and psychology,

Diana (00:02:45):

And, uh, really is how I do most everything I do little by little.

Diana (00:02:50):

And then sometimes when I have a boost of energy, I do a lot.

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And is that, do you think that that’s true all the time?

(00:02:58):

Like,

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does it become more true when something intends happens in your life or is it

(00:03:03):

actually true all the time,

(00:03:04):

but we don’t quite see it so clearly?

(00:03:07):

Yeah.

Diana (00:03:07):

Well,

Diana (00:03:08):

I think it’s all the time,

Diana (00:03:09):

but more so when you’re in recovery,

Diana (00:03:12):

because when you’re in recovery from something,

Diana (00:03:16):

you may get exhausted more easily.

Diana (00:03:19):

You also may have some shifts in the way that you see the world and the way you see

Diana (00:03:25):

yourself that,

Diana (00:03:27):

um,

Diana (00:03:28):

That negativity bias may be extra strong or your threat system may be on extra

Diana (00:03:34):

alert so that you’re a little bit more hypervigilant depending on what kind of

Diana (00:03:38):

thing you’re recovering from.

Diana (00:03:39):

And so in that sense,

Diana (00:03:40):

we do need to dial up the gentleness factor that,

Diana (00:03:44):

you know,

Diana (00:03:44):

other times in your life,

Diana (00:03:45):

you maybe just to brush off the intensity of something.

Diana (00:03:49):

But when you’re in recovery,

Diana (00:03:50):

yeah,

Diana (00:03:50):

you need to be extra focused on little by little becoming a lot.

(00:03:54):

Can you explain what you mean by negativity bias, just so our listeners understand that?

Diana (00:04:00):

The negativity bias is just how our brains evolved.

Diana (00:04:03):

We evolved brains to keep us safe, not always to live our best lives.

Diana (00:04:09):

And so that means that you are the ancestor of people who were a little bit anxious.

Diana (00:04:16):

And when they looked out on the savannah and they saw some kind of obscure object

Diana (00:04:20):

out there,

Diana (00:04:21):

they had a tendency to think that that object was dangerous or negative in some

Diana (00:04:25):

way.

Diana (00:04:25):

Yeah.

Diana (00:04:26):

And so they went back into the cave and that’s how you came about because you

Diana (00:04:30):

We’re born from that,

Diana (00:04:31):

but we’ve inherited these negativity biases and they get extra strong when we’re

Diana (00:04:36):

under threat.

Diana (00:04:37):

It doesn’t mean that we can’t override them.

Diana (00:04:40):

It’s more that we learn how to notice them and in some ways allow them to be there

Diana (00:04:45):

while you still move forward towards what your values are,

Diana (00:04:48):

what your goals are,

Diana (00:04:49):

what’s important to you,

Diana (00:04:50):

even with that little bit of a chatter,

Diana (00:04:52):

that little what if mind in the background.

(00:04:55):

So I feel like when a writer is under the thread of something intense,

(00:05:01):

they tend to either take one of two paths in the recovery phase.

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One path would be, I don’t have the time, energy, bandwidth.

(00:05:13):

to add this in, I’m going to push this way off.

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And the other is the opposite.

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And it’s this is going to keep me alive.

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And I, I have to do it.

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I have to keep my project going, keep my writing going, keep my voice up.

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Can you help make sense of those that kind of binary response that I sometimes see?

Diana (00:05:38):

Well,

Diana (00:05:38):

like any kind of story,

Diana (00:05:40):

both of them are stories or frames or interpretations of your experience.

Diana (00:05:45):

There’s usually some kind of nugget of truth in it.

Diana (00:05:47):

And then sort of like that yin-yang sign, there’s also a nugget of not truth in it.

Diana (00:05:52):

So I don’t have enough time is a classic one.

Diana (00:05:54):

I mean,

Diana (00:05:54):

that’s again,

Diana (00:05:55):

whether you’re in recovery or not,

Diana (00:05:56):

that’s a classic writer’s statement of I don’t have enough time.

Diana (00:05:59):

And so we put it off.

Diana (00:06:01):

You know, we say things like in six months when I have things more in order, I’ll get this done.

Diana (00:06:07):

Or I will, would I feel better?

Diana (00:06:10):

I’ll start working on it.

Diana (00:06:11):

But the nature of our experience is that we really never have enough time.

Diana (00:06:16):

It’s more about prioritization of our time.

Diana (00:06:19):

And we miss that reality that when we engage in things that are more meaningful to

Diana (00:06:25):

us,

Diana (00:06:25):

we feel like we have more time.

Diana (00:06:26):

So there’s some research by Cassie Holmes out of UCLA that showed that folks that

Diana (00:06:32):

devoted their time towards others or engaged in meaningful projects actually had

Diana (00:06:36):

more what’s called time affluence.

Diana (00:06:38):

They feel like they had more time.

Diana (00:06:40):

So if you have that feeling,

Diana (00:06:40):

if I don’t have enough time,

Diana (00:06:42):

what you actually may find is if you prioritize your time towards writing,

Diana (00:06:45):

if that’s something you care about,

Diana (00:06:46):

it’s a value that you had prior to the thing that you were struggling with,

Diana (00:06:50):

you actually may end up feeling like you have more time or you may experience a

Diana (00:06:54):

shift in your perspective

Diana (00:06:57):

as a result of doing that writing.

Diana (00:06:59):

I find that all the time.

Diana (00:07:00):

There’s something like exercise is the same thing.

Diana (00:07:02):

Like I don’t really want to do it and then I go do it or I don’t have enough time

Diana (00:07:05):

for it and then I go do it and then I ask myself,

Diana (00:07:07):

why am I not spending more time doing this thing,

Diana (00:07:10):

right?

Diana (00:07:11):

So it can be, yeah.

Diana (00:07:12):

But then the second side of it is that I want to go do this because in some way I

Diana (00:07:21):

feel like it’s going to either help me through or maybe even be a little bit of a

Diana (00:07:24):

distractor

Diana (00:07:26):

Sometimes our work can distract us from other parts of our lives.

Diana (00:07:30):

If it’s aligned with your values, you need a break.

Diana (00:07:33):

So something like grief in particular,

Diana (00:07:35):

people wanna feel really obligated to not feel good or feel obligated to be

Diana (00:07:43):

grieving in a certain way or all the time or not go back to work right away.

Diana (00:07:49):

But the reality is that when you start to

Diana (00:07:52):

do things that bring you joy,

Diana (00:07:54):

it helps you,

Diana (00:07:55):

it gives you more resources for the recovery and the grief that you’re going

Diana (00:07:59):

through.

Diana (00:08:00):

It’s not that we need to be in the bad, dark space all the time.

Diana (00:08:05):

So it can,

Diana (00:08:05):

healthy distraction,

Diana (00:08:07):

especially when it’s aligned with your values,

Diana (00:08:09):

is in psychology,

Diana (00:08:10):

we call it productive procrastination.

Diana (00:08:13):

Maybe you’re actually procrastinating on the grief a little bit by being productive

Diana (00:08:16):

in other ways.

Diana (00:08:17):

And that can be a good thing.

Diana (00:08:18):

It actually can be a helpful thing.

(00:08:20):

Wow, there’s so much to think about here.

(00:08:23):

So in your own experience, which path do you tend to take?

(00:08:28):

Or have you taken both paths at different times?

Diana (00:08:31):

I think I’ve taken both.

Diana (00:08:34):

This most recent round of recovery that I’m kind of a recent loss that I’ve had,

Diana (00:08:40):

I started out with just not wanting to do anything.

Diana (00:08:45):

That kind of like lead weight feeling of I can’t,

Diana (00:08:50):

I’m like walking through molasses in my day and not interested in doing the things

Diana (00:08:56):

that I used to be interested in.

Diana (00:08:57):

I kept having a hard time even getting myself to

Diana (00:09:00):

get dressed,

Diana (00:09:01):

you know,

Diana (00:09:01):

kind of put on nice clothes,

Diana (00:09:03):

blow dry my hair,

Diana (00:09:03):

those kinds of things that I usually do.

Diana (00:09:06):

And what I have found in terms of the writing process for myself,

Diana (00:09:11):

I’m not writing a book right now,

Diana (00:09:12):

but I do write newsletters and I write preparation for podcasts and I write posts

Diana (00:09:17):

and things like that,

Diana (00:09:19):

is that led to me just not wanting to write.

Diana (00:09:22):

And what got me a little unblocked, I hadn’t written my newsletter in quite a while,

Diana (00:09:26):

And I knew I had to do and I was like in the back of my head,

Diana (00:09:28):

like you’re supposed to do a newsletter every month or every two weeks or every

Diana (00:09:31):

week,

Diana (00:09:32):

whatever your cadence is.

Diana (00:09:33):

And so I knew that was in there.

Diana (00:09:37):

And when I,

Diana (00:09:39):

what kind of got me unstuck from that space was when I just decided,

Diana (00:09:44):

this is a little by little becomes a lot thing.

Diana (00:09:46):

When I just decided to take like, what’s one thing I did today that I

Diana (00:09:51):

kind of felt interesting and was connected to a better bigger concept or belief.

Diana (00:09:55):

And I just wrote on that.

Diana (00:09:56):

And it was actually I wrote on doing push ups.

(00:09:59):

Because it was such a great newsletter.

(00:10:01):

I left it.

(00:10:02):

Yeah, it was so great.

Diana (00:10:03):

It was on push ups, because I had I was helping a client who was in their own form of recovery.

Diana (00:10:07):

And, and he’s in was had make that made this goal for himself.

Diana (00:10:12):

And then he challenged me to doing push ups.

Diana (00:10:14):

And

Diana (00:10:15):

This little pushup goal was really helpful for me because it was so orthogonal to my grief.

Diana (00:10:20):

It had so nothing to do with it.

Diana (00:10:21):

What does that mean?

(00:10:22):

I don’t know what that means.

Diana (00:10:23):

It was so orthogonal.

Diana (00:10:26):

It’s going in the opposite direction.

Diana (00:10:28):

It’s not parallel.

Diana (00:10:30):

to my grief.

Diana (00:10:32):

And so my grief was like, had nothing to do with pushups, right?

Diana (00:10:35):

It had to do with friendship and loss and death and,

Diana (00:10:38):

you know,

Diana (00:10:38):

all those things and doing pushups feel so insignificant.

Diana (00:10:41):

But then I was able to,

Diana (00:10:42):

in this newsletter and in this teaching that I ended up doing for a talk that I

Diana (00:10:46):

gave,

Diana (00:10:47):

was able to connect that really small thing to something much bigger,

Diana (00:10:52):

but that came from writing on it.

Diana (00:10:55):

And I wouldn’t have gotten there if I hadn’t written on it.

Diana (00:10:58):

And then what I got to is like,

Diana (00:10:59):

oh,

Diana (00:10:59):

this,

Diana (00:11:00):

you know,

Diana (00:11:00):

doing something small in this way,

Diana (00:11:02):

if you can connect it to love or you can connect it to caring for someone else or

Diana (00:11:08):

supporting someone else or supporting yourself,

Diana (00:11:10):

these four kinds of love in Buddhism.

Diana (00:11:13):

that I wrote about,

Diana (00:11:14):

then you might be,

Diana (00:11:16):

you know,

Diana (00:11:16):

motivated to stick with it a little bit longer.

Diana (00:11:18):

So I guess I started out with the sluggish one of like running away from it,

Diana (00:11:22):

not wanting to feel it,

Diana (00:11:24):

needing to do little by little.

Diana (00:11:25):

And then I moved more into this is like actually a good distraction from my grief,

Diana (00:11:28):

but then it transformed into more meaning for me.

(00:11:32):

And it sounds like now you’re feeling a little energized.

(00:11:35):

Yeah, I’m pumped.

(00:11:36):

I’ve been working today.

(00:11:37):

I like I was back at work and excited.

Diana (00:11:40):

It’s funny because it’s a Sunday, but I’m working and excited.

Diana (00:11:43):

But I was excited to get to work,

Diana (00:11:45):

to work on a project,

Diana (00:11:47):

a talk that I’m giving,

Diana (00:11:48):

which involves,

Diana (00:11:49):

I don’t know,

Diana (00:11:49):

I guess in some ways,

Diana (00:11:51):

talks are a form of writing,

Diana (00:11:52):

like making out your slides.

Diana (00:11:53):

It’s sort of like outlining a talk.

(00:11:55):

100%.

(00:11:56):

It’s figuring out what you think, raising your voice, deciding what you want to say.

(00:12:02):

It’s all good.

(00:12:03):

Well,

(00:12:04):

what would you,

(00:12:05):

what nugget would you give our listeners to take away if this is resonating with

(00:12:09):

them,

(00:12:09):

this idea of I’m recovering from something and trying to figure out where my

(00:12:13):

writing fits in?

Diana (00:12:16):

I think the nugget is that we’re always in recovery from something.

Diana (00:12:20):

You know, sometimes it’s big recoveries and sometimes it’s small.

Diana (00:12:23):

And the beauty of recovery is that when something gets broken,

Diana (00:12:30):

you’re not necessarily gonna put it back to how it was before,

Diana (00:12:34):

but you get this chance to rearrange it.

Diana (00:12:36):

It’s sort of like if you throw a deck of cards in the air and they fall on the

Diana (00:12:39):

ground and you put them back in order in a different way,

Diana (00:12:43):

like what card do you wanna have on top?

Diana (00:12:45):

So you move from this harmony to disharmony to a new harmony.

Diana (00:12:49):

And if you do it in a way that has just like,

Diana (00:12:51):

go at the pace that you can go a little bit by little bit and sometimes a big bit,

Diana (00:12:57):

But trust that this recovery process is part of a new harmony for you.

Diana (00:13:02):

There will be magic that comes out of it.

Diana (00:13:08):

And we don’t always get to control the pacing and timing of when that magic happens.

Diana (00:13:12):

But it’ll come to you.

(00:13:14):

That’s beautiful.

(00:13:15):

Thank you for that.

(00:13:16):

And thank you for joining me.

(00:13:17):

I hope you’ll do it regularly.

Diana (00:13:19):

Thank you.

(00:13:20):

And thanks, everyone, for listening.

(00:13:22):

Now let’s get back to work and finish what matters most.

Jennie (00:13:33):

The Hashtag AmWriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perilla.

Jennie (00:13:37):

Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday, was written and played by Max Cohen.

Jennie (00:13:44):

Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output because everyone

Jennie (00:13:49):

deserves to be paid for their work.