Do It Because It's Fun

On Art, Achievement, and Alysa Liu. Plus two upcoming releases, how to fight book bans, and more!

Wang Zhao / AFP via Getty Images

I like lists. I make them constantly. Not just lists of errands to do, books to write, and people to call, but lists of paintings I love, and places to have picnics, and songs on topics like birds, swimming, dreams, and money. I once made a list ranking the letters of the alphabet in order of preference. If there’s something in my brain, it will usually become a list before it becomes anything else, which is how it happened that I attempted to make a list of things I’m good at. I came up with two: talking to strangers and writing.

Talking to strangers is part of my job as a journalist, so even though I’m not one of those people who makes friends with every person she encounters, I am reasonably good at getting a conversation started. As for writing, well, it’s all in the eye of the beholder, but I figure if I’m good enough to have made my living at it for more than three decades, it probably can go on the list.

After that, I ran I out of ideas.

The list of things I do without caring at all whether or not I do them “well” is much longer. I love to draw, for example, and I love to sing, and I can state objectively that I’m not particularly good at either. And that’s fine. I don’t actually need to be good at them. In fact, not being good might be part of what makes these activities fun. I’m not striving for improvement; I’m just playing.

Don’t get me wrong—I would love to be a really good singer. If I thought it would give other people pleasure, I would sing every moment of the day. I would love to be better at drawing than I am, and the small improvements I make are sources of immense pride. But I don’t draw in order to be good at drawing or sing in order to be good at singing. I’m not trying to win prizes or entertain an audience or make a career or even cash in on all the good brain health and stress reduction benefits. In fact, I’m not trying to do anything at all. I’m just…doing. Because it’s fun.

“We do it for fun!” is something I say every time I jump into the chill of San Francisco Bay, particularly when it’s cold and dark and every cell in my body is questioning my choices. I say it to remind myself that I am doing this absurd thing voluntarily, and because, frankly, it cracks me up. In other words, I say it for fun.

All of which brings me to Olympic figure skater and Oakland hometown hero, Alysa Liu, whose flawless Olympic performance should remind all of us to do more things for fun. Liu, you may recall, retired from competition four years ago, at sixteen. She’d already had an impressive career, becoming the first U.S. woman to land a quadruple jump in international competition, and had placed sixth in the Beijing Olympics. But the relentless training schedule had leached the joy from the sport. She missed being a regular teenager. She missed having fun.

“[A]t the time, I thought the only way for me to do that was to leave because I really felt trapped and stuck,” she explained recently.

When she came out of retirement, it was on different terms. She hired her own coach, with clear conditions about who was in charge. "I get to pick my own program music," Liu later told Sixty Minutes. "I get to help with the creative process of the program. If I feel like I'm skating too much, I'll back down. If I feel like I'm not skating enough I'll ramp it up. No one's gonna starve me or tell me what I can and can't eat." Medals and trophies were no longer going to be the measure of her worth, not as a skater and not as a person.

Instead, she reveled in the intrinsic pleasure of being one of the most accomplished athletes in the world, of being able to do things that most humans can’t even imagine doing. “I don’t need a medal,” she said at the start of Olympic competition. “I just need to be here, and I just need to be present.”

Being present is something we are often exhorted to do, but it’s rare that you can actually see someone doing it. But Liu was present as fuck. During competition, you could see her there, in her body, enjoying its gorgeous strength and agility. She was doing it for fun.

Doing it for fun doesn’t mean you don’t work hard or have ambitions. Liu didn’t get to the Olympics by skating around the rink a few times and calling it a day. But this time around, Liu figured out how to keep her skill from devouring her art. “Mistakes are beautiful too,” she told the Today Show in February, “so I don’t really mind making mistakes.”

Anyone who tries to be good at something discovers that at some point you have to set aside the rigidity and perfectionism you acquired along the way. Artists talk all the time about trying to get looser, or cultivating “beginner’s mind,” because feeling free enough to make mistakes is how you make something interesting and exciting.

Anyone who has ever tried to speak a second language has discovered that fluency requires stumbling through vocabulary you don’t have and conjugations you don’t remember. You’ll never get there if you try to be perfect. The same fearlessness is required for creativity. I often tell my students that 90 percent of writing is anxiety management, by which I mean that you have to find a way to stave off your fear of failing.

Fun is the enemy of fear. You could see it on the ice during the Olympics: the skaters who looked terrified and tight (almost everyone) vs. the ones who looked loose and joyful (Alysa Liu).

As Liu observed, mistakes have their own beauty. Sometimes they allow us to break free of established routes and wander the uncharted edges of the map. Sometimes they just give us a reason to laugh. Either way, you have to be willing to be absolutely god-awful at some of the things you do.

Not because doing so will help you win Olympic gold. Just because it’s fun.

In Other News:

Say Hello To Good Night, Escargot

Good Night Escargot, the fifth book in the series, will hit the stores on April 14 and it just got its first review, from Kirkus:

Methinks the gastropod doth protest too much.

Grab your pjs, toothbrush, and sleeping bag, because everyone’s favorite snail is inviting you to “a soirée pyjama”! Now starring in a fifth adventure, Escargot is quite the self-described expert on everything sleepover. There are movies to watch and snacks to eat. There’s also one activity that is forbidden: falling asleep! Luckily, Escargot has a foolproof plan to postpone sleep. Anytime readers see the snail starting to drift off, they are to yell, “WAKE UP, ESCARGOT!” As time passes, Escargot begins to fade, but our tiny hero initially refuses to admit defeat: “Probably you were sleeping and you dreamed that Escargot was asleep.” But finally, Escargot capitulates to exhaustion—and perhaps readers will, too, lulled by the sleepy snail’s soothing words: “Let us close our eyes and maybe also our mouths…. But first, I must give you a kiss good night. Mwah!” With oversize, Disneyesque eyes and ineffable charm, Escargot is cuteness incarnate, while Slater’s peppy narration is a delight. Consider reading this book at storytime in a French accent. The book includes both familiar French terms and those likely to be new (like doudou for “stuffie”).

Magnifique! An ideal choice to share before a child’s first sleepover. (Picture book. 3-6)

I’ll be heading out on a multi-state tour in April—stay tuned for dates and venues. While you’re waiting, why not order a few copies for yourself and your friends? As you’ve probably heard before, pre-orders really help a book get its footing.

Dive In To Deep Blue

Kayla, the imaginative star of Wild Blue, is back with a new adventure in Deep Blue, which hits the stores on April 7. Born from my love of open water swimming, it’s a celebration of imagination, adventure, salt water, and the bond between father and daughter. School Library Journal calls it, “An inspired and joyful boost to both new swimmers and those experiencing the ocean for the first time; a first purchase for picture book collections.”

You can pre-order it here.

Level Up Your Writing Skills

The very exciting, brand-spankin’ new MFA program in Writing For Young Readers launches in June with our very first cohort of students. But for those not ready to dive into an MFA, or with an MFA already under their belts, we have six different specialized certification courses to teach you exactly what you want to know. Learn more here.

Help Fight Book Bans!

1. The documentary The Librarians is now available for streaming. If you love books and you care about book bans, this film is a must-see. My book The 57 Bus has been banned in just about every district featured in the film, so I feel a particularly strong sense of connection to this film. It’s inspiring as well as enraging, and if you love librarians (who doesn’t?!) already you will love them even more when you see how hard they’re fighting for the right to read.

• Watch on PBS.

• Watch on YouTube.

• Learn more about what’s happening here.

• Donate to Authors Against Book Bans.

2. We need everyone who loves books to help fight the Federal Book Ban Law, H.R. 7661. If passed, my book The 57 Bus, would be banned from every school library in the United States. Why? Because one of the two main characters is non-binary and the bill bans any book that discusses “gender dysphoria or transgenderism.” As Every Library explains, “This bill places the federal government in the position of dictating what young people are permitted to read by threatening to withhold funding if certain viewpoints or topics appear in school collections. Using financial leverage to pressure schools to remove books is not educational policy. It is a federal intrusion into local decision-making and a direct challenge to the freedom to read.”

• Sign the petition opposing this terrible law.

• If you are represented by someone who sits on the Education and Workforce committee, call them and remind them that censorship is un-American.

  

• Wherever you live, please call your representatives to let them know that you oppose this bill and expect them to do the same, AND if the bill is likely to pass anyway, you want them to support an amendment that would require a unanimous vote for removal, which would make it harder to use the law for ideological purposes.

I bow to you,

Dashka

P.S. If you don’t already subscribe to my other newsletter, A Sigh of Relief, check out my piece about knocking on doors in Bakersfield, CA.