JOURNAL
Jia Tolentino on Writing and Motherhood
Jia Tolentino and her daughter, Paloma, photographed by Jessica Antola
How has becoming a mother changed, if at all, the way you approach your work?
Two answers sprang to mind, and they both feel accurate despite being contradictory—motherhood has changed my approach to work completely, and also not at all.
I think there have also been stages to this. By the time I had Paloma in August 2020, my approach to work had already gone through a big shift. Publishing Trick Mirror had left me with a kind of low-level spiritual hangover, where I wanted to lower my profile and make myself less useful to structures I disliked. And then the stakes of the quarantine era and summer 2020—and an attempt I was making to pay more attention to the physical, natural world—made me less interested in writing quickly and responsively, especially about the internet, as I had been doing since I started working as a writer around 2012. So Paloma came at a time when I was already trying to work less compulsively, to be quieter, to decenter myself, and her exhilarating, devastating, magnificent presence gave me no choice. I have said this a lot, but early motherhood was like an acid trip: the present moment was so enormous and terrifying and blissful and overwhelming. Totally absorbing. And as someone who finds it maybe too easy to get totally absorbed in work, it was hard and useful to have something else supplant that place in my life.
But the question of motherhood’s intersection with work is really just a question of how the labor is being divided and valued. I think a serious precondition of me even considering having a kid was establishing that both me and my partner were committed to each other's autonomy and the work required to preserve it. We balanced the first five months alone, with a lot of family help, and then we had an incredible person as our nanny, three days a week, from five months to a year. When Paloma turned one, we got her into full-time daycare. From that point on, I was back to feeling more or less like myself during work hours. There’s a certain level of very deep focus that I assume will be gone for a while, now that it’s not really plausible for me to disappear for full weekends to think, as I used to try to do pretty regularly. I’ve shifted the kind of work I’m doing a little; about half my time is spent screenwriting these days, because the benefits are much better (shoutout to the WGA) and the work is more suited to kid-induced fragmentation. But I feel glad to be able to return every day to the place I feel most comfortable: struggling in front of a computer monitor, word by word.
It’s interesting thinking about this as I get ready for the arrival of a second child. I hope that the postpartum process of losing sight of one’s life and then slowly regaining it feels less momentous and existential this time around, and that I’ll be more like, “Sure, my brain is made of kinetic sand with Cheerios crushed in it, but there’ll be plenty of time in the future to be incisive and coherent because life, hopefully, is long.”
What does your writing process look like? When and where do you write?
I have always been very non-precious about my “process,” to the point that I can’t even say that word with a straight face, because I absolutely do not have one. I used to love writing from, say, 9:30 PM to 12:30 AM, stoned, listening to music, but I can’t do that anymore because Paloma goes to bed late and by the time she’s down I am usually ready for oblivion. But I always wrote wherever there was even a tiny bit of time to do so—I’ve done a lot of work while waiting for my bag to emerge at baggage claim at random airports. I work when Paloma’s in preschool, and, though I think this is unhealthy, also often while she watches her tablet at night and when she naps on the weekends. I work at home, mostly, in my living room, though after baby #2 that’ll change; my partner is staying home for a year to be a full-time caregiver, which will be incredible, but I’ll need to get the hell out of there.
I think it helps that I’m pretty directed about how I use my time. If I’m incapable of thinking, I’ll go out and do something else right away—no loafing around and scrolling listlessly at home allowed, it’s a bad vibe. If I’ve got some juice, I’ll work, but I try to always do whatever part of work feels the least forced for my mood. I also think that the most important part of writing, aside from writing, is just reading so, so much, out of nothing except pure curiosity and pleasure. In general the more time I can spend talking to people in real life about things, and physically experiencing new things, and reading books that come from nowhere except my own desire to feel or learn something, the better my writing life will always be.
Who are some of your “north star” writers—those whose work has meant a great deal to you over the years, or has informed your own in some way?
I am kind of anti-totem, but I am also voracious and an enthusiast and I admire more than anything writers who are able to convey something absolutely specific and honest and alive in their work. Nonfiction: of course there’s Janet Malcolm and Joan Didion and Susan Sontag and Eve Babitz; Greg Tate and Ellen Willis; Rebecca Solnit, Patricia Lockwood.
I admire Matthew Desmond’s work so much—how he translates social policy and economic structure into human detail—and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family means a lot to me in that vein, too. Jenny Odell, a friend, feels like someone whose work I live in a real relationship with; same with Angela Garbes. David Graeber and Shoshanna Zuboff, their work is always in the back of my head. I admire Zadie Smith and James Baldwin for many things but especially the way they’re so powerful in both fiction and nonfiction.
And then actually I spend most of my reading time with fiction. The books I’ve repurchased multiple times because I keep giving them away to friends, they all skew expansive in some way:
-Ted Chiang’s story collections
-the Three-Body Problem trilogy
- Ferrante
...I could go on but I’m already answering the next question.
To that end, we love a curated reading list, and would love to know if there are a few books you've read lately that you've really enjoyed.
I’ve been raving about Lonesome Dove all over the place—my friend Will recommended it to me before I went on a very precious work trip involving very precious alone time, and I cried so hard finishing it on the plane back. Maggie Millner’s Couplets, a recommendation from my friend Walt, was very good. I loved The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki—also a book that friends texted me about! All the good stuff always is.
“[My daughter] came at a time when I was already trying to work less compulsively, to be quieter, to decenter myself, and her exhilarating, devastating, magnificent presence gave me no choice.”
Paloma wears the Little Wendelin Dress, Jia wears the Josette Dress
Jia wears the Quinn Dress, Paloma wears the Lily Dress
Jia wears the Como Dress
Published May, 21 2023
