Let's talk about hustle culture...

and why I think a lot of people are using the term wrong.

Hello, everyone! I hope this post finds you…away from your computer. You know, maybe on a beach somewhere or sitting near a lake in a place where you don’t have much signal. I guess I don’t want it to find you. Hah. Anyway, one of the reasons why I started this thing is because sometimes trying to break things down on social media is impossible. Hustle culture is definitely one of them, so let’s get to it.

I know hustle culture is bad. I know it ruins people in different ways. I also know hustling for what you want is great and that hustling is the way to make your dreams come true. So yeah, let’s start there: for me, the biggest difference between hustling—the thing I’m always talking about and the thing that has gotten me the few wins I’ve had—and hustle culture, which is toxic as fuck, is that the former is something you do for yourself because you want to and the latter is what your boss asks you to do for a company that doesn't give a shit about you.

Listen, I used to work for a life insurance company called Citizens Inc. here in Austin. We were asked to come in on Saturdays once in a while and had to clock in and out even when we went to lunch. A family member got very sick and needed my help, so I was forced to take a week off. That’s five days off. When I came back to work, they fired me. Places like that have hustle culture and no fucking soul. I also taught high school for two years. If you know any teachers, ask them how their work-life balance is doing these days. I graded essays for Pearson at night and had to drive back home at 10:00pm for weeks with my left eye closed because I had a slashed cornea and couldn’t tale days off because the project had to be finished. I sold clothes for men at a store back home called Donato. They didn't even want us going to the bathroom while we were out on the floor. We worked December 24th and 31st, as well as a bunch of other days. I paid for my MA working construction. Sometimes we worked seven days per week. I taught English to undocumented workers at a school on North Lamar. If you got stuck in traffic, they took a few dollars out of your paycheck. I could go on and on, but I know most people reading it had—or currently have!—jobs like that. Those places had hustle culture. They were all about the bottom line and fuck you, your family, your time, your mental health, and your dreams. While I was working at all those places that had hustle culture, I was hustling to become a full-time writer. Big difference.

I know that sometimes personal stories don’t really get the point across, so let me break down some of the most important aspects of hustle culture so you can see how they don’t apply to writers (or at least how they don’t apply to me; if you want to see other writers as your competition, that’s on you!).

• Hustle culture is about being super productive all the time. Do more and more and more and make sure the boss can see you doing it. Fuck that. Writing is often about grabbing a cup of coffee and sitting under a tree to think about your work in progress. I get a ton of “work” done while walking the dog, for example. And I don’t care who sees me working. Not the same.

• Hustle culture is where work is the center of your life and your work-life balance is nonexistent. That’s not the case when you’re a writer. Yes, writing is at the center of my life, but I enjoy life and don’t write every day. If you can, good for you, but I was never one of those writers who can put thousands of words down daily. My family and friends know I’m there. Work-life balance is never an issue for me.

• Hustle culture is the worst thing for mental health. Writing saved my life. Also—and this is something you can see on my social media all the time if you care to look—I’m always telling writers to ignore the haters, read or watch a movie if they’re not feeling it, and to take walks, listen to the birds, and take care of their mental health at all times. I think many crime and horror authors…well, we hurt ourselves often when we write. We dig deep and pull out things that hurt and use that as fuel. After we do that, we have to take care of ourselves. I remember fellow teachers panicking because they wanted to take a mental health day and had to prepare lesson plans and packets so they could do that. As a writer, I take a mental health day whenever I want, but I never need to because I’m doing what I love.

• Hustle culture turns everyone around you into your competition because you need to accomplish more than them. You need to work harder then everyone else and get better numbers or sales or results or whatever. As writers, we support each other. No one is my competition and I celebrate when my friends land agents, get good contracts, publish awesome books (which I read and review whenever I can), and get nominated for something or win an award.

• Hustle culture usually involves someone else’s vision and goals. It’s for a company or a boss who says you’re all “family” at that company or whatever. Hustling as a writer is just getting the stories in your head onto paper and then getting them published. Writing is hard work. It’s has a lot of ups and downs, a lot of waiting and rejection. Getting published is hard work. Selling books is fucking hard work! (Please preorder House of Bone and Rain: https://www.amazon.com/House-Bone-Rain-Gabino-Iglesias/dp/0316427012/) That said, no one has ever gotten black lung from being a writer. I sit at home and write stories. It’s the best gig I’ve ever had and I’m happier than I’ve ever been. See the difference?

Every time I tweet something about hustling, I get three or four days of replies and DMs telling me that hustle culture is bad, toxic, awful. Yeah, hustle culture is bad, but that is never been what I’m talking about. This is the last tweet that got me a few days of replies from angry people (it’s from April 19th):

Wrote a book? Cool, now write the next one. Out on sub? Write the next one. Won an award? Write the next one. Didn’t even get nominated? Write the next one. Querying agents? Write the next one. Waiting for pub day? Write the next one. Always be writing the next one.

Writers write. It’s what we do. It’s want we WANT to do. It’s what we think about doing while we’re at that other job we have to do to pay the bills. It’s what we think about when we’re stuck in traffic or taking a shower or waiting in line for something. Not writing is not an option. We write because we must, because it’s inside us, not because our boss is telling us to. Our only competition is the writer who wrote our last book; we want to be better each time, and that’s okay. Hustling to get that WIP finished or to get an agent or that contract or that book in front of readers or whatever else you want is hustling for your dreams, not “hustle culture.” If I say “Hustle for what you want!” and you go “Hell yeah! Let me put some words down today,” good for you. If you see that message and go, “No, hustle culture is toxic,” then I wish you all the luck in the world, but I wasn’t talking to you.