Writers Not Writing: How ghostwriter Amy Mrotek gets off the screens
On the pressure to share your work and getting more movement into your creative life.
You’re reading Soft Hobbies, a weekly newsletter for artists in all mediums, with a special focus on writers. Here you’ll find resources to nurture your creativity, advice to overcome perfectionism, and inspiration to make time for art. I’m Auzin, a Seattle-based fiction and poetry writer. Feel free to visit my author website or check out my socials.
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Writers Not Writing is a series where I interview professional writers about their non-literary hobbies. I believe that engaging with hobbies outside of reading or writing is healthy, inspiring, and fulfilling for people who write as their main job.
Today’s interviewee is a longtime supporter of Soft Hobbies, and I’m honored by her enthusiasm for my work. We had a fantastic, far-ranging conversation that I’m presenting in a shortened form here. I’m excited by the opportunity to chat more about the mind-body connection in relationship to writing and creativity — hopefully this is the first of many times!
Bio: Amy Mrotek is a ghostwriter and copywriter living in Milwaukee, WI. When she's not writing things that help pay her mortgage, she's writing short stories, usually with a magical realism bend. She is a recent cat mama to Phoebe and avid lover of anything Ocean Vuong or Frank O'Hara.
Soft Hobbies: Hi Amy! What are the main aspects of your writing life?
Amy Mrotek: It’s funny, I’m used to being on your end of things because on the day-to-day, I’m constantly doing this kind of format. I’m a ghostwriter, but the vast majority of people I work with are standard executives or startup founders, or I work with agencies who work with founders and executives.
I’ve worked on longform manuscript work, you’ll maybe see one or two big projects like that a year. But in the month-to-month, week-to-week, it’s a lot of social media, a lot of podcast preparation, a lot of articles we place in third-party websites for PR. Substack newsletters too.
Soft Hobbies: That’s a lot of writing. Do you feel like that ever drains your personal creative reserves?
Amy Mrotek: It’s hard. And I do think there’s aspects about the personal and the creative writing that really can inform the professional writing. Or just keeps your tools sharp. But there’s that baseline fatigue at the end of the day where it’s like, “I have been staring at a damn computer screen for seven, eight hours. I don’t want to look at a screen anymore.”
[Regarding her creative writing] I’ve been noodling on short stories and I go through these waves of being really diligent about submitting them to different magazines or short story competitions, and then there’s waves where I haven’t done anything in six months. I would love to someday either do a short story collection or just get my butt in gear and actually commit to characters long enough to get a much longer traditional manuscript going. I love magical realism. I love a setting where it’s overall realistic, but there’s, like, one tiny little odd thing.
Soft Hobbies: Absolutely. What non-screen, non-literary hobbies do you enjoy?
Amy Mrotek: I make doodle journals! It’s a journal of like, random snippets and lines. Sometimes we do oil pastels on the page and we’re drawing things. Sometimes it’s literally just moving a pencil so we’re letting the brain kind of “go dark.”
The other main thing is when the weather allows here in Wisconsin, I go on my little “album walks.” Which is exactly like it sounds: you put the earbuds in, you pick an album you’ve never listened to, and you walk. No set destination; we’re moving our body, and we are focused on one linear sequence and not on short-form content. It’s a full piece that someone put so much time and work into. This is something I started maybe eight months ago.
Soft Hobbies: Did you come up with it yourself?
Amy Mrotek: Oh, I’ve been doing the doodle journal thing forever. With the album walk, I want to say honestly, it might be someone I follow on Instagram. I was like, “Oh my god, this is such a simple thing. But when was the last time I turned my phone on airplane mode and listened to a full album?”
Soft Hobbies: Definitely. And [before we did this interview] you mentioned lifting too? I haven’t written about that on this interview series before.
Amy Mrotek: I mean, here’s the thing. I haven’t always had exercise and movement in my life in a healthy way, or from healthy motivations. But starting probably three or four years ago, I stopped being a cardio bunny and just decided, “We’re not going to use cardio machines. We’re going to try to push myself and lift heavy things.”
It’s kind of profound, how much that shift—especially as a woman—can change your relationship to your body when you literally feel stronger. You’re entering a new space in the gym that before was really intimidating and only filled with dudes. You’re noticing your body might be changing, even in ways you weren’t accounting for, you know? You get to meet your body in a whole different way.
Soft Hobbies: I appreciate you sharing that with me. I would love to know how these three hobbies integrate into your day or your week.
Amy Mrotek: Five or six times a week, I try to get away from my desk—either go out on a walk, or go to the gym. I schedule it in my calendar. Early-ish afternoon, anywhere from two to four is my window, because at that point I feel like my brain is tired and it’s a good transition into the evening portion of life.
Doodle journaling is usually a nighttime thing. Sometimes when I’m watching TV; it’s very much a nighttime relaxation, sitting on the couch.
Soft Hobbies: Love that. What have you learned from your hobbies that applies to your writing life or to your job?
Amy Mrotek: I do think all three of these things, in a really important way, help me not take my sense of self too seriously. As creative people I really think we put a lot of stock in our writing, in our words, and in how people receive those words. It’s hard to shut off the part of your brain that’s like, “Are people gonna like this? Are they gonna get it?”
I need to set up moments where I’m not like a little bird circling around myself. We’re able to just chill for a little bit. And for what I do professionally, especially as a ghostwriter, it’s literally not about me. So it makes edits and feedback cycles roll off the shoulders a lot more, and you see it more as part of the process, asking: “What is this person’s story? What are they trying to communicate? What is their insight, not my interpretation of it?” And right now, my god, the world could use so much more of people not centering themselves.
Soft Hobbies: I know you already talked about this a little bit, but what do you enjoy specifically about each of your hobbies?
Amy Mrotek: A, they get me off of screens. It is so important to get your eyeballs off of screens. It’s so healthy for you in ways you don’t even realize. B, [my hobbies] make me more present in my body again. I would say also, and you write about this a lot, but also not needing to feel like you’re doing something creative in order to get validation or recognition. These are fundamentally solo activities that I do by myself whenever I want to.
It’s kind of taking back the idea that your creativity or your output is only valid if it’s externally recognized. We live in a world where we all feel so compelled to put everything out in order to get validation. And that’s very normal and human. You have to, like, rewire your brain to do simple things for yourself and not worry about what others will think.
Soft Hobbies: Exactly, and to remember that if you create something and no one else sees it, it’s still valuable because you created something and it still exists.
Amy Mrotek: Yeah, and no one in their right mind would hear that and disagree with it. And yet we all feel this weird compulsion — “I really like to read, so I’m gonna go and make a BookTok account.” And then you feel guilty because now you’re not reading enough, or because your content isn’t growing, you’re not reading the right books.
Soft Hobbies: Do you identify as a perfectionist? And if so, how has that impacted your creative practice?
Amy Mrotek: I think yes. And I think where my brain interprets that is in the inconsistency. It’s in the procrastination. If you really sit and try to talk to that voice, it’s like, “Well, I don’t have my perfect short story plotline figured out, so I can’t.” And that is perfectionism, that you have to have everything figured out before you can even take the first step.
And do I have the remedy for that? I absolutely do not. I’m working on it in different ways, and it’s definitely more of a cycle. Sometimes I’m a little bit more gentle with meeting that procrastination voice, and then it’s easier to keep my personal writing schedule or keep my gym schedule. But I think it’s like the iceberg, really, if you say “perfectionist,” and then there’s so many things that sit underneath.
Soft Hobbies: How do you get into creative flow, whether it’s for writing or for like, the doodle journal?
Amy Mrotek: I definitely think my professional writing has put me in the camp that you can’t sit around and wait for that perfect feeling where the sparks or the juice are flowing. I’m definitely in the camp that consistency matters way more. It’s like getting your reps in, doing it over and over makes it more approachable, makes you have more self-efficiency and confidence.
I don’t think I have a particular ritual. With sitting down to doodle, it’s like, “Hey, this is important to me, and I feel really good when I do this,” and when I keep that front-of-mind, it happens a lot. It’s kind of just a choice. Honestly, sometimes it’s a choice to remember what makes you feel good and make sure you’re doing that.
Soft Hobbies: Are there any hobbies you would recommend to other writers or to everyone?
Amy Mrotek: Anything not screen-based. I think anything that gets you outside more is always going to be good. If that’s biking, if that’s walking, if you’re hiking, if you’re a camper. Any of that is refreshing and restorative in a very unique way.
Thank you so much to Amy for her time, and don’t forget to follow her on Substack and subscribe to her newsletter. If you or someone you know would like to be interviewed for Writers Not Writing, please leave a comment or reply to this email.
Softly yours,
Auzin
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Tysm again for the time + space + juicy conversation, Auzin! This was a dang pleasure.
Now brb while I go take my own advice....