Who: Melissa Dahl

Claim To Fame: Melissa Dahl is a senior editor at New York Magazine’s The Cut, where she leads the health and psychology coverage. Before New York, she was a health writer and editor for NBCNews.com and TODAY.com. She is also the author Cringeworthy, and it’s about the psychological science that helps explain embarrassment, self-consciousness, awkwardness, and generally all the things that make us cringe.

Where To Find Melissa: Her Website, Amazon, Twitter

Praise For Melissa: “Melissa Dahl provides a fascinating (and often hilarious) examination of the underdiscussed feeling of awkwardness. Her practical, penetrating insights reveal that understanding what’s ‘cringeworthy’ can help us understand ourselves better–and create happier lives.” – Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author of The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies

When do you like to write? Are you regimented about your routine?

I like to write in the morning, right after I’ve had coffee and before I’ve done anything else. I like early mornings a lot. But I’m not really a morning person, so I’m not sure I get much good writing done then, haha. I find my brain also perks up around 5 p.m., and I get a good boost from 5 to 8 p.m. That’s when I did the best writing on my book — I’d order food to the office and just keep chugging away after everyone else went home. A side benefit of this is that I became good friends with our nighttime janitor this way.

Where do you like to write? What does your ideal writing environment look like?

Oh, I could write anywhere. It doesn’t really matter. I wrote a lot of the book on my couch. Some of it I wrote from my bed. We have a lounge chair from Ikea — the Poang; the one everyone seems to have — and that’s a great writing chair. That’s where the last few frantic days of finishing revisions to the book happened, in that chair, surrounded by open bags of chips and half-drunk energy drinks. The life of an author is infinitely glamorous.

Do you have any rituals or superstitions before you sit down to write that help you get into the zone?

I guess I do believe in the timing — if it’s first thing in the morning, or if it’s in that early evening zone, I know I’ll probably be okay. Chocolate covered almonds seem to help, too.

What do you do when the writing isn’t coming easy?

I just allow myself to go “blah blah blah blah” on the page for a while! I promise myself that no one will ever see this version of the piece, and I just write and write until SOMETHING comes out of it. Or, sometimes I step back and try to outline the piece, which I find can help pull me along when I get stuck.

You’re also a senior editor at New York Magazine’s The Cut. What are some things you tell your writers that you want them to constantly keep in mind whether in pitching ideas or writing articles?

For health & science writing specifically, the instinct is to pitch stories that ask interesting questions. Why do people hate the sound of their own voice? Why does my leg sometimes twitch right before I fall asleep? I just got a pitch where the writer wanted to investigate why doctors don’t ask their women surgical patients whether they are on their periods before operating on them.

I love interesting questions, which is why I love my job. But I’ve had to learn the hard way that in order to assign a story, I have to know that the answer is interesting, too. So often the answer is “we don’t know,” or else it’s sort of obvious, or else the writer has not asked a very thoughtful question. The period piece (heh), for example: I asked the writer what the answer was to her (very interesting!) question. Turns out it’s because it doesn’t really make a difference, health-wise, whether a patient is on her period or not. So that’s a really boring answer and wouldn’t make for a good story.

Just one example. But, yeah — I don’t mean to be dramatic, but I’ve been a little burned in the past by assigning a story based solely on an interesting question. Do your research first, and find the answer before you pitch me!

Writers have to be master prioritizers — juggling all sorts of projects and deadlines at the same time. That’s certainly the case for you. Do you have any methods for managing tasks and time so to not let overwhelm sneak in?

No…no, not at all, haha. I wish I had some smart lifehack for you here. Lately, I’ve started to feel like I will never really catch up on all my email, and that it would be best to just try to make peace with that rather than to feel guilt about it.

I do waste too much time on Twitter. I have no self-control when it comes to Twitter. I don’t tweet that often, so that comes as a surprise sometimes to people, how much of my day I spend on it. I’ve tried deleting the apps from my phone — it doesn’t really work; the mobile sites are just as functional, and therefore just as addictive. I tell myself I’m on there for WORK REASONS, that Twitter leads to GREAT STORY IDEAS, and that is true. Sometimes. But it gets out of control. Here’s a lifehack, I guess: The only way I’ve ever stopped my excessive Twitter usage is to have my partner go in and lock me out. He’ll change my password, and he’ll give the new one to me if I ask for it, but it’s always a little humiliating to ask for it. It’s usually after I’ve made some big deal about how I’m TAKING A TWITTER BREAK and I MEAN IT THIS TIME. So I usually stay off it for at least a week this way. It’s nice. I recommend this option to anyone with no self-control when it comes to social media.

What would you say to aspiring writers? If you were to teach a writing class, what would be the first assignment?

Oh! Geez. I think I’d say that you have to write to amuse yourself. That’s the only thing you can control. You have to write something that you genuinely find entertaining; it’s so funny, you just can’t aim broadly. It doesn’t work. You have to aim at yourself and hope that your work will find kindred spirits out there, who will also get something out of it. And, huh, that’s a tough question, about the writing class. You know what I’d do — I’d encourage them to write about their dumbest, strongest opinion. Like, the issue has to be totally inconsequential — ICED COFFEE IS BEST; THE ONLY WAY TO SLEEP IS WITH AN EYE MASK — but the opinion has to be deeply held. Something about the word “dumb” seems to help people feel a little looser, which leads to better writing. Probably this is also a way to get at that idea of amusing yourself above all else.

What writers and/or books do you consider the gold standard?

Not sure if you mean books about writing or just books generally, but that’s okay, because I think the answer for both might be the same for me: I’m one of these people who has read Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird 17,000 times. I keep it on my nightstand; sometimes I’ll read a chapter or two before I go to sleep. I guess I don’t do that all that often, truthfully, but I did a lot while I was writing my book. It hits this wonderful note I wish more self-help books would hit: “You’re okay the way you are, and I love you, and also, we both know you can do better.” It’s simultaneously comforting and inspiring. And so useful, too! The notion of the Shitty First Draft changed my life. In college, I was an intern at The Sacramento Bee, and this writer I adored (I still adore her) lent me her copy. I would give this to every nervous 20-year-old writer. Maybe every nervous 20-year-old. Maybe just every nervous person.

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