Jenny Lawson: On Embracing Creativity, Whimsy, and Weirdness
In this interview, author Jenny Lawson discusses the lifetime of collecting motivational tips and tricks that led to her new memoir, How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay.
Jenny Lawson (aka the Bloggess) is a number one New York Times bestselling author, an activist, and an award-winning humor writer best known for her inspiring candor in sharing her struggle with depression, anxiety, and chronic pain. She is the owner and proprietress of Nowhere Bookshop, a beloved independent bookstore and bar in San Antonio, Texas. She’s been writing her popular, award-winning blog (TheBloggess.com) for over 15 years. She continues to write and speak openly about her struggles while celebrating her often hilarious victories. She currently lives in Texas with her husband, child, dog, and cats.
In this interview, Jenny discusses the lifetime of collecting motivational tips and tricks that led to her new memoir, How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay, her hope for readers, and more.
Name: Jenny Lawson
Book title: How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay
Publisher: Penguin Life
Release date: March 31, 2026
Genre/category: Memoir
Elevator pitch: Funny, heartfelt, and full of hope, How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay will encourage you not only to survive but to find and curate joy in the face of difficult times.
What prompted you to write this book?
For decades I’ve lived with depression, anxiety, ADHD, self-doubt, and so many other issues that often keep me from experiencing the joy and the creativity that I want in my life. And in that same time, I’ve been collecting the tips and tricks that have helped me to keep moving forward even in the hardest moments. A few years ago, when my kid left for college, I felt really unmoored, and I reached for those journal entries that had helped me in the past and realized that perhaps these odd little tools could help others as well.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I’ve been collecting the tips for so many years, but once I had the idea to share it with others it probably took two or three years to shape it into a cohesive and organized book. Luckily, I have an amazing agent who helped me create a strong proposal that got the interest of an equally amazing publishing team who understood the vision. My earliest concept of this book was to create a sketchbook filled with my drawings and the advice that I had written to myself because I like the idea of being authentic about where this comes from, but that was not a good idea because 1) my handwriting is atrocious, 2) these tips and tricks were spread over dozens of unfinished notebooks and notes on my phone rather than one notebook, and 3) it needed to be totally reorganized.
Probably the hardest part was figuring out how to organize everything into sections so that the reader could either read it one day or dip into different parts depending on what they needed at the time. It’s ironic that a book about how to deal with being unfocused, unorganized, paralyzed with self-doubt started out as all of these things, but I so often used the tools to push forward through the harder parts so in a way I was play-testing the book as I wrote.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
The layout and organization is different from any book I’ve done before. Most of my books are dark humor/essays/rambling and slightly unhinged stories so they look like your typical essay book but with lots of very long footnotes when I would go off on a tangent. How To Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay, on the other hand, is easier to fall into because often when you are struggling you need something focused and accessible to help you.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I was surprised at how much writing this book helped me to write this book. That sounds ridiculous but as I was writing the book I often was documenting the tools that I had used in the past to get past writer’s block or the inability to focus and to trust my own voice, and I was able to use those tools again to push through a lot of the hard spots. It’s strange how easy it is to forget a lesson you’ve learned and how helpful it can be to have them all in one place to keep you going.
Sometimes I would worry that I was the worst person to write about things like Imposter Syndrome because I still struggle with it, but in some ways that makes me a great person to write about it because I continue to battle it every day and so I know that the tricks I’ve collected work. It’s a strange thing that the proof I have that this book helped me is that this book exists at all. I’m not sure if that sentence makes sense to neurotypical people but I suspect a lot of people like me understand it.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
The world is very hard right now and I hope more than anything that this book gives readers encouragement and comfort. I want it to be a little friend in your pocket assuring you that you are doing so much better than you think, that you are worthy of so much, that your empathy and kindness matter, that it’s important to rest and to fight and to love. I want it to remind you of the joy of embracing creativity and whimsy and weirdness, and of the importance of self-compassion. I want it to remind you that you are not alone, even when your brain tries to tell you that you are.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Stay weird. It’s tempting to prune away all of the strange and unique parts of your work because the world teaches us that it’s easier to just blend in, but what makes you stand apart is the very thing that no one else can offer but you. You have to embrace that fantastically unusual voice, the one who is often hiding from the bullies of your past who still live in your head. If you love your weirdness, it encourages others to share theirs and that’s such a win for the entire world.
