“You don’t have to play alone…”

A conversation with KC Davis, author of the best-selling book, "How to Keep House While Drowning"

Like so many of you, KC Davis is someone whose voice has reframed much about how I care for myself and my home. I’ve written before about how we connected when she asked for testimonies to use in her Denver TEDx talk (which now has a not-too-shabby 1.4 million views). 

And if you’ve heard of KC, it’s probably through her TikTok channel (where she speaks openly and often about having ADHD to her 1.6 million followers) or through her best-selling book, How to Keep House While Drowning.

But these days, she’s shifting away from creating content that focuses on care tasks. The famous “kitchen reset” and literal hundreds of practical how-to’s for self care when you’re in a season of grief, have a disability and so on are still pinned on her TikTok and more resources available on her website.

@domesticblistersA little trick I do when I dont have a big reset in me. #strugglecare #findyourway #cleantok #mentalhealth

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Now she’s stepping into new territory, which is a big reason I wanted to connect one-on-one. 

A few weeks ago, we spoke over Zoom. I had mapped out all sorts of questions, but instead of following my outline, we launched the conversation with me blurting out: 

“I think everyone is looking for permission. Do we have permission to love what we love?”

And to no one’s surprise, our conversation turned into something akin to white-water rafting with words. We took breaks to tend to our dogs. We had interruptions and re-groupings, and it was all as messy a conversation as you can imagine. It has been edited for clarity and to trim down my superfluous uses of “um” and “like.” But the jewel here is KC’s openness and willingness to jump right in. 

I hope our conversation gives you permission to write that book now, to paint your kitchen whatever color you damn well please, and to, as Mary Oliver says, “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” We also talk about hyperfixations, the contract she recently signed for a new book and more. I hope you all enjoy this and hang on for the ride.

Amanda: One of the things that’s really resonated with me about your story—and has been echoing in the work I’ve been doing in my newsletter—is I'm also afraid that it's going to disappear. I'm afraid my special interest is going to disappear. In fact, my special interests had disappeared so much that I went into a years-long rebellion saying, “I'm not creating. I'm not doing a thing. I'm tired.” And I was tired. So tired of starting and stopping because I didn't have awareness of being autistic and having dissociative identity disorder.

And you're the first person in my sphere who's publicly acknowledged, “Hey, I know you guys have loved everything I'm making, but I don't think I can make it for you anymore.” 

I'm wondering if you could talk about how that shift felt for you. And did you see any change in interaction from people? Or were people mostly supportive of you moving their “content cheese,” so to speak, around what to expect?

KC: Part of that journey of care tasks and cleaning and self care even amidst disability is: I wasn't just teaching people that stuff. I was actually going through that journey of learning how to care for myself. And the thing is… it worked. I'm not saying I don't struggle, but, like, man, life is pretty good. 

Part of the reason why you don't see a lot of cleaning content is because my house doesn't get to that place anymore as frequently. Not that it never does. It just doesn't as often. And some of that is due to the supports that I've built for myself. And some of that is, you know, you sell a book on how to help yourself, and then you have money, and now you can afford a housekeeper, right? Like, you can afford to send your laundry out. And some of that is the skills that I've developed of being able to do shorter periods of time where I clean things up or being able to have more self compassion for myself, so that I’m not as strung out on shame. I've been able to create systems in my home that work for me. I don't struggle with my house as much any more, at least not enough to churn out content. 

And there was a part of me that was really frightened. Will people want me if I'm not struggling? There were some really kind words that people spoke to me that were really helpful. But yeah, I mean, I’ve had people speak up and say, “You know, I used to like your old content,” or if I post something about having a good day I hear something like, “You're just showing off your privilege.” So, obviously, that's hurtful. But I think that's not the majority. I think sometimes the minority is really loud when it comes to that kind of stuff. And at the end of the day I also had to realize it doesn't actually matter what anybody thinks. 

I mean, there will always be an audience for what I want to talk about, and maybe they'll find me. Maybe they won't. Maybe some people will move on, not out of malice, but because they’ve gotten what they needed. 

So it was weird to feel as though what people loved about me was that I was in the middle of this struggle. And I was sort of teaching people as I went. And now I'm not in that struggle, what value do I have to offer to anybody?

Amanda: That must be a really big message to balance, especially since you’ve signed another contract for a book. Can you tell us a little more about that?

KC: The new book is going to be about relationships. And I'm excited. But I already have this fear: Can I replicate what happened with the first book? It was so successful, and it was kind of groundbreaking, and there wasn't anything out there like it, and so right now I have imposter syndrome about myself—when you know that your success was mostly luck and hyperfixation. And I know that I don't really have any control over that. I was in a flow state when I wrote How to Keep House Without Drowning and the ideas wouldn't stop coming. 

And now I'm like, “OK, can I replicate that? What if it sucks? What if it's not as good? What if I can't do it again? What if it's not the same? What if I disappoint people? What if my editor is disappointed in me? What if my agent is disappointed in me?”

Amanda: What did it sound like when you pitched the idea? What was their feedback?

KC: My editor was like, “I hear the fear.” Cause I told her this, right? She was like, “I hear the fear, but I need you to know: I am not afraid of that at all.” And there were people who were supportive saying things like, “People don't come to you because of the topic as much as they come to you because of the way that you talk about the topic… they like you, they like the gentleness in which you talk about things.” And I think that was my fear: What if I can't? Because I felt like with my first book, I came up with this completely new paradigm.

Amanda: I remember feeling this same tension around owning in my writing that I’m autistic. I felt for a while that I couldn’t do it because, “What if people expect me to be the person who tells them everything to know about Autism?” When it’s still kind of knitting into me, you know? I do this back and forth a lot around writing taglines and whether I put the phrase “autistic editor” in. And I feel like other writers when they’re deciding how to brand or shape their Substack essays or their books they’re also asking, “What if I can’t give that part of myself anymore? Or what if I need to take it back?”

KC: I will say when it comes to my hyperfixations and riding the wave, there are two skills that I've developed that I think have made the difference for me. And one is a front-end skill, and one's a back-end skill. And with the front-end skill, I take a moment before jumping into something that is not easy to put down because I get so many ideas. Let's do a podcast, let's do a product line, let's do a conference… and I'm very hesitant, and probably too hesitant, to bring someone else in. Because I am keenly aware that I could start up a product line and lose interest. I'm not even saying that's a good or bad thing. I'm just saying that's one of my protective factors. I'm very cautious about going past a point of no return where other people are involved, other deadlines are involved where I can't just back out. Obviously, I've gotten pretty far with my podcast and have a network. I have ad sales and I can't stop right now. I mean I could, but I would have to wind it down. So, I'm just very cautious about not putting too many irons and the fire.

Amanda: And what’s the other?

KC: So that's one and then on the other end is that I'm pretty good at failing. And this is more related to projects and things. Recently I wanted to redo my kitchen at a very low cost, DIY, and so I painted my cabinet. I painted my backsplash, and I also wanted to use this shelf liner or contact paper to see what the countertop looked like. And so I did one section to make sure I really liked it. And I did it. And I ended up using the wrong top coat, and it looked bad. And so then I was like, Okay, what do I do? I'll have to sand it and start over. And I was like, Oh, God, I really don't want to. I could not find the motivation to do that. 

So I thought, I could switch to a different paint. But then I'd have to do this, this and this.... And for like three weeks I just sat there with a quarter of my kitchen redone. And I finally woke up last weekend and was like, “Here's the thing: you've already purchased this paint. It's not the perfect paint. It definitely looks like you DIY’d your kitchen. But I like the color and I'd really like my kitchen to be blue. I don't want to look at these ugly brown cabinets anymore.” And so I thought, Screw it. I'm just gonna keep going. I'm going to use a different top coat from now on. And yes, one side's going to be shiny, and one side's going to be matte. But, do I want it to be perfect? Or do I want it to be blue? Because, I'm not going to do it perfect. I have very reasonable expectations of myself when I feel a hyperfixation waning. I am not going to buy a spray gun on Amazon and figure out how to spray gun my cabinets, and tape everything off and take the doors off… I'm not going to do that. I understand that might be the best way to do it. I could lie to myself and say I will, but I know that I won't. I know that if it gets too complicated, I'll stop. And I don't want to stop, because I want my kitchen to be all one color, right? 

So I'm pretty good at being really honest with myself about what I am going to do. What am I capable of doing? And how can we create some momentum to at least get this done? Not that everything has to get done. It's okay to quit things, but there are certain things that you think, I don't want to quit now because I'll be unhappy with the result if I quit now. And so I'm pretty good at not getting too fast into things that involve other people because then they'll be depending on me. And I'm pretty good at finding an easy quit that creates a result that I'm happy with. Good enough is really good enough for me.

Amanda: Sometimes I feel like we talk a lot about being in the “flow” and I love that—but it’s something that has taken a lot of practice for me. Because by nature I lean toward what is predictable and stabilizing. Is there ever a point where being in flow or losing yourself in hyperfixations can go too far?

KC: Yeah, so there are two dangers of writing your hyperfixations—jumping from flow to flow to flow is number one. I wouldn't say you can hurt people, but you can leave people in the lurch. You know what I mean? You can really inconvenience people. You can be inconsiderate to people. You can leave people hanging basically like, “Wait, we jumped into this project together. And now you're not interested?” Whether that's like a project outside of home or just like, “Hey I started this DIY and now nobody in my family can use the toilet in the guest room because I stopped this project in the middle…” and then you feel a lot of shame about that. And I don't want that. I want to avoid leaving people hanging. 

And then the other pitfall is that you end up with a bunch of half done things that are not very functional. You end up with tools laying everywhere because you don't want to put them away because you're not done. But you can't find the motivation to do it. So I have no cabinet fronts on one side of my cabinet, right? I don't want to put things back. And so you either end up with kind of an unfunctional space or project because you leave things in the middle kind of undone. Or you leave people hanging. Or you make things really inconvenient or unfair to people. So that's why I'm very cautious before I get into something, unless I know that I'm willing to see it all the way through, even if the hyperfixation dies. I'm pretty good at finding a way to pull the ripcord that allows me to bail on the project without crashing in the plane.

Amanda: When do you think you got decently good at pulling the ripcord?

KC: When I started being self compassionate. When I stopped seeing it as a failure that I lost the motivation. I think the kitchen thing was a perfect example because other people would be like, “All you have to do is get the spray gun. Buy it on Amazon, take all the doors off, tape all those things up…” There’s this messaging like I would be a good person or a hard worker that doesn’t take shortcuts. And so I think when I changed the messaging around that…Like, who gives a shit? It's my kitchen. Nobody else in my house cares what the kitchen looks like. So I'm not inconveniencing anyone, and it's OK to be honest with myself and say, “If I make this more complicated, I'll never do it. I will avoid it. I'll put it off. I won’t do it.” And that’s OK. So I had to make all of that morally neutral and ask instead, “What can I do to sustain motivation?”

Amanda: So I feel like this is a really good place for me to ask you what a ripcord would look like in someone’s writing life.

KC: So, interestingly enough, there have been four books that I've wanted to write. The first one was “How to Keep House While Drowning,” and I just wrote that in my living room. And here’s what pulling the ripcord looked like:

• First I wrote down some things I wanted to talk about, and I just stared at a blank page. And I thought, “Oh, my God! I can't! Nothing's coming to me. This is impossible.” And so I went, “OK, let's pull the ripcord. How can I do this?” And I thought, “You know what? Everything I want to say I've already said on Tiktok. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go back through all my TikToks, and I'm gonna transcribe every single one of them.” And then I did that. 

• And then I said, “Now I'm just gonna edit it so that it's more readable than when I'm listening to someone talk.” And then I had all these disjointed vignettes, right? And that's when it was like, “OK, now, how do I make these into a chapter?” And I tried and tried and tried and tried, and I got to the place where I was ready to give up. And I thought, “Okay, now the choices are: give up completely, or find a way to pull the ripcord so we don't go down with the ship.” 

• And I thought, “What if I just published it like this? What if I just published it as disjointed vignettes? Because the truth is, the options now are: publish a book with vignettes, or do not publish a chapter book or publish no book at all.” And that's when I self published, right? And then it did really well; it was picked up; I got an agent, I got an editor. And then I did the second edition. And so I basically took the first one and then put more content, transcribed more TikToks like, I wrote it all down, worked with an editor, made the second edition book. Great.

Then I had this idea just for fun. And I thought, “I'd really like to write a fiction book” because I had this great idea. And I had this moment where I thought, “I'm not going to reach out to my agent about this because I'm not sure I will stick with this. I'm not sure I can do it. I'm not sure if I'll be interested in pushing through, and I don't want to pivot that way.” So I just started writing it myself, and I got a few chapters in and then I didn't know how to do any more. I lost interest. But because I did to my capacity, I thought, you know what? I think I'm just gonna stop. So, I just stopped and I moved on. 

Then I wanted to write this other self-help book. And that, obviously, is more like my official capacity. I talked to my agent, and we pitched it to the editor and I got nervous about it because I don't have a bunch of existing Tiktoks to transcribe, right? And so I am doing my best to write. And I think I'm going to be okay. I haven't really thought about this until this moment. But if you were to ask me, what are you going to do if you get a couple months in and you go, “I can't! I just can't! I can't,” I mean, I think the answer really would be to reach out to my editor and say, “I think I need a ghostwriter.” Maybe not to write it for me. But I may need someone who will collaboratively write something because I'm having a hard time coming up with something from nothing. I can talk about things better than I can write about things, and once I've talked about them, then all of a sudden the ideas start flowing, and I can write and write and write and write. So I think that's what it would look like to pull the ripcord where “we've got to get to the end of this in some way.” And that would be really vulnerable, and there would be parts that I would have to work through kind of feeling like a failure.

And then the fourth book that I wanted to write is another fiction book. Which started as me, joking with my friends and telling them about how I've always been like a little bit of a maladaptive daydreamer. I just play pretend in my head and then I will pick one little scene out of the pretend daydream, and I'll do it over and over. It’s like a weird, self-soothing thing. And so my friends asked, “Well, what is it?” 

And I told them this story, and it was a long, complicated narrative, and they were like, “This is the best story I've ever heard!” And I was like, “Yeah, I just came up with it, and I play it in my head at night when I'm going to bed…” And later I thought, “I'd love to read that book.” And so it wasn't even that I'd like to write that book. It was, “That's a story I wanna read.” And I wrote down a three-page synopsis of the whole story. And then I was like, “I don't know where to go from here.” So I thought, OK, so I don't have to go anywhere because I haven't pulled anybody into it. I've made no commitments. There are no deadlines. I don't need it to pay my bills. But if I wanted to, I could hire a co-writer. I could hire a ghostwriter. I could feed it into AI and tell AI to generate parts of it, or pieces of it, or a chapter outline, right? So I try to identify what my options would be to get me there.

Amanda: Is there any advice or a word of encouragement that you would give to writers who are afraid of not being able to follow through and so they don't even start? If a reader replies to my welcome email, it's often someone saying something like, “I'm 65, and I've always wanted to write the thing that was in the back of my head. But I had other things to do.” What would you say to the person who has real constraints in their life now like paying their bills?

KC: I would just say, You don't have to play alone. I think we have this hard line of thinking, “I can do something official or professional with a team of people,” and they go that route. Or they think, “I have to sit alone in my basement on this hobby or this passion project. And you don't have to play alone—whether it's a friend, whether it's a fellow writer, whether you join like a writing group or a writing coach, or or you hire your own editor off of Fiverr, or you hire, you know, someone else that's just gonna help you along right? Especially like if you're one of those people that's like, “I've just always wanted to write this.” There's a difference between, I've always wanted to write this, and I've always wanted to read this. And I don't need a book deal, and I don't need it to be official, and I don't even need all the credit. But like, wouldn't it be cool to create that?

But wait! There’s more…

KC and I spoke for a little more than two hours, and there were some things that just couldn’t reasonably be included in today’s interview. Which is why I’ve bundled up a little more goodness over here in “KC Davis on writing shitty first drafts and getting it wrong.”

In this piece, KC and I have a sidebar chat about writing shitty first drafts and KC answers a reader’s question.