My scandalous affair with writing: an update

Writing struggles and some not-so-quick-fixes

Hey!

It’s been awfully long since I last showed up here (like 2 months ago or something?) But I come with excuses (lol). So much has been happening in my life - it’s been whizzing and spinning so much, I can barely keep up. I would tell you more, but this space is not for that. This space is for you and me to take a break from our whizzing lives to marvel at and speak about our one and only true love: love for words and writing (and hey, turns out it’s Valentine’s today).

So, in honor of all of us whose loves are unrequited, let me share with you what’s been going on lately in my absolutely scandalous affair with writing that has turned more and more scandalous in the past few months. To sum it up in a sentence, it hasn’t been going well, and that’s kind of breaking my heart a little. Last year and this year, I’ve mostly reviewed books or wrote about books for publications - don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it, and working with publications has been a lot of fun - but it’s not the same as writing fiction and poetry, and telling my own stories, which I haven’t had enough time to do. And in the coming days as I get even more busy, I worry I won’t be able to make enough time for my writing. The thought crushes me a little. But with this fear, also rises in me, a fierce determination to not let that happen, to never lose my writing, to never be lost. I came across Sigrid Nunez’s interview in the Paris Review recently, where she says, “When I think of the men I’ve been with, every one of them stood between me and my writing.” It kind of hit me and made me think of the people and things that sometimes took precedence in my life over my own writing, and before I knew it, some of my precious writing time had already slipped away. I hope to never let that happen again, for as long as I can. I hope to make sure that after fulfilling life’s many obligations, I always return home to my writing.

Something else went wrong too. Most of what I wrote in the past few days, didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, which led me to abandon two stories midway and not even start the third because I was afraid it won’t be good. Yes, I see the game my mind is playing here - if I don’t write at all, at least I won’t be writing badly. In time, I will overcome this too, and get that story on paper, even if it’s bad.

To add to the frustration though, when I re-read some of my old stories a couple of days back, they didn’t seem half as good as they did when I first wrote them. I have a solution for this too - re-writing, several rounds of editing. It’s okay if I’m slow.

I recount all these challenges to say that the real challenge of writing is writing itself, the process, the drafts, the frustration, the rejections, the revisions, the editing and re-writing, and the gosh-will-I-ever-be-good-enough? These challenges, my expectations of myself and my work, lack of mentorship and the loneliness that comes from being the only individual among my friends and -as-far-as-the-eye-can-see-acquaintances who writes, most days, leaves only me and my writing to deal with each other… Which, if you really come to think of it, is not the worst thing that can happen. Getting to spend all that time with my writing alone, must surely result in some marvelous discoveries, some piercing originality?

Or maybe I am a bad writer after all. That is fine too. Because,

“It’s better to write than not to write.”
(Chilean Poet, Alejandro Zambra)

and

“I don’t know if I like my poems (writing), but I know that if I hadn’t written them, I’d be dumber, more useless, more individualistic.”
(Chilean Poet, Alejandro Zambra)

In this season, I’m not sure where my writing life is going. Whether my writing truly is good or bad. If bad, how bad? Is it fix-able? If good, how good? Good enough? But for now, I just know there’s so much more than they eye can see - I hope to search for the unseen. I think it’s time for me to reinforce these simple lessons in my heart as I go along:

I will never lose my writing. I will never be lost to it. I will write, even if it’s bad, but I will not leave it at that. I will write more. I will write better. I will write worse. I will write because to write is better than to not. Because my writing is my home, and I always come back home.

So maybe I am a bad writer. Or maybe, I’m overthinking, trying too hard, speeding up when I need to be slowing down. Maybe I need to explore myself and my writing more with great empathy and even greater faith. Time will tell. And I hope you will be with me until then and afterwards.

I will write back soon. Probably this time, something more practical and productive for you and your writing life.

Until then,
xoxo

P.S. Some good things have happened too. One of my poems, The Women are Looking Back in Anger got accepted for publication in a litmag. And I’m eating a half-baked cake as I write this. (Well, at least it is half baked!)