I promised myself I'd write...

even when I have nothing to talk about.

I promised us both I’d write so here I am.

As I am currently waiting out Covid test results,¹ this is the chapter in my memoir that would be kind of a snooze. Not much is happening, your heroine is trapped, but we have to kill time until she dramatically frees herself or until the eagles arrive. It seems like a good time for a flashback or some backstory. Something to keep the heroine endearing while her life is utterly boring.

So let’s go back…

When I was a sophomore in high school I wrote a short story about writer’s block called “The Pit.” Looking back, it also works pretty well as a metaphor for depression, but that’s beside the point.

Or maybe it is the point. Because oftentimes writer’s block feels a little like a capsule-sized depression and feeds into feelings of disappointment, hopelessness, and unproductivity which can’t be good for any undiagnosed chemical imbalances.

Anyway, I wrote “The Pit” as a way through writer’s block, hoping to capture the frustration that comes with feeling like you can’t express yourself creatively. Somewhat ironically, I won a writing competition for the piece, and it felt fantastic. I was a “good writer.” I’d proved that now. I was the creme of the crop (or an old boss once called me just “the creme…”²) for the second year in a row and never again would I call that into question.

Oh, that sweet summer child.

The next year I submitted a very abstract story that was nearly impossible to follow because it used characters from a feature-length screenplay no one had seen. Still, I had a blast writing it and thought it was brilliant despite being convoluted. When I inevitably lost to the twenty-plus page magnum opus of the other main short story writer in my grade, I was, as you might guess, unhappy. This award was mine to lose. It was supposed to be my category!

The situation could only be made worse by the fact that this writer was my friend, and I, therefore, felt guilty being jealous of her. Not so guilty that I wasn’t jealous mind you, but guilty nonetheless.

I began to subscribe to the narrative that she was the better writer and I was the better screenwriter. She had more beautiful prose, but I had better plots. She would always beat me with short stories, but I had the chokehold on short films. “It’s not like I want to be a novelist anyway!” I reminded myself.

Our last year of high school, the beautiful prose writer³ and I co-led the school’s literary magazine which published all the competition winners. As I remember it, we were both met with a bunch of talented writers, all younger than us and not beat down by college applications. My jealousy faded as we bonded over finishing our publication without a faculty advisor and Adobe InDesign sabotaging us at every turn. By graduation, I was thankful and proud just to have finished the magazine with my name somewhere on it.

So what was this anecdote about?

A.) Comparison kills creativity.
B.) There's always someone more talented coming down the stairs after you ready to throw their pearls.
C.) Writer's block and depression can be solved by reading my sophomore year short story. 
D.) Adobe InDesign is a super fun and easy program to use. 

Beyond answer A (because of course comparison kills creativity), what’s behind this story are two questions:

“Throughout all this, was she still writing?” and “Why was she writing?”

I wrote through high school, but once it seemed like the judges no longer wanted my short story I stopped writing the same kind of pieces. I wrote scripts (mainly feature-length) because I decided I was going to film school, and screenwriting is what I could be brilliant at it. I knew in the back of my brain that attempting to be the best at something is a foolish endeavor. There is always someone younger, prettier, funnier, with more work ethic if you choose to see the world as an endless assembly line of more talented people coming to take your place.

But it feels great to be told: “you’re a good writer.”

With an activity so solitary, a competition or external validation can feel like the only way of knowing that you’re good. A win seems to say “All the pain is worth it. Pull yourself out of the pit, because when you do, some brilliant product will be on the other side.”

How do you keep writing if you don’t know if you’re brilliant? How do you cut yourself open and reveal your organs to the world if you don’t have confirmation that you’re at least good at doing something so grotesque? How do you commit to it, knowing it might be embarrassing, make you financially unstable, and no one may even read it?

By sitting alone in your room for three hours until you know what letters you to push on your keyboard, I guess.

Am I still writing?

• I promised I would, didn’t I?

Why do I write?

• To be told I’m good? To win a competition? To get a job? To get out my feelings? To feel something? To prove I can? Because I’m a narcissist? Because I love it? Because I have to?

I write because even in my lowest moments I know I can. And I can only prove it again by writing something new.

I’ll be back in the pit next month and have to dig my way out of it by the spoonful. Dirt under my nails, cuts on my legs, and shoes ruined. It won’t be pretty. But I will emerge. One of my characters will make me laugh or I’ll find the perfect way to word a sentence, and eventually, I’ll have a small new sample of myself to send out into the world.⁴

---

My Favorite Extremely Well-Known Quote about Writing:

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed” - Ernest Hemingway

A Great Quote from My Favorite Fictional Writer:

“Maybe our mistakes are what make our fate. Without them what would shape our lives? Perhaps if we never veered off course, we wouldn’t fall in love or have babies or be who we are.”⁵ - Carrie Bradshaw

The Cover Image for this Newsletter:

This Era’s Recommendations (which have almost nothing to do with the newsletter topic):

1. Celebrating pride month!

2. Rewatching all of Stranger Things.

3. Buying seltzers to increase productivity.

4. Downloading the Finch self-care app (seriously it’s great).⁶

5. “That Don’t Impress Me Much” by Shania Twain

6. Reaching out to old and new friends.

7. Shutter Island - read the book then watch the movie.

8. Writing for yourself, whether you’re a writer or not.

1. I thankfully do not have Covid thus far but am quarantining after being exposed to it.

2. I know it was meant as a compliment but it sounds strangely ominous.

3. I publically apologize to this excellent prose writer for doing little to conceal her identity and for being jealous, but truly it is a testament to how fucking good she is.

4. God! I can’t end these without being sappy. I blame my almost using the word “soul” in place of “myself” on the fact that I’m currently reading The Golden Compass.

5. The rest of the quote goes “After all, seasons change, so do cities; people come into your life and people go. But it’s comforting to know that the ones you love are always in your heart. And if you’re very lucky, a plane ride away” (Sn 4 Ep 18).

6. Seriously!