Writing is always beginning again
On my constant wish to have written more
Thank you for reading Beyond Survival, a publication about life after trauma. This edition is about “productivity” and self-recrimination as a writer. I’m also looking for questions for my forthcoming advice column.
I read somewhere that you shouldn’t write too much about writing. The advice was that readers would be bored by the existential (and practical) challenges that exist between the writer and the page. I don’t agree. I love to read about writing. Writing about writing is often writing about life.
I spend a lot of time berating myself for not writing more, for failing to meet the targets I’ve arbitrarily set for myself. Beating myself up for not writing enough is a well-worn mental pathway for me. I have been doing it pretty consistently for close to 20 years. If I were to make a list of my most common thoughts, it would be in the top five. Often the criticism happens on the page. Countless times I’ve written about not writing, the irony apparently not clear to my brain which flatly insists that I am worthless both as a writer and a human.
I’ve been writing for decades, but I haven’t been very successful. I haven’t managed to make writing my career, despite many years of trying. I don’t say that as self-criticism as much as a simple statement of fact. These days, berating myself for not writing gets folded in with the shame, regret and disappointment of failing to make my dreams a reality. I know there are good reasons why writing hasn’t worked out for me. A debilitating mental health diagnosis, concerns for my safety and wellbeing, and the need to make enough money to take care of myself all meant that my writing career couldn’t be my first priority. I am proud of making those choices. They were the right ones. But they are sometimes difficult to live with.
I recently looked back over the writing I’d done during a period of time when I was beating myself up for not doing more. When I saw gaps in my output, I could easily identify what was happening in my life that kept me away from the page. As I type, I can see the bookshelf where I store the journals I've been keeping for decades. There are hundreds of them. Journals I kept when I was traveling, which smell like Indian food and are gritty with grains of sand. Journals that are tear-stained, tea-stained, food-stained. Journals that I made as a child. I kept the A4 pad I had as a teenager which I added to occasionally with magazine clippings and story ideas and random thoughts. I remember that A4 pad as a moment when something clicked and I began to rely on the page for comfort and company.
It’s not true to say that I haven’t been writing. That thought reverberates around my mind, but that doesn’t make it true. Self-loathing is rarely logical.
During covid, I wrote a book. I had been made redundant from my job and lived alone. Every inch of my life belonged to me and I lavished myself with words. I got up very early and wrote in my journal. When I was done with that, I switched to my novel which I hand wrote on loose leaf A4 sheets. I wrote two drafts in quick succession, thrilled everyday at what a gift it was to have this time. There was a purity to my writing life that I will likely never experience again. And that’s OK. That life was a barren one. I was desperately lonely and often completely isolated.
Being on my own in a room with my ideas may always be my favourite part of the writing process. Sharing work is where it gets more complicated. I tie myself in knots about things readers probably don’t even notice. I weigh the merits of publishing this day or that. I think about strategy, about “making the most of” my work. I fear the internet’s long memory, the atmosphere of shallow criticism and public shaming that exists on social media. I think of my creative output as something you can optimise and scale as if I were making widgets. But that’s not how creativity works.
With creativity (like love), the more you use, the more you have.
Writing is always beginning again. You are always starting over with a blank page, always reaching toward something else, something new, something fresh. I know that I will look back on this time in my life and see how much progress I made. I know that even when I’m away from the page, I’m writing. I know that living a good and happy life is essential for ‘productivity’, though I hate that word and the fact that I still crave it. I know that, with hindsight, I’ll look back and see that I was doing just fine.
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It's such a relief to read your beautiful piece here, Clare, and see many of the same thoughts I've had about my own writing life. l too have poured myself into writing for years - l made major life decisions based on the desire to have time to write. Years ago, l moved my daughters to a new state so l could attend a writing program where I'd won a fellowship. My first novel (that l can never really let go of) found me a wonderful agent, but then everyone was shocked when that novel died on submission to publishing houses. A few successes along the way - as well as some major disappointments. I wonder - why have l spent my life doing this? Yet it seems important and l have spent many wonderful hours immersed in it. l don't think I'll ever stop writing - but l do suffer from it, too, from my lack of "perceived success." I've often heard - focus on the process, the part you can control - not on the outcome or what happens after you put it out into the world. But that is far easier said than done! But maybe, like so many things in life, we just can't see all the results of our efforts - l try to remember that we can't always see what's happening under the surface of our lives, that our efforts do matter in some way. Your writing mattered to me to day, a lot. Thank you!
"I read somewhere that you shouldn’t write too much about writing. The advice was that readers would be bored by the existential (and practical) challenges that exist between the writer and the page. I don’t agree. I love to read about writing. Writing about writing is often writing about life."
I'm here with you. For some reason I think about all the stuff you aren't "supposed" to write about (especially for women/lgbtq+) and at the end of it there's so much erasing/censure that it can take away some of the most beautiful and terrifying parts of our experiences and selfhood (and perhaps those "supposed to's" serve to do just that, unconsciously and insidiously).
To me it's a dark room someone with authority is afraid to get lost in and so tells someone else not to go in, but for some the dark room is exactly where we want to go, however unnerving it may be. I feel like a lot of good stuff lies in wait in the "not supposed to" areas (of course with the caveat it doesn't directly or intentionally cause some sort of malicious harm to others, which is probably a separate topic) in art or in life. That is the one place where ideas can start to morph and change and let in something new, at least for me.
Also, I love reading about writing and the creative process. It's a tangential supplement to the more traditional therapeutic process for me, but more abstract. I carry me and my experiences and feelings with me wherever I go, into art or into the world with other people, so it's another way of practicing self-compassion and engaging in parts of healing in my eyes.
Thanks for sharing ❤️