The Writer's Journey
Doesn't get easier. Never ends. Demands acceptance. No biggie, right?
When I was growing up, which is to say, the early aughts, the idea of being a journalist — nay, a writer! — was glamorous. Before the recession hit, before being a girlboss or a She-EO was the thing to be(see Lena Dunham’s Girls) it was glamorous to write.
See Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, or Kate Hudson’s character in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Or read this fantastic article on the progression of the representation of the profession from 2000 to 2024.
There are some things no one tells you about writing. Namely, that there are some bits that are not so glamorous. And I’m not talking about the economic aspect -
’s article linked above does a wonderful job of covering the many facets of why journalism has declined in popularity as a career, particularly in media representation of journalism.No, I’m talking about the, “I’m here, I’m a writer, and this shit is still hard” — those parts.
Writing Doesn’t Stop Being Hard When You “Make It”
Because that is true: I am a writer. It’s what I do for work. I don’t write dreamy novels or features for the New York Times. I’m a health and medical writer, and a lot of what I do is marketing writing, although some of it is more educational and journalistic leaning. And I love what I do. But it’s work. It’s still work.
It doesn’t give me the same feeling that sitting down at my computer to write does.
The real kicker, though, is that sometimes sitting down to write doesn’t give me that feeling.
The peaceful feeling. The yes, this is what I’m supposed to be doing feeling.
So now that I write full time, and people pay me for it(which, by the way, still seems crazy in and of itself) here is my short list of things that still make writing hard:
Me. I get in my own way too much.
The hardwired desire for approval. When I sit down, I struggle to write to just write. I often write with an audience or a goal in mind. This usually leads to feelings of dissatisfaction.
The way writing is an “unfixing.” This is what Ross Gay calls the way he has students evaluate peer writing in his book, Inciting Joy. When we workshop writing, he says, we’re looking at it as something to be defended by the creator, and fixed by others. When we approach it with an air of curiosity and wonder, we leave space for unfixing. For letting the art take us deeper.
I want my writing to be fixed, to be perfect every time. I want every writing session to be productive; I want my writing to fit into neat little boxes, like “this book idea”, “that book idea” or “that other book idea.”It rarely obliges.
As a result of these factors - me, more specifically me, and my unwillingness to accept the process that is writing - I’ve found myself feeling stuck. I’ll add in one more: my tendency to compare myself to others.
She wrote a book? Maybe I should do that. A poetry anthology? How hard could that be? They have 2,000 subscribers already? And they’ve only published 4 essays? How could I be that funny? Can I even be a successful writer if I don’t market myself?
*Intermission for existential crisis*
Getting Unstuck
When I was reflecting on this journey of stuckness this evening — how badly I wanted to be unstuck, but I didn’t really know which direction to get unstuck IN — toward a fiction book? toward nonfiction? More personal essays? it hit me over the head that writing isn’t about the outcome.
It can’t be about the outcome.
If it’s about what other people think, it’ll never truly be us. We have to write, just to write. No matter how many people open our work, or care what we have to say.
If the urge to be artistic is there, the urge to create, that has to be pursued.
So that was my first little “oh, a-ha!” moment.
And my third, which I’m having now(we’ll come back to the second, in, well, a second) is that I will probably forget this “a-ha” moment. I’ve probably had it before. And I will have to revisit it and re-learn the entire lesson: that writing isn’t about approval, or money, or metrics. It’s about just writing.
The second “a-ha” moment was a bit of a full circle moment, and stay with me here for this one.
When I started writing on Substack in 2022(which was only 3 years ago, but in the lifetime of a mid to late 20-something, was 3 years ago! which is to say, forever ago) I interacted with 3 publications pretty regularly:
Having been here, there, and everywhere for the past year or so, I’ve lost touch with my original favorite reads, but woven together, they each represented a bit of my current writing journey.
I have felt quite lost trying to navigate the question of being a writer.
Am I even a writer? I had this fun little breakdown last night. Do I want to write books? Do I not? Will it bring me joy? Do I write good headers for creative writing pieces? WHAT AM I?
Destination, Unknown
I’ve also felt lost on this writing journey, specifically. Less so, interestingly, in my career and family life, which I don’t view as cause for concern but more a reflection on how easy it is to linearly choose the next step when the mold is already set for you, or you’re on the journey with someone who has similar goals to you.
When you’re on this journey — the writer’s journey — getting lost is, I think, a part of it. I imagine you have to lose yourself to find yourself to lose yourself to find yourself, over, and over, and over again. You can’t preset the destination in Google Maps when you decide you’re going to be a writer.
Lastly, I’ll say over the past year, give or take a few months, I’ve felt like that person who got singed by the campfire, so who took enough steps back that they could stay far away from the flames, but still be on the edge of it all.
As I’ve watched the industry of independent content creation grow while I’ve felt rather empty handed and empty headed in regards to what on earth I want to say, and if I should be saying anything at all, I’ve felt like that person on the edge of the campfire. Too far away to feel the warmth, but not ready to go yet.
Maybe at one point I would have ended this piece by telling you my goals around how I was going to be a “better writer”, but I don’t think there’s a such thing as being a better writer anymore.
In fact, I think that pursuit of perfection is lethal to creativity.
Especially when your life has only gotten busier.
No, instead I’ll tell you how I plan to follow the path and see where it takes me. That when I have chances to write, I’ll write to prompts and go to writing groups and try stories about fantastical worlds(mud people? would anyone read about me falling into a world inhabited by mud people? this was tossed around during my existential am-I-a-writer crisis) and also stories about the very real world we’re living in.
And maybe, one day, one of those essays will turn into … something. You could say a residency, a book, a byline in a creative writing magazine, more subscribers.
But I think I’d just say I hope it turns into something that impacts just one person.
Thank you for including me in your writing journey ❤️ And I don't know, mud people could be interesting 😜