how much is writing supposed to cost you?
are you willing to pay the price?
How much is writing supposed to cost you? (Spoiler alert: everything)
Good writing costs you something: a piece of your soul, a sliver of your dignity, a taste of your humility. By that logic, all good writers must be broke.
I operate under the belief that if you’re to write about something, anything, you must do so honestly, or it’s not worth the trouble. To write anything worth reading you must be prepared to denude your heart. Good writing is a series of complex, layered nuances that offer readers a glimpse of your soul, and in a world where exposing yourself bare seems to be the quickest way to achieve success or “clout”, it’s become a prerequisite to disrobe your psyche for public consumption. You must get comfortable with your vulnerability— or at least be comfortable enough to hit ‘publish’.
I’ve been writing since I was a child, both formally and informally, and every writing mentor I’ve ever had, when probed about how to become a good writer, has said some variation of the following: write about what you know. Pull from your experiences, your feelings, your emotions. To be a good writer you must be willing to get outside, to immerse yourself in the world. You must be willing to experience love and loss and friendship and betrayal and suffering and kindness and rejection and lust and sin and hope. Writers perhaps always have the largest appetite—or at least they should. If you hide away and expect the words to come to you, you’ll always be writing from your imagination, never reality. Yet, the people living in reality, the ones you hope will read your work, well, they can smell real from fake a mile away. People connect deepest with writing that is raw, honest, pulled from the very depths of your soul. So, to write anything of substance is going to cost you. Some people spend their whole lives grappling with this. Some never can. You have to learn to balance the fine line between being a good writer and protecting your heart.
So, how much of yourself are you willing to give over to the world?
I’ve spent many years pondering that very question—how in debt would I go in the name of art? Can I consider myself a good writer if I still spend so much time hiding away, afraid of existing in the real world? I try my best to write honestly, but it is hard, to expose myself to you, dearest reader. I have shared my pain, my suffering, my self-hatred, all of my delusional rambles, with you, handing over my confessions with trembling hands because I am still very afraid of being seen.
I struggle with presenting my vulnerability in a way that’s meaningful, thoughtful, beautiful. I've spent much of my career trying to emulate the writers I revere, whose words present a mirror to the tender depths of their souls. I find myself both envious, and forever drawn, to the elegance with which they bare their spirits—artful, heartfelt, and achingly enviable. Really, I think I’ve been trying to ride off the coattails of their self-expression, moulding it to fit into my own weary ideologies about myself.
Primarily, I publish my writing on the internet, and as social media has developed over the last decade or so, there’s an alarming pattern forming among the masses: the entitlement we feel to another’s personhood. Of course, I don’t consider myself influential enough to warrant having any fans. Still, as someone who exposes herself and her heart to the world, it’s becoming difficult to grapple with the intensity that parasocial relationships provoke in relation to sharing my writing.
, author of has a great article that goes in-depth on celebrity culture and parasocials relationships, and what stood out to me in her analysis is how voyeuristic we have become as a result of the internet. Our unlimited access to individuals has led to us dehumanising one another: we feel as though we know someone completely based on the small parts of themselves they choose to share on the internet. We turn people into characters, forgetting they’re merely human. explores the difficulty of being a writer on the internet in her newsletter , “Good art, above all else, is honest. As consumers of media, books, content, what resonates with us the most is unexpected vulnerability. Real, honest, and raw depictions of the human psyche that we can relate to deeply in a way we wouldn’t have expressed as easily ourselves.” There’s a fearlessness that’s obligatory if you want to produce good writing, and that level of honest expression is seldom easy to capture. It requires a level of comfortability with yourself and your experiences, which is particularly exhausting to achieve, and even more tiring to manifest on a public stage.A lot of the time I can’t write about something until the pain of it wears off, until the memory of it isn’t so heavy on my chest. Getting to determine when I pass over this key to my heart—this exchange of tender narratives from me to you—allows me to retain a sense of control over my vulnerability. There is a lot I want to write about, my pen is heavy with confessions. Yet, I find myself hesitant to pay the price of self-exposure.
It feels like all my writing is just a variation of:
All this pain was once good. I remember the good. I am trying to avoid it but I have to write about it eventually. Maybe I can make it pretty. Would it hurt less if I made it sound pretty?
Which is to say, I worry about my ability to remain honest during times of suffering. And I worry that makes me more human than artist.
It may be hard to believe but I was not always so willing to bare my soul so publicly. It has taken a lot of uncomfortable exposure therapy to get here. Two years ago, I published my first poetry book, Growing Pains. I was sick with the idea of its publication, spending months rereading my poetry, adjusting formatting, and trying to accept the fact that I was about to hand over my deepest, darkest secrets to the world. I felt so exposed, so naked, despite the majority of the poetry in the book having been written years prior—I had to wait until I had fully moved on and healed from the feelings those experiences in my life provoked. I had to be indifferent. Reaching a state of indifference felt a cheaper price to pay. I can’t fabricate the truth, I have to be willing to spit it out without worrying how I’ll clean it up.
It can be embarrassing to admit how hard life has shoved me—I’ve been on somewhat of a “healing” journey (whatever that means) for the last few years, and I feel guilty to confess that I still falter, I still waver, I still find myself drowning in the depths of my suffering with no escape in sight. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy I’m now the person my friends go to for advice. I’m happy I get to pass along the wisdom I’ve learned through my words. However, I get shy to admit I still make mistakes all the time. I’m not perfect—far from it. I can’t transform the stories of my pain into something beautiful while I’m submerged in the depths of it. I’ve spent many months grappling with heartbreak, insecurity, comparison; I’ve found myself curled beneath my blankets sick by the mere thought of my future. I’ve cried on my kitchen floor more times than I’m willing to avow. I’ve sat in tears on the subway en route to meet my friends, patting down my face with tissues so they couldn’t tell. I spent my birthday this year wishing for my past to merge with the present. I get afraid to divulge these confessions while I’m caught up in their storm, mainly as a way to protect my own heart. I’ve learned that I must heal in private before I can show up in the world again. However, this is becoming an increasingly difficult pursuit since my livelihood now rests upon my ability to monetise my struggles, my vulnerability, myself.
In today’s digital age, where the price for success is baring one’s soul, we have to wonder where to draw the line: how to invite others in while still keeping some things for ourselves. Not everything needs to be displayed for the world— some things are meant to stay offline.
I confess I haven’t mastered this art, I’m still a novice when it comes to protecting myself. My words get jumbled in my mind, I still struggle to gatekeep the depths of my soul. It is a lifelong lesson, one I spend each and every day trudging through.
That being said, there is a lot that has transpired over this last year, both positive and negative, and I hope to one day write about them all for you. I have a lot of confessions to hand over. However, I haven’t been feeling very charitable with my soul lately, and I worry handing over these confessions before I feel ready may cost more than I can afford.
These confessions will be yours one day, but today I’m feeling more human than artist, so I tenderly ask you for some grace.
I’m still learning how to protect myself while continuing to produce writing that is honest, real, raw. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to this, you must first figure out how much of yourself you're willing to share with the world. As a first step, you must try to get more comfortable with your vulnerability.
Exposure therapy is usually the best way to combat this, and when it comes to writing, the best way to approach this is by starting to publish your work. Remove the notion that your work has to be perfect before you can share it. Perfection doesn’t exist, good enough is enough. This reflection exercise from Vanessa Aldrich that I shared in last month’s newsletter has helped me tremendously with this.
The best thing a writer can do is to go outside and experience life. Good writing draws on all the unique ways in which you perceive life: what you take away from people and moments and encounters. No one can tell your story but you. That fact is as liberating as it is terrifying.
So, exist in the real world, take it all in. Write from your heart and don’t be afraid to bare yourself. Just make sure you’re ready to pay the price.
If I can get you to do anything today, I urge you to watch these two videos. The first will help you overcome the fear of being seen and perceived by others, and the latter is a great deep dive into how we exist during the most creative time in history, so use it to your advantage <3
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this month’s edition of Confessions of a 20-Something. I encourage you to share this with your close friends if you feel like it’s the kind of thing they’d be into.
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Until next month …