Hello and I hope you’re having a lovely day to anyone reading.
I believe, thanks to the connectivity with other people’s inner lives afforded by the internet, that most people aren’t built with a determined and single-minded inner self. To me, anyway, most people aren’t unwavering and in constant pursuit of one goal. They slip off course into multiple versions of their life every day. If they’re inspired, tired, fed up, or whatever, these changes can shift the version of life they’re living and where they see the path in front of them leading. My motivation to be a writer ebbs and flows between the driving, creative force of my life, a sort of ontological anchor, to simply being an enjoyable and fulfilling occupation for my spare time. Both of these versions of myself are equally me, equally tantamount to ‘Ursula’.
I like to think of myself as a writer but this doesn’t mean I’m always writing. I am a firm believer in the Dawson’s creek school of philosophy — that if your interest in an art form is isolated to that one form alone, you will only ever create simulacra of that which already exists. You will only ever write books, for example, about other books. I am likewise not the reader I once was or the reader I want to be; I read and write in paltry amounts every day to convince myself that my creativity hasn’t been numbed by easier or more convenient forms of entertainment.
As someone who likes to think of themselves as a writer, these failures of self feel like reminders that whatever I produce will always be mediocre. It’s only recently that I realised that if I write, I’m a writer, and there’s no shame in advertising myself as such. It isn’t about external recognition, though that helps. Paradoxically, it’s within this internal realisation about self-definition that I finally found the freedom to share my work with other people (in the form of this very newsletter).
The sense of creative numbness that I mention is something I’m sure artists of any medium can relate to. There’s nothing scarier than leaving yourself alone with your own work to reflect on how good it actually is, or to convert the perfect idea in your head to a wobbly and unsure first draft. One of the most valuable things about writing (the noun, the verb, the gerund), is that it’s something you improve at with age. My stories aren’t as good as they will be when my life is fuller with experiences, with anecdotes and greater understanding of the world. I can write far better about employment now than I could have three months ago.
Writing has made me feel in control of myself again and, though using fictional worlds as an escape is not the surest coping mechanism, allowing myself to not be perfect and understand that I am continually growing is reassuring. It’s a reminder which I must continuously give myself. The reason I titled this letter ‘I’ve failed as a writer’ is because it’s something I am both constantly feeling and constantly disproving by continuing to write. I don’t believe success can really be measured when you’re creating art, and so both are always a little bit true for me.
When I’m feeling like I’m not doing well at my job, which is a lot as of late as a newly-employed graduate with crushing self esteem issues, writing is something steady. I feel like even if I don’t have the creative editorial job of my dreams write now (eheheh), my life doesn’t have to be an unfulfilling and uncreative one. My identity as a writer exists outside of what I earn from it or the recognition I get for it.
Thanks so much to anyone who took the time to read this. Love to you all.
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Read Ghosts by Dolly Alderton kids!! It’s great!!