Good Writers on Bad Days

On writing consistently, publishing sparingly, and promoting self-consciously.

Good writers write terribly, edit terrifically, show up consistently, echoing the sentiments of their reader most lyrically, and promote their work like their life depends on it, which it does. What kind of writer does that make me? 

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Last week, something unusual happened here on my Substack. I gained more subscribers (courtesy a feature called Recommendations) than I had in any other week since I first published a post in December 2019. It’s still a small number of subscribers, but the surge has surprised me.

If things were simpler, I’d have been happy with this development. Instead, I’m afraid that the slew of new readers doesn’t quite know what they've signed up for. They don’t seem to have arrived because of anything I did. Substack asked, they said yes. 

Perhaps if any of them happens to read this post, they can confirm what really happened, and if they had really wanted to be here, reading this. 

Many of these new subscribers aren’t known to me directly, but some of them know of me. This is tricky territory because I write personal essays on psychosocial issues. On the politics of getting older, on belongingness within the home, on occupying and being denied space in public, on not being able to introduce myself in social settings, on the misogynistic blueprint of marriage, on being child-free by choice, on outgrowing friendship and pruning my social circle, on the pursuit of writing as a ‘real job’, on the swiftly blurring lines between the home and the world, between work and play, between self and other, writer and reader. 

When the reader doesn't know who you are, the personal is powerful, political, equitably universal. When the reader knows who you are, the personal is intimate, intriguing, verging on voyeuristic, often an indelible splotch on your character by which they’ll always remember you. That woman who wears too much makeup. That woman who’s too old to find a husband. That woman who doesn’t even want children. 

To them, I'll always be that woman who thinks too much, writes too little, and goes about etching her opinions onto paper, audaciously aspiring to immortality. 

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On Writing for an Audience

Surely you’ve heard of the rather simplistic distinction between writing for yourself and writing for an audience. Don’t worry about what people think. Write for yourself! 

How can there be a distinction, for isn’t the genesis of writing in wanting to be seen, to be heard, to be remembered? In fact, I can’t think of a pursuit more self-indulgent than that of writing. I will speak, uninterrupted, unquestioned, in the words and language of my choosing, and you had better understand.

Even as it is enchanting to listen to your own voice and to gaze at yourself in the mirror, the audience is not unimportant. After all, the show is for the audience. The audience is always already present, looming over your shoulder as you sit down to write, speaking in the guise of your ‘inner voice’, dictating what to edit and what to omit. This audience is indistinct, a figment of your imagination that serves its purpose. The problem begins when you start recognising faces in the crowd.

I don’t believe I’m a bad writer. Like every other writer, I vacillate between writing delightfully and despairingly. Through the good and bad pages, I remain faithful to the written word. I was eight when I wrote my first poem, followed by reams of diary entries and unimaginative short stories about an adopted girl called Maya. As a ‘highly sensitive person’, I feel too intensely for my own good, with little choice but to bleed on the blank page. My language skills are passable, which means I’m already ahead of most people, and my attention to detail, or hypervigilance, if you will, lends itself well to the merciless process of editing.

I’ve been around long enough (but not often enough) to have found more readers than I actually have. I am neither consistent nor unabashedly self-promoting, so there couldn’t have been a different outcome.

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On Consistency (and Writer’s Block)

Never ask a writer for writing advice, because the answer will always be the same. Every single time you ask (or don’t), every single writer will tell you that consistency is the most important thing in your writing pursuit.

Unfortunately, in a world hastened by the Internet, simply writing every day doesn’t suffice. You also have to show up for the audience with a degree of consistency. I've had gaping absences in my publishing schedule, most of which have been unexplained and inexcusable. It’s never been because my well has run dry. I brim with words and ideas, but the paralysis of perfectionism seizes the unedited draft before it can see the light of day.

I’ll never blame writer’s block, because I don’t believe in it. There’s little that a writing prompt won’t solve, if at all you find that the burning desire to express yourself, that which has preceded your very existence, has waned. 

Try these: 

When do you feel most like yourself? 

What do you regret the most?

What do you think of when you think of home? 

Despite the prompts, I am intimately acquainted with long, uninterrupted impasses of not writing well enough, often enough, just enough. But ascribing it to ‘writer’s block’ is too simple to make sense. It’s like saying, “I stayed up all night because I couldn’t fall asleep”. (I told you, I'm the self-appointed queen of analogies!)

Consider this a warning that this post is littered with self-referential elements, which makes this an appeal to my new readers to read some of my older posts in which I bare my soul. This is also my way of saying hello to my new readers, albeit belatedly, and to thank those who really wanted to be here, and to welcome those who came here by accident, having lost their way.

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On Drafting, Editing and Publishing

I’m writing whatever-this-is on a Tuesday afternoon, with the hope to publish it on Friday, which is my preferred day to publish. This also means that this inelegant first draft may not undergo many revisions before I publish it. Good editing closely resembles magic.

“I want nothing more than to write, to slip into its frenzied state, and to string together sentences with a bizarre dream-like quality that can later be edited into making sense,” I wrote in one of my earlier posts on what it means to be a writer. There’s magic in the arduous journey that we undertake from the cluttered draft to a chiselled publication: the magic of persistence and perseverance, leading to perfection.

Nearly all the writers I follow on Substack choose to publish on Sunday, almost as if there’s an undisclosed agreement among them that Sunday is the day to get their reader’s minimally divided attention. 

Unfortunately, Sunday is anything but alluring to me. Sunday evenings are the worst, hefty with the dread of an impending Monday. None of this should matter to the one without a real job, but in the name of being self-employed and self-driven and self-whatnot, I’m truly enslaved to the self.

Friday evening is the crescendo of the workweek, the closing parenthesis to the not-so-randomly defined week. Publishing on Friday grants me the freedom to rejoice on the following two days, having me believe that I have earned my right to play. My flailing attempt to resemble an office-goer makes me forget that I willingly forwent my right to play.

But of course I don’t rejoice even on the weekend. I’m not the rejoicing type. I am always either mired in Sisyphean chores or steeped in a state of misery.

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On Newsletter-style Writing (and on Snakeskin)

Sometimes I wonder if there’s a reader out there for my stream-of-consciousness personal essays that occasionally devolve into whatever-this-is. Many writers of newsletters focus on providing value to their readers, either with lists of compelling recommendations (books, movies, places-to-be, what have you) or with something that you can apply to your life (productivity hacks, mindfulness practices, business ideas, etc.). It’s not that I believe my reflections are redundant to the reader, but perhaps their usefulness isn’t very obvious. 

Newsletter-style writing is believably a lucrative way for a writer to make money. But wouldn't you only want to pay for what’s of use to you, for what concerns you? Not that I'm asking for payments (yet), although every writer’s heart deeply yearns to be paid for what they actually do. One-time purchases, like that of a book to read for pleasure, are less of a commitment. Like a one-night stand. But a subscription? That’s marriage. Minus the misogyny, of course.

Over the last few years, I have developed a deepening dislike for some of the people I was once close to. I can barely stand the thought of them, much less pretend like I still care. Far into my hermetic burrow, I'm shedding friends like snakeskin. It begins with the topmost layer in the outermost circle, then it gets too close to the bone. It’s kind of like peeling an onion; you should know when to stop. But I don’t know if I want it to stop. Maybe my life truly needs the cleanse, to shed the dead skin and hair and nails. Expendables. Like a thorough round of editing.

God knows I am judged for these choices. What kind of person sheds people from their life? 

Newsletter-style writing is about continually showing up. What you've already written becomes old the moment you publish it. Newsletter writing is all about that which is new. Renew yourself, over and over. Like skin. Snakeskin. 

Sometimes I wonder if I’d rather be a one-book wonder. But then I’d have to promote that book. A newsletter that recurrently shows up in your inbox is self-promoting, in some ways. It’s a pesky reminder of my existence.

They say consistency is key. Sure, I could be consistent. This is me being consistent.

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On Self-Promotion

I am what you would typically describe as an introvert, the embodiment of reticence and solitude. So it’s obvious, then, that I have shied away from self-promotion. Where would I promote myself, except on social media? I have already written about how that makes me feel.

My writing is not distinct from myself. To promote my writing would be to promote myself. Unlike if I were to promote my real estate business (I do love this example, don’t I?), where I’d promote my enterprise in the name of solving a problem for you. But how do I promote my narrative nonfiction without promoting myself? It’s not even fiction, where we can all pretend like it has nothing to do with anyone we know.

In a world where you stand to disappear without a voice, how do you sensitively, intelligently, intrepidly and unselfconsciously promote yourself?

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On Being at Home

Being at home may have nothing to do with the writing process, but it may also have everything to do with it.

I’m now in the other home, in another bedroom, on another bed, on a different side of it. It doesn’t matter which one this is. When I talk about the pain of living across two homes, I’m often chided for having the problem of plenty. You have a boundless buffet of gourmet foods! Pick what you like, as often as you like! What are you lacking? But here I am, wailing about having lost the ability to tell hunger from satiety. Where am I visiting, where am I staying? Is it where most of my stuff is? Is it where most of my life has been? Or is it where there’s agency? Is it where I sleep better, or is it where I spend my waking hours in peace?

Speaking of peace, when I lay in bed after a long day of unfinished work, I don’t feel relief. I resist laying down for as long as I can. Maybe that’s why I refuse to get into bed before four am. Going to bed is like admitting defeat.

In each home, there’s a unique set of sounds that disrupts my feather-light sleep. In this home, I am awakened by a barrage of sensory assaults. The brilliance of the six am sun leaks into my east-facing bedroom through the gaps in the blackout curtain. Then there’s the ambient noise of vehicular traffic that rattles and honks therefore it is. A little later, I am assaulted by the shrill cries of children at play, screaming at the top of their lungs as if childhood is the nicest time of their lives. They’ll know better when they grow up.

We live in a neighbourhood where everyone is about our age, which is why nearly every household has a child resident. Everyone around here seems to live by the template, and it’s all frighteningly homogenous. Go to school, get a job, get married, procreate, raise children, taunt those who don’t want to live by the template, watch tv, die. 

Not a single hour of daylight goes by without the sound of a welding machine or a hammer making its way through my skull, a phenomenon peculiar to ‘developing’ cities. We’ve lived in this apartment for more than five years, and in all the time that we’ve spent here, I don't recall a single day of silence. If nothing else, they’ll break into song and dance on the occasion of a Hindu festival, when all the residents convene to celebrate how much they resemble each other. 

Home is not where I am, but it is where I can’t be. I could write an entire piece that simply lists the numerous definitions of home that I’ve come up with, that lay scattered across all the pieces I’ve published yet.

Now that Netflix no longer permits password-sharing in India, I must pick a household as my home. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks, when even Netflix believes that home is only one place. Not one place at a time, as I was trying to believe it is, but one place, forever.