What Writing Does for Me
I have been thinking about writing. Unsurprising, considering writing has governed my days for most of this year, also, for most of my career, uh also, for most of my life. Writing here is a special kind of liberation, because it is my own website and also because it is non-lucrative, but also because my readers are 3-4 close friends with whom I chose to be friends for their lovable way of never telling me in so many words that my writing sucks dick (sorry Mum, pardon my French, etc.). The film reviews have been especially instrumental in making sense of my identity, which sounds dramatic but which I stand by.
Writing a book, however, is an absolute mindfuck. Of course, by virtue of being 23, this year has brought with it its fair share of emotional upheaval and subsequent growth, but in parallel, the writing — a comparatively substantial achievement — has done things for me that I never would have suspected. It has shaped me far more than I have shaped it. It has shown me that I have a voice and it has removed my fear of perception (for the time being at least, watch me shit myself when people who don’t have a vested interest in my wellbeing get their hands on it). Although it is something I have produced, it has become quite separate from me, like a child who, though it shares your genes, becomes its own person and quite foreign to you. The relationship between the writer and the work seems to me a constantly evolving relationship, an exchange, a particularly cruel and drawn-out game of hide-and-seek.
Writing as a creative outlet is obviously akin to therapy and healing, as I’m sure is painting to the painter and theorising to the scientist. Creation as a deliberate act of expression is a refuge from, and a solution to, pain and anger and helplessness, but also it is the violent expulsion of all that does not serve us and the reimagining of that refuse into something resembling art. And art is powerful, because it brings about change. This also means art is a grave responsibility, and that responsibility holds true regardless of how many people are in the audience. If only one person ever reads my book, I have a responsibility to that person — to not patronise her, to not spite or cheat her, to show her a world which I believe is fair. That I am writing light entertainment — a beach read, chick lit, what have you — does not absolve me of that responsibility (ask Jojo Moyes or Marian Keyes).
“For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.”
But the absolute joy and utter revelation of writing for me has transcended the writing itself. I told my friend the other day I think writing has made me whole. I mean, that’s pretty fucking powerful, no? It has made me aware of all the surreptitious ways I was compromising who I am to make others feel comfortable, but perhaps more importantly to shelter myself under the superficial comfort of holding back and fitting in. I feel, and it is always possible the feeling will waver, that I can love who I am and live that truth, and in that way I can better serve others. Writing did that for me.