THE First Post

Getting this out of the way...

Hello and welcome!

At the ripe age of 21, I’ve gotten to a point in my life where most people know I write, yet no one has read anything I’ve ever written. It’s like in Frances Ha (first post and I’m already talking about Frances Ha, Jesus Christ) when someone asks Frances what she does for work:

Frances: “What a stupid question! Just kidding... it’s hard to explain.”

Andy: “Because what you do is complicated?”

Frances: “No… because I don’t really do it?”

My friends trust me to edit papers, consult on their scripts, brainstorm concepts, etc. because I’m a “writer.” This trust means SO MUCH to me, but it doesn’t necessarily feel earned given the fact that I don’t share any of my own original work. I’m not exactly sure what’s been stopping me from sharing anything— maybe it’s the idea of opening myself up to scrutiny that’s scary? Disappointing people? General insecurity? What do I have to say that nobody has ever said before? Thought before? What do I have to say that’s worth saying, even?

(Ok so I do know exactly what’s been stopping me from sharing anything)

I have a problem where I re-read everything I’ve ever written. This can absolutely be an issue in the sense that looking at anything for too long makes you hate it (to an extent), but it also helps me pick up on things I hadn’t noticed or consciously done. One of these things I’ve noticed is that when I write in my journal, I tend to write to a reader —I try a little bit, it’s not a complete brain dump— yet I never intend for it to be actually read by anyone. Unless that reader I’m writing to is myself in five to ten years? Hard to say. If that’s the case, my attempt to not sound like a dumbass to my 10+ year older self is a pointless one. That’s a comforting thought, actually.

Getting started is hard when you’re still in the throes of finding your voice (corny but true). Ira Glass has this whole thing about “The Gap,” how beginners have to bridge the gap between the work they create themselves and the work they deem worthwhile or impressive, their “taste.” Obviously, nothing on this Substack is going to be Joan Didion, Maggie Nelson, or Patti Smith-level. Obviously. Bob Dylan said, “Life isn’t about finding yourself, it’s not about finding anything. It’s about creating yourself and creating things.” “Create” is a verb— you actually have to do something, make something, even if it’s not very good. To get better at something, you have to actually do it! Duh!

When I first got to college, I was convinced I wanted to be a screenwriter, but couldn’t bring myself to entirely commit to being a film major. I stuck with English Literature and wrote my first feature about a girl in her early 20s with a light drinking problem who was essentially having an existential crisis about having outgrown her childhood dream of being a comedian. Writing this screenplay felt like trudging through a pool of thick, sticky mud, and it took finishing the first draft for me to realize that my protagonist was a subconscious self-insert! Who would’ve thought! Why didn’t writing that feel as good as I thought it would? Do I still want to do this? Why don’t I want to do this anymore? What do I want to do? Oh God…

Leaning more into literature and away from screenplays, I found myself in a predicament: all of the “fiction” I wrote was just me editorializing my real life… I was basically writing creative non-fiction in disguise, barely changing the setting and character names to such an egregious extent that if any of my friends were to read any of it they’d be like… hey girl… On the flip side, creative non-fiction is complicated because it is your life and your friends/family/coworkers, they didn’t sign up for you to put them on blast (lovingly, most of the time). It’s a different kind of vulnerability, and being only 21, most of the stories I want to write don’t have the cushion of time and nostalgia to soften them, or I don’t have enough distance from them to provide any real insight in hindsight. For right now, I think the best approach is to focus on writing about things that I want to remember. Stories where nothing really happens, but everything matters (or, at least, feels like it does).

In “On Keeping a Notebook,” my favorite Joan Didion essay (at this moment in time), she writes (you’ve honestly probably seen this quote before): “We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.”¹ So here we are! We’re keeping a “notebook”!

Very few things are written to be read by everyone. A lot of work is never meant to be read at all, only written. There are some things I want everyone to read except my mom. Others I’d share with anyone but my grandparents, for entirely different reasons. Sometimes the only person you don’t want to read something is the person it’s written about. In the same way, sometimes the only person you want reading something is the person it’s written about. Written about vs. written for… sometimes the only person you want to read something is the person it’s written for. Someone who knows you love them, hate them— someone you want to tell that you love them or that you hate them, but don’t want to say it out loud. There’s a difference between saying what you mean and reading something that you mean out loud. A lot of the time, our voices, thoughts are different on the page (or screen, in this case). It’s probably just because we think about them more, re-read them after the fact. I have a hard time being proud of something until somebody tells me it’s good. Reading and writing can be very solitary acts. This is an attempt to open at least one of them up.

1. Didion, Joan. “On Keeping a Notebook” Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) p. 139