"write what you want to read," okay, fine i will!

i'm getting meta on the newsletter today

real note from my notes app

i have a recurring theme in my dreams where the lights won’t turn on. years ago it always used to be the lights in the upstairs bathroom of the house i grew up in, and last night it was about the lights not turning on in only the middle floor of a large three story house. the bottom floor and top floor lights illuminated the vast hallway leading from one staircase to the other, but the lights on the third floor, high up and recessed into the ceiling, would lightly flicker as if to suggest they can turn on, but never will entirely.

in trying to figure out what this recurring feature means, many people state that lights that won’t turn on in dreams symbolize problems and struggles which need illumination to see a way out of, and that houses represent the self. from this, it seems my dreams may be representing a problem i know of subconsciously, and while i’m looking for answers, i have to rely on the peripheral ones i already have to see through the dark of the struggle.

as a writer, i’m constantly struggling with what to write about, especially for this newsletter. i can write about things on the internet, but what do i have to add to the conversation that hasn’t already been said? what if i need to take a break from twitter and tiktok? i can also write about myself, but i’m a nobody, who cares about me? or i can write about politics, or the news, or history, but then what if my audience doesn’t actually care about the things i care about in those ways? what if i change my mind a week later on the topic i wrote about?

thoughts like this swirls around for hours until i feel nauseous and opt to stop thinking so much. i just write about things i feel passionate about in that given moment and move on. sometimes i don’t have an idea for too long, sometimes i ignore this place because it stresses me out.

but that’s not the relationship i want to have with my writing. i want to want to write, i want to write more, i want to have people read my writing and i want to be heard. the only thing holding me back is my self doubt and my inability to self-promote. seriously, i’m horrible at promoting this newsletter.

all these thoughts always come back to this central one: why write anything?

why do we write without knowing if anyone will like it? we have to be self-absorbed, delusional, or both, to fully believe that what we write is going to be enjoyed by a single person out there. and yeah, i am a bit self-absorbed and delusional, i wouldn’t have started a substack otherwise.

Joan Didion wrote an essay titled Why I Write, published in The New York Times in 1976. at the end of the essay, on a line in her novel A Book of Common Prayer, she writes the following:

This “I” was the voice of no author in my house. This “I” was someone who not only knew why Charlotte went to the airport but also knew someone called “Victor.” Who was Victor? Who was this narrator? Why was this narrator telling me this story? Let me tell you one thing about why writers write: had I known the answer to any of these questions I would never have needed to write a novel.

this paragraph is obviously about her fiction writing, and about a specific line in the book she came up with before other details in the novel, but i think it rings true for a lot of writers. we start with an idea, an image, a concrete thing, not the abstract or the whole story figured out. something gives us inspiration, or “shimmers,” to quote Didion again. whenever i write anything, it starts out similar to how she describes it: an image that stays in my head, or a thought that i can’t get rid of, or a line that i need to write somewhere, and i’ll work the whole thing around that image, or thought, or line.

so while i’m struggling to figure out what a good idea is, what people want to read or what is worth writing in any way, i’m going to stick with this: something incredible can come from a single concrete detail. it’s okay if it doesn’t appeal to everyone, and ultimately those who want to read my writing will be the ones who appreciate that detail.

the signs as movies i’ve watched since the beginning of 2023

aries - everything everywhere all at once (2022)

taurus - licorice pizza (2021)

gemini - american pie (1999)

cancer - shiva baby (2020)

leo - house of gucci (2021)

virgo - tár (2022)

libra - pretty woman (1990)

scorpio - blacKkKlansman (2018)

sagittarius - say anything (1989)

capricorn - the banshees of inisherin (2022)

aquarius - frances ha (2012)

pisces - aftersun (2022)