On writing that makes you reach into the dark

What writing well means to me

Yesterday I put out a tweet:

‘It is becoming increasingly clear to me that to write something well, you have to seek out the edges, look in places you don't want to, open boxes you're afraid to, climb up and reach your hand in the space above the cupboard until it touches something scaly, skittery, waiting.’

I’ve been thinking a lot about good writing. Good writing doesn’t pretend. It doesn’t pretend like much of us do, to be something it is not. The thing is, in life so much is pretence - it’s all around us - in curated Instagram feeds, in what we wear and how we interact with other. In the words we choose. It is maddening (and necessary, and strange). Good writing, real writing, the gritty stuff shows us things as they are and for a moment it is like a veil falls on all this bullshit and for a moment you see life as it is and you can breathe.

That’s good writing.

But good writing is also terrifying. For the writer and the reader. It means you have to face yourself. It means you have to speak truths aloud. And ugh! Who wants to do that? Who wants to be brave? It’s so hard. And scary. That thing I said about reaching your hand out in the dark and feeling something move is how it feels because it’s the things you’re so afraid of: your trauma, your disappointments, your rejections, your fears and weakness, things you’ve taken years to hide and protect, waiting there to pull you into their dark depths. Writing can do this. It throws you into yourself. It sucks you in because it has all the right roads to take you there; back to that God-awful haunted broken, rotting house you never wanted to step foot in again. The place where you pushed all your nightmares, all the bad things, the things that really hurt. It’s so hard to face yourself. I’d rather disappear in a series on Netflix. Or nap. Or eat something nice (but that also worries me - how the world is designed [read capitalism] to keep you from facing yourself).

But my God, when you let the writing take you back there, back to the threshold of that house, facing that terrible door, sending you into those rooms you never thought you would see again. My God, it’s terrible. The taste of everything lost, of everything waiting to be lost, of what has past and what is yet to come. Who would return to the site of such horror? And yet, you go back there, and you inspect the rubble and you let history come alive and then when it is done with you, you climb out and you learn you can face your fear and that perhaps, you don’t always have to run away from yourself.

I’ve seen moments in myself, little glimpses, little twinges of what real writing can feel like. What it feels like to put the truth (not the truth we tell ourselves) on the page. It feels like seeing yourself in a reflection and putting your hand out to reach for it and feel something touch back. It is a rare and powerful feeling. Perhaps the most powerful you have your whole life.

What I wanted to say with that tweet is that your writing should make you a little afraid, a little uncomfortable. It should make you question yourself. And I was saying it more as a reminder to me, than anyone else (I am so tired of playing it safe, of hiding, of pretending).

I want us to write things that bleed and boil and make us reach out for ourselves. Things that make us say, ‘I did not hide, I reached into the darkness and took hold of what lay there.’

Until next time,

Shubnum