The world may shift, but your words are yours to write.
*This post was originally written November 5, 2024.*
When I started to write this newsletter on Tuesday, I wanted to wait until the election results were announced.
Should this edition of the newsletter be one of celebration or of comfort to my readers? I wondered.
Or should I not talk about the election at all?
But none of us exist in a vacuum. Neither does our writing, even our fiction. As much as we can try to create it from scratch, it is always informed by our lives—by where we are, where we have been, and where we want to go.
So ultimately, I decided that what I wanted to share with you today remains true regardless of any election result.
Because we are where we are right now. Tomorrow will be worse or it will be better, but we should not dismiss today.
The names on the ballot were the names on the ballot, and that is hard enough. That generates an avalanche of feelings by itself.
The following two quotes have helped me to write even when I feel caught up in an avalanche. I hope they can do the same for you.
When life overwhelms, writing becomes a lifeline—a form of therapy that allows us to confront and transform what troubles us.
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation. I am not a religious man. I don’t believe in God. But I believe in the power of writing. It is the only way I can confront the things that make me suffer. It allows me to understand, and it is an escape from the pain of things I can’t control. I write because I have to. (Graham Greene)
And in times of upheaval, we often write to create a world we can live in, as Anais Nin eloquently describes.
Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me — the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art. (Anais Nin)
Wherever you are today, however you feel, I hope these words help you to keep writing, to find solace in your craft, and to make a little space for yourself on the page.
P.S. If you found this blog helpful, please share it with someone else who might find it so as well.
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