Why I share
(First written for Substack)
I nearly didn’t share anything today. I’ve had a bit of a week — feeling stuck in various ways and, somehow, being quite mean to myself in the process. So the thought of putting words in front of other humans made me want to slide quietly away from Substack and instead indulge in the ridiculous amount of Black Friday deals being slung at me (I bought a new toothbrush, how’s that for living life). But I also made a pact with myself to share something every week, however small, however unpolished, and here I am, mildly regretting my own integrity. And, as my often–Yoda-like (in demeanour, not looks) husband said to me when I told him I thought I’d skip a week: ‘You’re looking for excuses not to show up, but it doesn’t have to be perfect.’ And yes, perfectionism has long been my ultimate procrastination tool.
So being in this sticky, introspective space, I thought I’d continue the post I wrote a few weeks back about why I write, and instead answer the question I have been asking myself this week: of why I am (somewhat reluctantly) starting to share my writing.
Because isn’t it enough to write privately? Some days it is. In fact, for years it was, and I have a whole cabinet of journals stuffed to the brim with words and poems and ponderings that no one will ever see (unless I become a reaaaaallly famous poet and my children retire young by selling my diaries, though the former scenario seems more likely). Why does some part of me keep nudging me toward the nerve-racking bit — the part where someone else gets to actually read it?
Because, as Substack is teaching me, sharing is not my comfort zone. It feels great, as always, to spend some time writing, editing, playing around with words. I like making pretty designs and thinking about how things look too. But then when I share, it feels exposing, uncomfortable, and oh-so vulnerable (says the lady who posted a poem about her postpartum boobs last week — I can see why you may be confused). The questions are the same each time: Is this too much? Too weird? Too exposing? Too earnest? Too boring? Does it not really reflect who I know myself to be? Should I just delete everything and start baking? But I am really quite bad at baking.
My Submittable account is essentially a graveyard of polite rejections, and yet, somehow, I kept sending my poetry out, like word-spaghetti, hoping some of it would stick. And some did! And most recently I felt so overjoyed that I managed to publish a little chapbook - a process which has been both deeply validating and mildly traumatising. I wanted it out in the world, but it has also brought up a lot of questions and anxieties since being published.
Studying for an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes, I’m realising that all this discomfort is part of something bigger. I’m learning more about the process of writing itself: not just the craft but the letting go, the vulnerability of offering our words, the strange alchemy that happens when my own private truth becomes a shared language — a conversation, even if it’s only between a few people. There is a healing quality to this process of writing and sharing. Not ‘healing’ in the overused, Instagrammable way, but in the old Celtic sense of haelen: to make whole. Sharing asks me to gather the shattered, disparate, incoherent, messy parts of myself and my life and make them whole; to piece them together in a way that lets the light in. Writing becomes the kintsugi, the Japanese pottery technique for mending broken ceramics with gold, except here the joinery is language and meaning, and the simple act of noticing of the world around us in a way our busy lives so often don’t allow.
So yes. Sharing is… fraught. It hasn’t (and won’t — trust me!) eliminated the fear. It hasn’t (won’t!) silenced the inner critic. I still hover over the ‘publish’ button far longer than anyone should. I make my husband read everything I’m about to post, and he often has to say ‘DO IT, DO IT’ a few times before I actually do do it. Easy for Yoda, right?
But each time I do share, especially on the days I want to put on my trackies and disappear into a wormhole on Instagram, something in me becomes a tiny bit steadier, or braver. With a tiny bit more of a backbone and a tiny, tiny, tiny bit less anxiety about Other People and What They Might Think. And as a result, a bit more confidence in my ability to do the things that bring me discomfort, because — in general — that’s probably where the growth and the goodness reside. And this is true whether it’s writing or something else that brings you alive: it’s often the things we love and care about most, the things that will help us to move beyond our safe little confines, that become the most terrifying, and important, to pursue.
So, reluctantly, persistently, I share: on the days I feel grumpy and doubt myself, as well as on the days I feel proud and think the particular combination of words I’ve chosen actually sounds pretty decent. I post tiny thoughts to a tiny audience (thank you tiny audience!) on Substack. I send my poems out into the world to see if anyone else might like them too (thank you, eternal echo chamber!) Not because it feels easy or natural, but because I’ve finally reached the point where hiding feels worse. In the famous words of Anaïs Nin:
‘And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.’
Because writing and then sharing does sometimes feel painful, but it also — in this ancient haelen sense — helps me gather myself back into something whole.
Disclaimer: I don’t profess to be any sort of expert on the range of (convoluted and complicated) human emotions that I periodically choose to write about! These are merely personal reflections based on personal experiences.
