On writing & self-respect + the price we pay for both
Trigger warning: mention of suicidal ideations
Hello,
I know I said if I write to you again this month it means I’m procrastinating, but I’m happy to say I’m on track for my end-of-February writing deadline. I’ve been waking up at 5:15 every morning and I’m only able to write when I follow the same routine every day. I didn’t have this problem with My Past is a Foreign Country. With that book, there was a desperate urgency to write the first draft, the words coming to me in a rush. It was as though someone needed to write the book and I had pulled the short straw. I didn’t need to make time to write it, I was living to write it.
Soon after I signed the publishing contract for My Past, I developed a fear of dying. Hoping to live long enough to see my book published started to feel like wishful thinking. A part of me knew how irrational this fear was and so I kept it to myself, worried of appearing unhinged to my loved ones.
When I got out of bed on 27th June 2019, I was completely amazed at still being in my body, still breathing. The book launch was that evening and I was going to be interviewed by BBC Radio at lunch time. There was still time to get run over on the way to the studio, I told myself. My fear didn’t come from a place of regret. I was proud of the book I wrote and grateful for the opportunity to write it, but it all felt too good to be real. I don’t mean the bit about finding a publisher. No (even though it was). I mean the opportunity to look deeply at my past, to untangle myself from my trauma and to shape the rest of my life beyond its shadows. It felt like I had unwittingly accessed a cheat code in the game of life and was going to get caught soon.
On publication day, the reviews, praise and attention poured in from all corners but I didn’t get to enjoy most of it because of a particularly vicious attack from a relative who felt my book was an insult to the image of my family name. The attack was so unexpected (to me) in its logic, source and vitriol that it threw me off-kilter. After months of fearing death, I felt an urge to embrace it. (Retrospectively, it sounds like an overreaction, but post-publication is an extremely vulnerable time for authors. Please take care of your writer friends!)
I never figured out where my temporary fear of dying came from, but I’m so grateful for the experience. It made me understand how precious our time on this earth is, a concept which was purely intellectual until then. And ultimately, it saved me, acting as a guiding light as I grappled my way out of the dark post-publication period. When I emerged into light again, I was surprised to find myself clutching tightly to a strong sense of pride for being the author of My Past. I no longer questioned my right to share my story. I had paid the price and I understood that there are no cheat codes in life, only different routes to arrive at the same destination.
I’m thinking about all this today because of how relaxed I feel about my current draft. The self-doubt is still there, but it isn’t debilitating. Instead of causing me to spiral, it’s helping me ask myself how I can grow as a writer. Deadlines too are not as scary this time around, alhumdullilah.
Immediately after typing the above, I came across the below paragraph from this piece by Lauren Oyler and I had to laugh.
Why are we like this – self-loathing, self-important, melodramatic, aware of what we’re doing but unwilling to alter our behaviour? Our job is neither hard nor essential; often it is allegedly our dream. If you had forever to write what you’re writing, it would be perfect, but you don’t have forever. (Maybe having forever is actually the dream?) What you have in its place is a more or less arbitrary stopping point that offers an excuse for not being perfect. Deadlines are an insult to philosophy, but an acknowledgment of life. Nevertheless, they aren’t supposed to be “real”. They do not mean what they say they mean. And how else would a writer define reality?
On the theme of writing, this is a great interview with Matthew Salasses. His essay on craft is excellent and I can’t wait to read his book. The bit about revisions (below) is something I strongly identify with and I think it’s why I write: to correct in my writing what I can’t in my life. It makes living with my flawed self a little bit easier.
I believe really strongly in revision. I used to make my students take an implicit bias test at the beginning of a course and I would get the same result: we all had implicit bias, obviously. My students would say, “I’m not racist, I’m not sexist,” or whatever. And I would say, “Well, that’s because you’re able to think about it. You don’t always act on your first impulses. We have a mind, and we can use it to correct our behavior and do better and become better people.”
To me, that’s revision. You put on the page all of this really deeply culturally informed subconscious stuff, and you have to use revision to be able to think about why it’s there and what it means. And not just what it means on the page, but what it means that you’re writing that thing in the world that we live in.
It takes a long time and a lot of work to make these unconscious things into conscious decisions. For me the idea is, we act consciously on the page and in life, but I don’t think that’s a quick and easy process, trying to break your habits.
A brilliant book I read recently that touched on writing is The Friend by Sigrid Nunez. It’s been the perfect companion to my writing days, filled with excellent advice and brilliant sentences.
Two other stand outs from February include:
The Khan by Saima Mir - What a triumph! Yes please to British-Pakistani, Muslim, female (!) Godfather style gangster (!!) from Bradford!!!
Childhood, Youth, Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen - Heartbreaking, tender, unsentimental.
I’m currently reading A Net for Small Fishes by Lucy Jago and if I had to describe it in one word I would pick ‘delicious’.
I also revisited my favourite bits from Parallel Lives by Phyllis Rose. I learn something new every time I read it. I feel the same way about her interviews. Sharing her thoughts on gossip and marriage below, from this Guardian interview.
In the prologue to Parallel Lives, you say that gossip is the beginning of moral inquiry. Do you stand by that?
Yes, I think that’s true. It’s the reason that women in general have finer sensibilities than men. They’re used to talking about other people’s behaviour. Men don’t do that, and they’re a little morally dull.
You also say in your prologue that human beings invoke love at moments when they want to disguise transactions, like marriage, that involve power. Do you still see marriage like that?
Women may be less inclined now to be hoodwinked by romantic folderol. But power still resides in marriage, and the stuff about weddings is still incredibly potent, which is why it gets Instagrammed. That’s part of the cover-up.
On the subject of re-reading, Joan Didion’s 1961 Vogue essay on self-respect is my go-to on the subject. The below sentences are especially clarifying:
The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others—who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation—which, as Rhett Butler told Scarlett O'Hara, is something that people with courage can do without.
To do without self-respect, on the other hand, is to be an unwilling audience of one to an interminable home movie that documents one's failings, both real and imagined . . . To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice or carelessness. However long we post- pone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously un- comfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves.
As always, thank you for reading.
Best,
Zeba