The longest relationship of my life is the one I have with writing. I’ve been a writer longer than I’ve been most things: A professional, a lover, a friend. Like any addictive relationship, my relationship with writing is volatile. We flirt, we fuck, we fight. I leave, I cry, I vow to change, I return. The cycle repeats itself.
Some days, it feels like a spiritual vocation—an undeniable calling steeped in an endless depth of devotion. Other days, I would honestly rather eat my own eyes than sit down and put words on a page. Regardless, writing and I always end up back together. Even when I swear I can’t take another rejection, another round of edits, whatever it is, I always come back.
Writing is both the most rewarding and most frustrating part of my life.
It all started with a typewriter. A monster of a thing—all sharp edges and clunk. It was a gift from someone who noticed my penchant for being “away with the fairies,” most of the day. As a child, I spent more time in my head than I did engaging with the world around me. When the typewriter came into my life, an obsession was sparked. I would spend hours sitting at the kitchen table, hammering out stories I had made up.
I learned, quickly and painfully, that clocking up words per minute on an ancient typewriter came with a price: one slip of the finger could leave a nasty imprint. (I still have a scar on the pad of my left ring finger courtesy of a missed ‘Q’.) Writing is as they say, the ability to sit at a typewriter and bleed, although I’m still not sure if that was supposed to be literal as opposed to metaphorical.
The more I wrote, the more I started to understand the mechanics of writing and, later, the physicality of it—how creativity (and the creative act, regardless of medium) is a full-body experience. Every word put down on the page by the force of imagination, the labouring over a typewriter (and later, a keyboard). The exertion involved in making the abstract concrete, in bringing the vision you have in your head to the page. Writing let me exist in two worlds at once: still “away with the fairies,” but tethered to reality by the weight of words.
As a kid, I wanted to be a vet but that dream quickly died the moment I learned it would involve operating on animals. I loved music and always thought I’d end up becoming a professional musician, but writing grabbed hold of my heart and called me towards it, softly at first, then so loudly I couldn’t ignore it.
I started with my short stories, then quickly progressed to journalism and learning how to work it as a hack. This is where the gauntlet came: rejection after rejection, criticism after criticism. I learned that to be a writer (journalist or otherwise) is to get really comfortable being repeatedly punched in the face by rejection and learning how to pivot. I learned that you have to love it more than you love your ego. You have to want the work of it more than you want the byline, the prize, the publishing deal, the glory.
When I was younger, I chased the glory. I wanted the bylines, the prizes, the reputation, the accolades. Now? It’s less about the output and being recognised as a “writer”. It’s more about how writing has become so much a part of me, I can’t imagine not doing it. It’s about the peace I feel when it’s just me and the page. How the steady rhythm of one word after the other gives me a type of inner pace that years of partying, meditating, fucking around and yoga retreats never could.
Writing is the love of my life. Bold statement, very much true. It takes me out of myself yet plants me so firmly in my own presence that it feels like something akin to godly.
The fact is that yes, some days writing makes me want to eat my own eyes. But even then, I’d probably still write about the taste.
Ohhh, I love this. Yes, and saaame.