Update: My time as an ouroboros was not fun
But I feel like I might be in a better place because of it
Reading time: about 7 minutes
My friends, I have a thing I want to say to you, but I don’t know how to say it. 🙊 So I’m going to tell you an odd fact about how I write, and we’ll see if that gets us near to where I need to go.
When I talk, the words that come out of my mouth sound exactly like they do in my head. But when I start to type my thoughts out, the words on the page end up different. Sometimes completely different; sometimes just a bit different. There’s a shaping, an ordering, a softening, a primping that happens in the name of clarity (and caution) between my brain and my fingers.
It feels to me like writing English and speaking English are two different languages. One is imprecise because feelings get in the way. The other is imprecise because I get in my own way.
Ah, that’s what I was looking for.
I’m getting in my own way.
In the days between the turning of the year and now, I feel like I have built and laid waste to a series of my own empires. I had grand visions and epiphanies and panics and rabbit holes and regroupings and desperations. The emotional ups and downs have been intense and frustrating as I’ve gotten more and more stuck. I want to bring you my stories directly, but then I can’t publish them. I want to write stories for you and separate ones to publish, but I don’t have time to do both. How could I resolve this impasse?
To begin, I created a grand plan around a type of story I could write that would let me lean heavily on AI and therefore take less time.
(This type of story involves re-writing Greek myths as hopepunk. Then I thought I could make some sort of podcast talking about the original Greek myth and how I morphed it into hopepunk and how I used AI along the way. If you are thinking, But wait Elnora, this is more work, not less, you get a gold star.)
I wrote a draft of a new Greek myth based story in a day and a half. I put it aside and started work on a story for publication. A week into it I was still thinking out my revisions, but I needed to get back to work on the Greek myth story because I felt like I had to have it done for you on February 1st.
Then I decided, mais non! There is still time! I will concentrate on this story and ignore the ticking clock in the back of my head on the Greek myth story!
After I made that decision, I immediately was unable to get any story work done for three days. Then I decided what I needed to do was write 12 Greek story myths as fast as I could and set them up to be sent out to you monthly over the next year. Then I could get back to writing stories for magazines uninterrupted for huge swathes of time.
Two more days of not writing followed that completely stupid decision.
Then I decided my problem was really time management, because I didn’t start the new year with a planner and goals broken down into bits. But I never can find just the right planner, and the goal setting framework in the planner is never really as helpful as I want it to be, so down the planner rabbit hole I went for the 234298934th time.
And then I drifted a bit, got caught up in thinking about personal almanacs and permanent calendars and the Wheel of the Year. Which in turn reminded me that I own tarot decks. I dug them out, and started playing with them. After getting a dire and ruinous reading when I asked about my writing plans, I finally asked my cards, how should I view my story making?
And the reply was:
Right through the gut, my friends. That’s where this one hit me. Pinned me right to the god damned (goddess-blessed?) floor. This is why I want to be a writer—to reveal secrets that want to remain hidden. Not corporate or government secrets. Secrets about ourselves, about the systems that run our lives, about how things are connected and how they aren’t. I want to tell how things really are, and really could be. I want to help make the unrealized known. That’s my dream—not creating content, but creating understanding, compassion, emotion.
What is the first step? I asked the cards.
I’m getting in my own way.
I’m worrying about writing things that you will enjoy reading. I’m worrying about how to find my niche and how to be consistent. I keep trying to figure out how to create stories as a procedure instead of as a process, which completely fucks the stories up but I keep trying anyway? I’m worried about how to share my work and what I need to keep hidden for the copyright gods. I’m worried that the stories I am writing are too off the cuff, that they aren’t addressing what I really want to address. That they take too long to make. I worry because sometimes I have thoughts I want to express that don’t translate into stories at all. Or they might, if I took the time to figure out how to do that instead of worrying about how I’ll have the time to figure out how to do that.
I’m worried that you aren’t interested in my process, or my craft theory, or my politics, or my weird thoughts, or my rabbit holes. I’m worried that you aren’t here for essays or fragments or weird little experiments I’d like to try, like a video essay, or a podcast newsletter, or maybe even some interactive fiction.
I am 1000% worried about how to get my work out in front of more people who will love it. I am so worried about that I plan and scheme instead of doing the work, so I have little to nothing to put out in front of anyone.
And then I worry about that.
I am absolutely getting in my own way.
I was talking to my fellow awesome writer KSC Hatch, and we reminisced about how easy it was to write on our LiveJournal blogs back in 2003. We’d update them every day, multiple times a day. But now it felt hard to balance creating for (essentially) a blog and creating larger projects. Why?
I think it’s what I touched on in my last e-mail. Because it’s 2023, and in between then and now, art became content and art making became building a brand. There were rules for success in selling content and promoting your brand, and they look suspiciously like all the shoulds I have been tripping over since I started this newsletter.
But it’s also 2023, and with the shift from social media, maybe we are moving into a post-content world. Or maybe I am, and I’m hoping others will follow. I’m hoping you will follow.
No more big plans. No more trying to balance what I want to do versus what magazine owners want me to do. No more bending my creative instincts into a pretzel to try and figure out how to present you with a matching, curated collection of perfectly glossy content. Let’s get messy!
What this all means: I’m going to commit to Substack being the home for my creative work, at least for now. I’m going to newsletter more often (I’ve honestly been afraid to send you too much e-mail. Which is ridiculous--I’m not making you read it). And while there will be stories, there will be other types of media too!
I’m going to try to stop getting in my own way. And the first step is to start making things! I’m already a lot more excited and a lot less worried.
(Oh and don’t worry that Greek myth hopepunk thing is definitely gonna happen! 😊)
Talk soon and with tons of love 💖,
Elnora
Brilliant post.
I hope you've stopped worrying. In case you didn't know, I'm absolutely here for the journey and savour each and every word you post!
"This is why I want to be a writer—to reveal secrets that want to remain hidden."
This, so much. I've been pondering on what it is about writing and wanting to be a writing that speaks to me. To tell stories, to unravel a tale, to make people *feel* something -- all of that is wrapped up in revealing secrets that want to remain hidden. Ones that materialise into the mind and tell you that you must, must be the one to reveal them.
You and I suffer from many of the same thoughts and roadblocks. I feel so seen! I loved this post for its honesty. Thank you for sharing it with us.