So you want to be a writer?

On not romanticising writing

“On the busiest days I can write all day and night in bed. I often forget to eat and then get panic-hungry at around 5pm, scramble downstairs on all fours like a fox and eat everything in the fridge, however incongruous” – Phoebe Waller Bridge

“The fact is that I write under duress, often in my bed, often at the last minute. I’m kind of a binge writer I would say, which I don’t support” – Lena Dunham

“Wherever she lived, Didion created a small writing room with no view, where she went every morning as if punching a time clock” - (Sarah Davidson, on Joan Didion)

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Let me set the scene. Right now, I have just over an hour until my day job starts. It is 7.23am. I am sitting in my living room, which is also my ‘office’ (it has a desk in it), wearing my favourite baggy tracksuit, fuzzy socks and no bra. I have brushed my teeth, and swiped SPF over my face, but that’s about it. My hair is scraped back into a high pony. I can still feel the sleep in my eyes, when I blink. My phone is set to do not disturb. I’ve just made a coffee, double strength, without which I would not be able to write this paragraph.

Since starting this newsletter, and sharing my writing on social media, I find it very hard to answer the question of what it is that ‘I do.’ What is my job? Well, I have a normal, corporate job – which is mainly a combination of social media management and copywriting. But I also write this newsletter, and thousands of people read my words each week – both on here, and on Instagram/TikTok – and last weekend, I realised (via an IG question box) that not only do the majority of my audience think a) that I write full-time and b) that this life is in some way glamorous.

And I sort of get it. Last year, I worked mainly in social media management for magazines: legacy brands like Cosmopolitan and Glamour and Time Out London. I covered their social channels, and interviewed celebs on red carpets, and wrote occasionally for their websites. But I was very consciously building my own audience at the time. I was working stupid hours – sometimes from 4 or 5am to cover events like the MET Gala, or the Oscars – and lots of weekends, because I wanted to, and I needed the money, and when else was I going to be in my twenties and eager to work instead of sleep? So: I get it. There was a certain glamour to that kind of work: beauty freebies, for example, or chatting with Katherine Ryan about sunk cost fallacy in relationships. But that was about 5% of the job.

I decided to stop working in magazines partly because I didn’t have the time – or energy – to write as much as I wanted to. How could I, when I’d work as late as 11pm? I wanted to write every week, and work on long-form projects, and curate my own zine. I wanted to be in conversation with readers. But the biggest misconception, I think, is that this life is in any way glamorous.

The opportunities might be – the invites, the parties, the freebies (which, by the way, I don’t do very much of, as I’m an introvert and also not exactly a huge writer) – but the actual work? It’s done in solitude, in quiet, in the whisper of the morning or the shadows of the evening. If I had to name a writer’s favourite time of day, I would say: dawn or dusk, depending on temperament.

For me, it’s dawn: before the world breaks open, and the traffic starts blaring, and there is a necessity to wear a bra. For others, I know, it’s dusk. Or, even, the inky black of night.

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On selling your own work

It's the conflict as old as time itself: the constant push-pull between the work itself and the marketability of said work. One of my agents – Jonny Geller – says it’s the difference between being an ‘author’ and being a ‘writer.’ The author is the one who markets the work (readings, social media, events, looking in some way put together); the writer the one who sits, in quiet solitude, and actually does the work.

Of course, various things have significantly changed about the world of the writer – and therefore their experience – in the past few years. In the 90s, for example, print journalism was a thriving industry: you actually could afford to live well and write and attend parties and effectively embody the Carrie way of life. At the same time, you could get a book deal and then the publisher would do the marketing work for you. With the rise in social media came a certain expectation for writers to be marketers. And, at the same time, traditional media (including print media) has been in decline (hence the rise of Substack, but I digress). So much has been written, recently, about the necessity for a writer to do it all, in the 2020s: to write and also to create an audience for said writing. Which means: hours and hours spent on strategy and marketability, as well as writing. Which means: less time to attend parties and talk about being an artiste and many more hours sitting alone on a Sunday morning scrolling Instagram/TikTok and thinking about how to create a marketable way to share your words.

The trick of social media, of course, is the deception of ease. Nothing ever takes any work. Everything is beautiful and glamorous and perfect. The thing about writing is that it is painstaking. Literally, it’s painful and high-stakes. You stare at a blank page. You have nothing to say. You go for walks and eat granola bars and stroke your cat and wrack your brain and wonder whether you should move to New York or smoke weed just so you have something to say.

And then, of course, it comes, river-like, and, thank god, you can breathe again. And even if you’re Dolly Alderton, or Coco Mellors – those writers who wear velvet on numerous red carpets every year – even if you’re Zadie Smith or Sally Rooney – still, you’re faced with the blank page. Still, I imagine, you conjure imagery from the depths as you sit, cross-legged in bed, shovelling handfuls of salt and vinegar crisps into your mouth whilst watching the cursor blink, unrelenting, on the empty page.

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On saying no

Two years ago,

Pandora Sykes

went viral for writing a piece about how she reads so much (she is well known for her voracious reading, often swallowing multiple books per week). In the piece, she lists all the things she does not do – things she gives up – to be able to read so much. They include: ‘I do not have a regular exercise routine’ and ‘I do not keep social media on my phone’ and ‘I do not really cook.’ It went viral, partly – I think – because people always assume that other people who they admire (and don’t we all admire Pandora Sykes?) have somehow just worked out how to do life better than the rest of us.

This may be true. But also: it is a truth rarely acknowledged that to do one thing necessitates not doing something else. A lot of the time, being a writer – for me – requires saying no to things. I have a very strict routine: I write on certain days, often very early in the morning, which means I can’t say yes to spontaneous plans. I almost never socialise on weekdays. I don’t work out as much as I should (although I do work out, because my mental health relies on it). I have a strict ‘bedtime’ – which some people say is ridiculous (literally all my close friends and family), but without which I wouldn’t be able to read or write as much. I’m in bed, every day, by 8pm. I read for an hour before sleep, and get up early to write. This, of course, isn’t the only way to write. But it’s the only way I can write as much as I do, whilst also working.

Which is all to say: writing is probably the least glamorous thing I do (which says a lot, because my life isn’t very glamorous). Curating, writing for, and producing the sell-out ‘Notes On’ zine, earlier this year required signing my name 1,000 times on ‘thank you’ postcards and addressing 1,000 envelopes and working out how to code (no, I didn’t succeed), and going to the post office every single day with hundreds of parcels. Each week, I write my ‘spicing up the week’ post very early in the morning, in my pyjamas. I research, often, on my sofa. My cat likes to proofread.

The only thing magical, or enchanting, or in any way glamorous about the process of being a writer is – to me – inhabiting a mind that’s always thinking of different ways to tell a story. It’s not the lip-gloss, 90s magazine life of my mood boards, but it is magical in its own, quiet, dedicated way. I love the process of writing – of sinking into an idea, or an argument. Of playing with metaphors like they’re toys.

It is a pleasure and a privilege to be able to write this little publication of mine; to read your comments and thoughts and ideas in the chat. It isn’t velveteen, glossy-paged glamour. But it is real, and really quite special. One day, I hope I’ll be able to do it all the damn time. But until then – yes, it’s almost nine o’clock, now – I better log on to work.

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P. S.

One thing I found particularly hard about writing this piece was actually claiming the idea that I am a writer. As I also work, and I’m not a full-time writer, and the word itself is so esteemed, I still find it hard to claim it as my own. It feels unfamiliar on my tongue; under my fingers. Which is interesting, isn’t it? (I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way). (Maybe there’s another Substack in this). (Lol).

P. P. S.

I wrote this early in the morning before I started work. I’m now editing it, on Saturday, before scheduling it to go out for Sunday morning. I don’t work on Sundays (anymore!).