Hello!
I started this letter as a dumping ground—some sort of New Year’s promise to myself to get out of my notepad and share more. I’m writing this line because sometimes I get carried away and forget why I even started it. But I’m grateful to be in your inbox through it all. And one of the best things ever has been you texting me or calling me to discuss or share your thoughts about something I shared here.
I realise even before you ask why I haven’t shared any letters that I haven’t, even though I’m always writing. Journal entries, side notes on the pages of books, text messages, reminders, captions, stories in my head, and newspaper opinion polls. And on some days this letter. And more often than I publish, I write for this letter but I struggle with the sound of it, because some time ago I mistakenly stumbled on an article about finding your voice, now I can’t stop asking if this thing I have just written actually sounds like me.
One quote that haunts me every time I feel an overwhelming urge to write is Hemingway’s “Write hard and clear about what hurts”. The days when I’m unable to write anything true are the days I try to pretend all is well and on those days I write short fictional stories about characters going through a life similar to mine. Some days I think what even is the point of it all and then when I go to my very real-life non-writing job, I remember to enjoy the little things I wrote or the pages I read on my commute there because those are the moments that truly matter at the end of some days.
Lately, aside from scribbling most of what I have done is read and live. I have read some really interesting books recently and some of my personal favourites are A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, Rebecca Yarros’ Fourth Wing and The Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman. If you want something light and hilarious to read, I recommend picking up The Thursday Murder Club book one but if you want to miss your bus stop, grin and laugh like a maniac in public then Fourth Wing is the book for you.
I have written bits and bobs, some fictional and some instructions for survival, stuff that would win a Pulitzer someday, and I’m conflicted about what to do with them, aside from finishing them—because apparently there’s not a single thing that I have finished writing.
I saw a post on Instagram where a lady asked her friends for advice to share with her Instagram followers and the fifth and eighth slide puzzled me. The fifth slide said something about quitting if you are not all in, but then the eighth slide said it’s okay to be in between, that is you do not have to be all in or all out and I have never felt so conflicted, aside from the entire 2019. Speaking of 2019, I don’t remember an awful lot of 2020, 2021 or 2022 personally. So for now I’d try to enjoy this not all in, not all out space this letter is at the moment.
Also, I have no idea how long these letters should be. I don’t want to bore you, I also do not not want to bore you. If you know what I mean.
Nice to meet you again.