happy writer
on writing by china age 60
Like usual I did some fine lace work in my imagination and spider scrawls on paper lost in more stacks of paper somewhere. So lets get on with it and start it again, not perfect but here
The Meaning of Writing
I think we forget how powerful it can be. The kind of solace and comfort it can give. The power of it. the Beauty of it. that we have it. Why we have it. So many good reasons. It doesn’t have to do with publishing. or your main occupation or identity. you can contain many things whatever you are is you, the only you in this world. you already have the power and you are a writer and it is a good thing. We survive and think like this. We share. But even if we don’t share, it has value to it. Just writing alone. I’m glad.
Happy Writer
Sometimes I forget I’m a happy writer now. (When did I exactly start identifying as that? I do remember telling the audience when I was moderating a Writing Through Crisis panel with Ariel Gore and Chloe Caldwell last September, that I’m a happy writer now, no longer a tortured artist, and I just became that a week ago. And how the audience laughed. A good laugh, right along with me.) I think there is a lot of details in my paper trail on that, if I look back. But I’m not going to do that right now. Maybe I wrote something about it here on substack too? I know I have written A LOT about the pain of writing in my diary up to the publishing of my first novel, THE AVENUE, and after that I started writing a lot about being a happy writer; how I have intentionally changed myself. This is a good and large topic I could write more on one day. Why I could write a whole book “On Writing, by China age 60” but for now let’s just write an essay, OK?
Basically the gist of it was I could no longer survive being miserable at my age. thats how I felt. Life is too short. And I could feel my end coming up very quickly. I needed to enjoy creativity more. My whole journey in quilts was about that, and bringing it back to writing, and I finally did it.
Anyway, I wanted to write about how I sometimes forget I’m a happy writer. And feel happy. And then think “oh no, that feeling isn’t going to last!” And then I have to catch myself. “You intentionally did the work to get here. You're a happy writer now. Just be happy. And regardless, happy or not in the future you will still write. So feel your happy writer feelings , accept this gift, fully.”
Then I go back to just feeling happy, sitting in the cafe with Joyanna, getting her edits. Or writing on colored paper, fuchsia, pink, red, from a pack of paper I had gotten for flyers in the past that was laying around. And I have discovered I like writing free hand with different colored pens on colored paper, deciding on the color for how I feel that day, and building up my story.
I am working now on daily habits, to get a second book done. Faster than the last one. (It must be!) In the after glow of the positive effects on me of self publishing—have I told you that? I want to tell you that! to encourage you—the courage it took, and the force, the journey, the effort, the connection, the catharsis, all of that. It’s paid off with self growth and increased journey in writing, just like how I hoped it would. I’m going forward with it.
I’m in the happy days of a new project. I don’t think it will always be like this. But I do identify as a happy writer now. And it is an era I will continue in. After a lifetime of depression I have ended up here, and I am not giving up.
“I really admire Simone de Beauvoir and how she aged. She kept writing at the center of her life, she had lovers, she was political. She was elegant.” - Darcey Steinke
Making Space
Lately I realized I felt ashamed for the space I have made to write in my life. It’s a luxury not many have. I’ve done everything to center writing in my life, often at a cost, and often because I don’t have a choice. But somehow I feel guilty, like I should justify myself. How can I not be suffering by not doing this? I feel it makes me unrelatable. I don’t know anyone else doing this. But isn’t this what writers often do? To make this space. And I am doing it now. There’s still a host of negative thoughts and fears that come into my head. But I am the kind of person who is afraid to drive a car. Who can be afraid to do anything. I must sweep the fears away. I have a new desk. (The energy of a new desk, a new spot to write, is great!) I am ready to do things never done before. I am ready to do it my way, the only way I can.
I’ve saved these little snippets I found on substack lately, as inspiring me to take up my own space to write as well. The gift, the time, I have. (As I have found time a difficult thing as I aged, too much time alone a new problem unlike the old days of too little time alone.) Let me say it again. The gift, the time, I have. Older age is bringing many things with it, and also being the baby elder of two elders. Change is all around me. I am at the intersection of challenging things I would tell you in person and joke about it, but not here on the robots laundromat, and living my best life!
“Just because something makes you feel better doesn’t mean it isn’t true. “
“This is one of the overarching themes of my three books: that many of history’s greatest writers, artists, and thinkers were anxious oddballs with incredibly finely tuned nervous systems, who learned through trial and error how to arrange the conditions that permitted their best work, and who were often fiercely protective of these conditions, even when it made them seem selfish, difficult, or eccentric. This is what I love about them! By not contorting themselves to fit the outside world’s expectations, they were able to go deeper into themselves and bring forth work that has stood the test of time.”- Mason Currey/Get the Money! On Helen DeWitt, literary funding, and difficult weirdo artists
Elif Batuman
How were you imagining the reception of this book, as you were writing? In your Substack, you mention a voice in your head that said, “this could go very wrong”—the possibility of mockery from women who would say, “Oh, I’m not like that.” But you decided to place a different bet, to write “as if all the women in the world knew just what I meant and were urging me on.”
Since then, the book’s come out and had this amazing life. As you put it, “The bet paid off (big time) but it’s not exactly what I pictured.” I wanted to hear about your fantasy of what might happen with the book, and how you were able to place that different bet in the first place.
Miranda July
As I wrote All Fours, I talked about it a lot with my friend Isabelle, who the book is dedicated to, and who the character of Jordi is based on. You know how you can psych yourself up with your friend? You’re like, “Yes, this is gonna be amazing. How is anyone not gonna wanna be in on this?” Within our two-person circuit, we were so confident.
Elif Batuman
And you were right. It’s so great that you don’t have to discount that feeling. I have it when I’m teaching sometimes. And I think: “What if we’re just this room of 12 people psyching ourselves up?”
Miranda July
Circle jerk.
Elif Batuman
Exactly. It’s super inspirational. Just because something makes you feel better doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
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PIONEER WORKS, ELIF BATUMAN, AND MIRANDA JULY
P.S. the social media and streaming services break is going good! I am thinking I might just come back on Monday for a day, and then take another week off.