It's been a bad fall, y'all

Day after a big writing day vibes 💻

Happy Sunday! I’m writing this on Saturday, at the opening of what will hopefully be a Very Productive Writing Day — some friends and I have hopped onto a google meet with plans to crank out thousands and thousands of words today!

I have once again switched projects I’m working on — this has been a tumultuous week in my writing life, not gonna lie. I’ve barely written, agonizing over every word I placed upon the page, and I’ve changed my mind no fewer than three times about whether I wanted to work on REVENGE…or HEX…or a totally different new YA…or give up entirely on my writing dreams.

It’s been…a lot. Eventually I’ll write a newsletter about what’s going on with me, but for today, we’re tackling some other things — like how writing is an act of radical faith, and how I’ve been…real depressed lately! Keep on reading, too, for a photo!

From the heart 💗

On a depressive episode

It’s been a really tough fall. There have been amazing things about it, of course — my trip to Seabrook for a writing retreat and Portland for friend time, on top of the writing retreat I went on earlier in November to Charleston. These are the times that have reminded me that there is a reason to stay alive. That I’m not as alone as I feel.

But in the in-betweens? The pockets where I wasn’t traveling, the moments I was sitting in my chair doing my day job, or feeling overwhelmed by how much of a failure I feel as a person and a writer — they’ve been tough.

I’ve experienced for at least a year now a thing where, when I’m actively engaged in an activity, whether that’s talking to a friend, listening to a podcast, writing, reading, or any other venture that takes my full mental capacity, I am okay. The second I stop, though, the intrusive thoughts come flooding in like the dam has burst. My limbs feel weak. My body gives in to lethargy, and my mind gives in to the depression.

It’s made it difficult to really do much of anything. I can read for a bit, but then when I close the book and plan to move on to writing, I wind up losing the next three hours of the evening, alternating between scrolling on social media, curling up in a ball, and just…staring.

In October, I started keeping notes called “mental health [MM/DD/YYY]” and I have just chronicled the thoughts as they come. Sometimes they’re terrifying, visions and fantasies that send a chill through me because I know if I acted upon them, the consequences would be final. Sometimes it’s just…a lot of the words “lonely” and “fuck” and “devastated” in the world’s most depressing journal.

I’m lonely. Even when I’m with others, I feel choked by loneliness. I’m going through life as a single childless woman, which is all fine and dandy except I feel crushingly alone. And I’m not! That’s the part that fucks me up. Because I know I’m not alone. I know how lucky I am to have such a supportive, caring community around me, both in NYC and long distance.

But the loneliness persists, and with it the numbing depression.

I’ve bumped up therapy sessions to twice a week. I’ve met with my pyshciatrist twice as regularly, too, changing medication and trying to figure out some way to make things better.

And it’s just. I’m still so, so depressed.

I have moments of glory. On Friday night as I lay in bed trying to sleep, I had an epiphany that thoughts are just thoughts and feelings are just feelings and neither of them need have the power to upset the balance of my life.

And yet I still woke up on Saturday and dragged myself begrudgingly out of bed, haunted.

I don’t know how this episode ends. I don’t know when it ends. I just have to believe, have to cling by my fingernails to the certainty, that it eventually will. That is how I keep going.

From the camera roll 📸

A Lizzie, for joy

From the page ✍️

Writing: an act of radical faith

I’ve been toying with a notion lately, about writing and what it…I guess “says” about the writer, but I don’t love that framing.

Essentially, I keep telling people1 that I hate and have no faith in myself, and they2 keep pointing out that my actions belie my words. Someone who didn’t believe in herself, the logic is, wouldn’t write stories. Or at least, wouldn’t do the work of believing in those stories enough to revise them ad nauseum and yeet them into the world for publication’s sake.

Which makes me a little uncomfortable, if I’m being honest, because the story that I hate myself is one I’ve clung to all my life but…that’s probably fodder for a future “from the heart,” I suppose. Back to writing — I think my therapist probably has a point. Because obviously there is some extent of self-belief that I have if I think my words — my stories — the products of my brain — deserve to be out in the world.

And the thing is…I really, really do believe that. Always have. It’s a strange dichotomy I’ve lived with, feeling like I have nothing to offer the world but also that my stories can be a balm to many. That my words matter, even if I don’t.

So writing — writing is an act of radical faith in us. Every one of us who sits down in front of a blank page and begins toiling to put words on said page, we’re anging in a radical act. We’re having faith in our brains to come up with a good story, in ourselves to tell it well, and in the world to receive it.

Writing is the ultimate way of saying, “I have a legacy to leave and good to offer and I believe in it enough to give it to you.”

In my darkest hours, I will cling to this: even when I hate myself and believe the world does too, I write, and people read, and together, we are saying that I matter.

That we matter.

Isn’t that powerful.

Alla prossima 👋

I’m way behind on reading articles from the internet and magazines. Like, 10 months behind.

So it was only this week that I read this piece, a Guardian interview with Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish. I recommend all of you read it. Even if you read it 10 months ago when it was published. It’s worth the reread.

One reason this piece affected me so much is because, well…I’ve known the toll that the Israeli government’s genocidal actions has taken — is taking — on Palestinians. But sometimes…sometimes the numbers take precedence over the reality. I think of hundreds of thousands of lives lost and it is horrifying but it is almost too big for my brain to grasp.

So I turn to the stories of individuals, like the poet Darwish, and the impact this genocide is having on him, on his friends, on his family. And it renews my commitment, reminds me that “free Palestine” is not a slogan but a fucking mandate. It is not a catchy phrase but a plea for lives to be saved. It is not optional, it is the rallying cry of our lives.

I cannot fathom what is happening in Gaza. My brain simply cannot comprehend it. Because of that, I know it must end.

Free Palestine.

And in the process, let us reckon with every empire and every colonizing project the world across, and let us dismantle them.

This week was Thanksgiving, which is a day of mourning for many Indigenous people in the US. Let us all mourn with them, and then let us get up and fight for a better future. One where the story we were given in elementary school where Thanksgiving was a coming-together becomes real. One where we respect each other and the land and love one another enough to recognize when we have failed each other.

Free Palestine 🍉 Let the empires fall.