welcome to one of the last newsletter drops of 2023! wow a whole year of writing! this edition won’t have a heavy curation section, i’ll save that for another drop so i can keep things light for myself. hope you enjoy this essay on what i’ve learned and gained from writing.
2 am on a thursday night and it’s dead silent besides the sounds of clicks and clacks of me hitting my keyboard. usually the hour long version of the interstellar theme is playing in the background because, well, it makes things feel a bit more epic. but to be precisely overdramatic, whenever i’m locked in as i’m writing, i feel like i’m sitting cross-legged in a living room atop a beautiful and cozy persian rug. there’s a kettle with some tea brewing just within arms reach. i imagine that there’s the smell of smoke from an incense recently lit as i toil away on some parchment with a quill pen set atop a mini-wooden desk like one you’d find in a Qur’an school but just wide enough to span the distance from one knee to the other.
this living room is slightly odd because instead of 4 walls there are 3, and where the fourth wall would be is facing this sort of busy street. people may pass by, they may peek, and they may sit for a while then leave. and at times, on particular occasions, they may gather in a crowd to observe. but it don’t really make me no difference because i just keep writing. that’s what it’s felt like to write and publish my work on the internet.
this year i’ve experimented with writing at least once a week. i’ve gotten to explore a variety of interests, but, most importantly, i gained deeper insight into how i go about my own creative process. if you’re new here, i’ll catch you up: at the top of the year i started “cool shit i found” as a means of curating the content that i’ve consumed: essays, visual arts/media, and music. eventually that felt too vulgar of a name so i changed it to “cool stuff i found.” and over time, i felt more so inspired to write my own essays and began sharing those while continuing to stretch my tastes in arts and music through curation.
naturally, there were stretches of time where i was quite consistent and times where i wasn’t. throughout the journey, one of the main challenges i had to contend with was developing my own feedback loop. when you write essays outside of schools, very few people are willing to come up to you to tell you that you write poorly. most folks simply don’t read it, and your friends like your stuff out of support. in the off occasion that my work amassed some amount of attention via internet points (wow 10 likes on twitter!), i made the mistake of making that my ends. but really internet points are a proxy, and it’s somewhat obvious as i write this, of what other people like to read. and what other people like constantly changes, so you have to figure out how to develop that internal feedback loop.
if i were to sum up my learnings in a few points, it would be:
start now
habits, schedules, processes, systems, d) all of the above
beauty of sincerity
you’ll get better at making omelettes
good writing for most people are like great wedding speeches
start now
this is self explanatory, but it’s also not. when i first thought of writing essays, i had no idea where to start. and when i dug deeper, it’s because i felt like i didn’t have the authority to speak on anything. i still don’t, but i also no longer care. every day we consume content not by people who have the authority to speak, but rather by those that gave themselves permission to express themselves.
habits, schedules, processes, systems, d) all of the above
once i started writing, i hit one of my very first major road blocks. like “ok! i’m down to write! … now what the heck do i even write about? when do i write?” many creatives feel the weight of this block, you come across it like a brick wall. but that’s when you start paying attention to how others write, and, if you look closely enough, a lot of essays aren’t accidents. they’re iterations of something that already exists. essays built on previous works, essays in reaction to something, essays for the sake of expressing. that was helpful because i was able to channel my attention to what i found was interesting and moving. those are key: interesting and moving. and i’d just start creating a sort of “idea bank” that i can pull from.
i can’t wait for inspiration, that leaves me like a sitting duck. i had to draw from what was around me, what was right in front of me, and schedule intentional time to write. like right now, i feel like i’m struggling in this paragraph directionally, but i’m still going to push through. that’s a lesson i learned from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. She has this dope exercise called the morning pages where every morning, regardless of what’s going on or what’s on your mind, you write 3 pages. it’s pretty hard. to be honest, it doesn’t get much easier either. some days i can hit 3 pages, some days i can’t. but eventually what happens is that you unlock the ability to just write freely, free from the judgement of your own internal critic.
beauty of sincerity
and as i began writing, i felt this immense pressure to sound like i was writing for the new yorker. i guess i saw it as a sort of gold standard. and look, emulating a voice is fine and dandy. however, i had to come to grips with the fact that i a) wasn’t writing for the new yorker and b) that’s just not the type of writing i wanted to do. and so i came to the conclusion that i’d write for me. and that unlocked the doors for me because i realize when i dropped the pretense of how i think i should sound like, then i can begin to embrace what i actually sound like.
you’ll get better at making omelettes
and so i kept writing like myself. great news is that i’m creatively unblocked! the bad news is, i’m me. my essays were and are rife with typos and awkward phrases. the slightest bit of feedback would leave me not wanting to write for a while. that’s until i saw this random youtube video of this asian dude making Hong Kong styled omelette sandwiches. then it hit me. wow, these folks really love their omelettes.
but more importantly, i remember the first time i made an omelette. that shit had eggshells in it. and over the years, i just got better at cracking the eggs but then the omelette would be overcooked. so then i’d learn how to cook an omelette at the right temperature.
once i surpassed the judgement of myself, i could just let go and write what ever is in my heart or on my mind. the editor in me, i realized, i could introduce to my work later. but today, today the writer that i am would write freely without hatred or care for the other part of him in his heart or mind. i had the room to get things right one at a time, and one essay at a time. and i learned that’s okay, and over time we’d all be reading less-crunchy and overcooked omelettes of essays that i’ve cooked.
good writing for most people is like great wedding speeches
the medium that i am writing for is a newsletter. you all are most likely reading this for a couple minutes at a time along a commute or as you’re starting out your day or in between sets or this or that. it’s a lot like how we’re all waiting for dinner at a wedding and someone’s given a really long heartfelt speech that, sure, fills the heart but it definitely don’t feed the stomach. great wedding speeches are short and under 5 minutes, kind of like how this article should have been. but i’m here to tell you what i’ve learned, not what i’ve applied you filthy animals!
epilogue
and as i finish up writing the last newsletters of the year, i’ve discovered the why’s that i didn’t know i was even looking for. because, really, why write something late into the evening that realistically maybe 1 or 2 people are actually going to read? was it for fame and internet points? if so, i’ve greatly failed at that. was it to impress? i don’t think my essays are being featured anywhere, anytime soon.
i realized i needed this space to document what i see and experience in the world, but also to make sense of it. there may come a time where people care, and there may not. i needed the rituals, the accountability, and the open exploration to help me just be me.
and as it turns out, being me is what other people needed to. many readers have reached out to meet up, sparked conversations, and written their own pieces. the eulogy for my grandmother, for example, opened up a way for my sister and i to connect and be closer in a way that would not have happened had i stayed silent. it’s these little interactions that made writing worth it for me. so i want to thank you, the Reader. thanks for reading along, and letting me do me. i hope it inspires you to do the same.
acknowledgements
i’d love to give a shoutout to the following readers who have inspired me, dm’d me with the emoji at the end of articles, provided me feedback, discussed ideas with me, replied to the emails, and showed me love. thanks to all of you for sitting with me, even for a moment and amidst the hustle and bustle, in this living room as i write.
ARH
Rabee
Aymen
Samra
Sarah
Nour
Fardeem
Hassan
YF
Sincerely,
Haroon
Great job❤️