I have just finished a book by Cheryl Strayed called Tiny Beautiful Things. I don't think I have ever connected with a book so much since I found my love of reading. It's no secret that I am fascinated by life and people and how we approach choice. I love a good autobiography, it's my weakness. We all have struggles, but those brave ones who choose to lay it all out on the table always intrigue and impress me. Which is why this book was a feast for my curious mind.
Cheryl was a columnist writing under the pseudonym Sugar. Her column Dear Sugar became very well known. Her brutal honesty and haunting anecdotes with regards to her own life experience will pound at your very core. The book is a selection of amazing letters from tortured souls asking for advice and Sugar's responses, which are nothing short of stunningly beautiful. Letters about love and sex and careers and family. So letters about life.
One letter that struck me hard was under the heading Write Like a Mother@#$%^&. I'm being a good girl and not writing the big bad words here, but be warned, if you are sensitive about naughty language, this book is not for you.
A girl called Elissa writes to Sugar explaining her self-loathing at never being able to write like some of the famous woman writers of our time. Disgust at 'writing like a girl'. And also her fears that all women writers are so tortured, often killing themselves, and her worry around taking on this life. Her letter is not unique. I have heard many writers, and artists complain of the pressure to be. Be good, be unique...be lucky enough to score a book deal. But what I found inspiring was Sugar's response.
She tells Elissa that under her self-loathing and depression is arrogance. The idea that she has to be a master of her craft by 26. The idea that if she writes a book it has to be good. She tells her that if she wants to become the writer that lies within her, she must get her arse on the ground. She must learn to be humble. She must write anyway, even with the knowledge that it may be average. She has to do the work.
When I say I write a blog, people are often perplexed. Them: Why? Do you get paid? Me: Not much, but it isn't about that. I never knew how to explain why I have to write. I just do. Sometimes I will race to my car after work, because I can't wait to get home and put thoughts on paper. It literally feels like a burning in your chest that must be forcibly removed. Which is why I felt a warmth wash over me as I read the following words in Cheryl's response.
"...I missed my mother and (how) the only way to live without her was to write a book. My book. The one that I'd known was in me since way before I knew people like me could have books inside of them. The one I felt pulsing in my chest like a second heart, formless and unimaginable until my mother died, and there it was, the plot revealed, the story I couldn't live without telling..."Upon finishing the book...
"I didn't know if people would think my book was good or bad or horrible or beautiful and I didn't care. I only knew I no longer had two hearts beating in my chest. I'd pulled one out with my bare hands, I'd suffered. I'd given it everything I had. I'd finally been able to give it because I let go of all the grandiose ideas I'd once had about myself and my writing - so talented! So young! I'd stopped being grandiose. I'd lowered myself to the notion that the absolute only thing that mattered was getting that extra beating heart out of my chest. Which meant I had to write a book. My very possibly mediocre book. My very possibly never-going-to-be-published book. My absolutely nowhere-in-league-with-the writers-I'd-admired-so-much-that-I-practically-memorized-their-sentences book. It was only then, when I humbly surrendered, that I was able to do the work that I needed to do."And that is why I write, unpaid, for a blog. It is not about the money, it is about doing the work and the satisfaction in removing that tiny beating heart from my chest and putting it on paper. So that it no longer beats loudly in my ears. I do it for the love, even if it is not award-winning writing. Because the idea of not doing it is unimaginable. I think this is how we should approach any passion in our lives. Just because it doesn't pay well, or at all. Just because it isn't going to make us famous, or possibly even successful, does not mean it isn't work you should be doing for yourself. You just never know where the path will lead you.
Cheryl's final advice to the young writer is quoted below:
"...You need to do the same, dear arrogant beautiful crazy talented tortured rising star glowbug. That you're so bound up about writing tells me that writing is what you are here to do. And when people are here to do that, they almost always tell us something we need to hear. I want to know what you have inside you. I want to see the contours of your second beating heart. So write, Elissa Bassist. Not like a girl. Not like a boy. Write like a motherfucker. Yours, Sugar"
Details on this book HERE.
Much love XX
First photo taken on a Lumix DMC-G3 on the streets of Vietnam. Second photo from bookdepository.com.
