If you’re reading this newsletter I’m guessing you have this problem. Or that you at least relate to it on some level: the cringing, the slight recoil, the feeling of separation and the just-out-of-reachness that surfaces before you utter those words: I am a writer. Even now, when someone asks me what I do I explain eloquently and confidently the studio (my consultancy work with writers), setting up literary agencies (offering writer’s representation), and yet I still stumble over my vernacular to explain that I myself write.
I think I used to write because it brought me joy to craft beautiful sentences which always drew out an unexpected feeling from the reader, but after living a part of my 20s in an unexpected place, the need to write in order to tell others my version of truth about my experience took over and to a certain extent it's a way to process the things I have experienced. The why keeps changing but the desire to put the pen on paper has been there for me since I was 12. I've only recently though started to think of myself as a writer but to say that out loud feels like an abomination
an abomination - that last sentence made me laugh. It really resonates with what i was getting at in this piece. But the more poignant thing you touched on was joy, the JOY of writing. I have been wanting to write a piece about this for some time. I so often share on the difficulties, the thankless task of writing, the input vs reward - and yet there is an abundant fluttering of joy so connected to the act yet i fail to pay any attention to. thanks for reminding me!
Hi Abigail. Thanks for this. It's that word 'complusion' that rings true for me. I started 'really' writing in order to record and make sense of a significant period in my life, but though this time went on to form one strand of the memoir I have on sub at the moment, my writing has grown in scope and confidence since then. I wrote about finally being able to call myself a writer in my newsletter last week, so this feels timely.
Having a Substack and the support of this growing community (I'll admit) makes it easier to call myself a writer. Funny that, for me, getting an agent, winning competitions and going on sub still weren't reasons enough to get me to change my Instagram bio... That only came when I started publishing on here!
Ah i am wishing you the very best of luck with your submission. That's always a really tense time but fingers crossed for you. And i think that's wonderful and quite remarkable that substack and the community is what's rooting you in this identity - i find some sense of it here myself.
I write because I've always worked in the world of analytics and structural thinking and I wanted to do something different and more obviously creative. I want to explore that side of me and I guess also prove that I can do it. I've completed one (unpublished) novel and I'm on my second which I'm sharing a chapter a week as I write it on Substack. I always hesitate before describing myself as a writer as I don't know if I should. Maybe that's wrong.
that's really admirable and proactive. So many of us take refuge in our safety zones when it comes to how our mind works and what we are good at, too nervous or perhaps just reluctant to explore our thinking or capabilities through different frameworks.
I write because when I'm writing my mind is typically empty and from within that emptiness I can experience no end of things. It's almost like creating a safe space to feel high, low and everything in between. Sometimes I write stuff and see that when I'm writing I'm really angry, sad, happy, amused, whatever, but when I'm finished I just feel content and accomplished.
The thing that got me most interested in this post is about the identification as a writer. I've gone on about this a couple of times in the past and I'd be happy to know your thoughts on it. I think this action of identification as an xyz causes no end of problems because it creates a potential pitfall in the future where we decide that we no longer want to do something. Today I'm a writer, tomorrow my hand is cut off (in a world without digital technology) and my entire identity is destroyed - what am I now??
Identity seems to be a really double-edged sword, we seem to need to identify with groups and actions in order to find our communities and whatnot but I feel that it comes with the weight of permanence in a very impermanent world. Maybe this is the paradox of choice playing out at another level too: if I choose to identify as a writer, can I also identify as a builder?
Whatever the case may be, when I am writing I am a writer and that's when and where the identification takes place for me. Would love to hear your thoughts :)
I think that's why it's essential our identity has multiple facets because as you say the reality is one element can get ripped like a rug from underneath us at any point in our lives. The important thing is that our identity is never one fixed thing, it's always changing and evolving. But it does seem like a necessary evil regardless, to not only help us make sense of ourselves, but also to find community, like-minded thinkers and a path forward. I touch on some of these ideas in this piece in a more thoughtful way: https://www.elle.com/uk/life-and-culture/a36716159/inbetweener-life-uncertainty/
I write for escapism, taking myself out of my own world and inserting myself in another, one that is of my own creation. I find it really freeing. I’ve struggled with calling myself a writer and I’ve written stories consistently since I was 15, have had poetry published in anthologies and delivered writing workshops. The barrier for me was that I haven’t had a book published but in the last few years that has started to wane and I don’t mind calling myself a writer at all.
I fear I am twice-damned, since I am not only the author of some number of works but also the published composer of a respectable amount of classical music. Alas, as both musician and writer, I remain an "unheralded unknown." The financial rewards are modest: not enough to buy a new car, and barely enough to pay for a couple of oil changes! However, the deeper "rewards" -- the joy of creating something from nothing -- are truly enriching, so "yes," I am an author (and also a composer), even if hardly anyone reads my works (or listens to my music).
When I write, I write to pin down mercurial electrical pulses (thoughts?)on paper or now an electrical medium like notes to make them real and see 👀 them through another sense (eyes) instead of believing in my mind's eye 👁 that I get them when I clearly don't.
I also write to iron it out. The jumbled mesh of happenings and memories colliding in a crowded room full of 4 decades of real and make-believe, and getting away with it in vague violence.
Writing ✍️ is soul accounting done with refined claws that can hold a pen or type like a grasshopper on mobile. I like to look at thoughts imprisoned in another medium for eternity. Maybe writing is a fine form of world weaving like a silk worm or spider. It's a product plus a trap where tiny feet of wavering eyes of other humans will get entangled for a brief moment, even clinging like pollen and germinating in the field of fertile imagination spawning multiple possibles or summoning memories that'll feel familiar.
Writing ✍️ is also catharsis for pent-up energy dumped at the doorstep of mind and delegated to benign talents of tiny expressions through fingers when regular failures of other faculties in a body needing more muscle can't find an outlet.
Writing ✍️ is mimicking creation, 13 billion years removed.
May 23, 2023·edited May 23, 2023Liked by Abigail Bergstrom
I've been sitting with this article and question - loved it! Thanks for sharing! I write because the initial content that came out, wouldn't be left unsaid or lay dormant anymore. My mind and body needed to make sense of it all and have it out of my body. The purging came with a real embodied sense that my story and experiences were not in isolation and women's stories need to be told - by women! I write to witness myself and validate those experiences. I write to empower myself and others - to take up space, to use my voice, even when it's scary. I write to reflect on where I was at the time of the experience and treasure the growth that has happened in between. I write because I believe I'm not the only one that can learn, be seen and heard, and grow from the experiences I share. I write because it liberates me.
I remember as a child, writing fairytales. I wrote then to escape. To conjure up a dream world full of all the things I didn't have in the real world. It's wonderful to revisit your why. Right now, I'm pausing my writing to be embodied in my experiences once again, before I re-emerge on the page once more.
This is really beautiful, thank you for reflecting and sharing. My heart really relates to witnessing oneself through writing and validating those experiences even when they can be so hard to process.
I write because I am a Storyteller. I've told stories practically since I learned to talk. I learned in my youth that if I wrote my stories down, I could share them more easily with others. Over time, the idea of, "Hey, I can share my stories!" came to be an exciting ambition to follow.
Not all of my stories are fictional, and I don't share all of my stories. (I don't, for example, share the stories that flow onto my Morning Pages.) I do, however, find myself these days looking for the best way to share my stories with a wider audience.
The thing that struck me as I read this article was the idea that we sometimes hesitate to call ourselves "Writers" because there's an unspoken agreement that we aren't "Real Writers" until we've *published* something, especially through a *big* company. I disagree. I say if you've ever filled out notebooks with stories, or snippets of stories, then you're a Writer in my book. 😊
i agree with you completely. Also there's something to be explored further in the medium or form of writing... morning pages like you say facilitate something different to a story we're crafting with the intention of sending it out or sharing - but both contribute something to our identity as a writer.
I want to quote a lot of this article. It resonates a lot. Thank you for your honesty and insight.
I don't think I can quite articulate why I write. But the closest I can say is that it would also edge on that need to remove words from myself, things that are there under the surface and cloying and have to escape. It changes a lot with mood, though. And I haven't been writing for long, so there's a lot I've compressed or simply haven't admitted to myself over the years. And though such topics don't come *to* the page, I think they inform how I write and, subconsciously, why I write.
i think that makes perfect sense. And it's definitely a process... i was a lot more reluctant to call myself a writer in the beginning. Joy and necessity at this 'cloying' as you put it seem to be embedded in the 'why' for so many of us. I find such comfort in that.
What a delight to discover your Substack and this 'oh-god-this-is-obvious-I-think-like-this-all-the-time-but-don't-voice-it' question ... I've decided that much like a friend is a musician but doesn't play in a band, I'm a writer without (yet) a commercial outlet. I'd only ever describe myself as a writer to my hard-won group of friends who are in EXACTLY the same position as me ... to everyone else I'm silent on the matter ...
I write to explore how childhood wounds have kept me small in all of my relationships. I write to de-mask, to de-armour, and to enjoy the peacefulness that follows inner work. I consider myself a writer because I write. It’s not a label for me; it’s not part of my identity; it’s something I love to do. It doesn’t matter what I write, how often I write, whether I’m published, or whether anyone reads what I write. Others have different benchmarks and that’s OK too!
Ah yes, the peacefulness that follows on from deep inner work and process... that's the real elixir. I like that the word and meaning resides in the act for you. That feels important somehow... are we then still writers if we are not writing? Perhaps not... i don't know but it's got me thinking.
For me, when I stop writing, I’m not a writer anymore. Identity labels are sly little devils. I try not to get attached to “I’m this or that.” I want to remain fluid and open. When you write about your personal journey, I feel connected to you. When you write about your professional career, I celebrate.
I love this post! I’m new to Substack, so I’m mostly reading not publishing right now, but I wonder whether I hesitate to call myself a writer because I only write for myself not for others. Like lots of these comments, I write to make sense of my own thoughts, and I don’t know if anything I write is particularly ‘good’ because it’s never mattered. It’s for me. Pen to paper slows down my racing mind and allows me to process my thoughts as they’re happening. In my daily life I write events in my mind as I go.
I wrote this a little while ago:
I’m not a consistent writer, a published writer, or even a very good writer, but I put pen to paper or thumbs to screen to make sense of my world. So yes, I am a writer?
I think in prose and potential poetry, monologues and haikus, metaphors and alliteration; I live inside words.
It's sometimes hard to remember why I write - it takes so much energy and focus to see something like a novel through to the end - so it's a good question to mull over now and again. I think mostly I write because literature is the art form that moves me the most. My saints are writers. I'm painfully aware my own writing will never compare to theirs. I write my paltry offering anyway, slowly, doubtingly. I write.
Maybe that's an easier response to the question, 'What to you do?'.
Your words resonate with me, Abigail. I get your drift. Writing has always been my passion. I’ve always loved books, and I wanted to be a writer, but I began hammering on a piano and composing tunes … and I got diverted into writing music rather than words.
For years I earned my living composing music for TV—and with hindsight, I’m glad I chose music rather than writing. It’s far more challenging to make a decent income from writing (well, literary fiction anyway) than from composing media music (mainly due to the way music royalties work). Perhaps I could have carved out a career as a writer, but I doubt I’d have the good fortune to be living here in las Islas Afortunadas (the “Fortunate Islands”, as the Canaries are called), free to write whatever takes my fancy.
Writing is a steep learning curve and we are all students in search of perfection. I’m very fortunate to “live my dream” (to use the jargon of reality TV), here. Stories, characters, ideas, and words are my obsession, and my motto is: Keep Scribbling—and write the story only YOU can write.
I think I used to write because it brought me joy to craft beautiful sentences which always drew out an unexpected feeling from the reader, but after living a part of my 20s in an unexpected place, the need to write in order to tell others my version of truth about my experience took over and to a certain extent it's a way to process the things I have experienced. The why keeps changing but the desire to put the pen on paper has been there for me since I was 12. I've only recently though started to think of myself as a writer but to say that out loud feels like an abomination
an abomination - that last sentence made me laugh. It really resonates with what i was getting at in this piece. But the more poignant thing you touched on was joy, the JOY of writing. I have been wanting to write a piece about this for some time. I so often share on the difficulties, the thankless task of writing, the input vs reward - and yet there is an abundant fluttering of joy so connected to the act yet i fail to pay any attention to. thanks for reminding me!
Hi Abigail. Thanks for this. It's that word 'complusion' that rings true for me. I started 'really' writing in order to record and make sense of a significant period in my life, but though this time went on to form one strand of the memoir I have on sub at the moment, my writing has grown in scope and confidence since then. I wrote about finally being able to call myself a writer in my newsletter last week, so this feels timely.
Having a Substack and the support of this growing community (I'll admit) makes it easier to call myself a writer. Funny that, for me, getting an agent, winning competitions and going on sub still weren't reasons enough to get me to change my Instagram bio... That only came when I started publishing on here!
Ah i am wishing you the very best of luck with your submission. That's always a really tense time but fingers crossed for you. And i think that's wonderful and quite remarkable that substack and the community is what's rooting you in this identity - i find some sense of it here myself.
I write because I've always worked in the world of analytics and structural thinking and I wanted to do something different and more obviously creative. I want to explore that side of me and I guess also prove that I can do it. I've completed one (unpublished) novel and I'm on my second which I'm sharing a chapter a week as I write it on Substack. I always hesitate before describing myself as a writer as I don't know if I should. Maybe that's wrong.
that's really admirable and proactive. So many of us take refuge in our safety zones when it comes to how our mind works and what we are good at, too nervous or perhaps just reluctant to explore our thinking or capabilities through different frameworks.
Thanks Abigail. It’s been interesting to see how a more analytical mind can approach creative writing
I write because when I'm writing my mind is typically empty and from within that emptiness I can experience no end of things. It's almost like creating a safe space to feel high, low and everything in between. Sometimes I write stuff and see that when I'm writing I'm really angry, sad, happy, amused, whatever, but when I'm finished I just feel content and accomplished.
The thing that got me most interested in this post is about the identification as a writer. I've gone on about this a couple of times in the past and I'd be happy to know your thoughts on it. I think this action of identification as an xyz causes no end of problems because it creates a potential pitfall in the future where we decide that we no longer want to do something. Today I'm a writer, tomorrow my hand is cut off (in a world without digital technology) and my entire identity is destroyed - what am I now??
Identity seems to be a really double-edged sword, we seem to need to identify with groups and actions in order to find our communities and whatnot but I feel that it comes with the weight of permanence in a very impermanent world. Maybe this is the paradox of choice playing out at another level too: if I choose to identify as a writer, can I also identify as a builder?
Whatever the case may be, when I am writing I am a writer and that's when and where the identification takes place for me. Would love to hear your thoughts :)
All the best,
Nick
I think that's why it's essential our identity has multiple facets because as you say the reality is one element can get ripped like a rug from underneath us at any point in our lives. The important thing is that our identity is never one fixed thing, it's always changing and evolving. But it does seem like a necessary evil regardless, to not only help us make sense of ourselves, but also to find community, like-minded thinkers and a path forward. I touch on some of these ideas in this piece in a more thoughtful way: https://www.elle.com/uk/life-and-culture/a36716159/inbetweener-life-uncertainty/
I write for escapism, taking myself out of my own world and inserting myself in another, one that is of my own creation. I find it really freeing. I’ve struggled with calling myself a writer and I’ve written stories consistently since I was 15, have had poetry published in anthologies and delivered writing workshops. The barrier for me was that I haven’t had a book published but in the last few years that has started to wane and I don’t mind calling myself a writer at all.
it seems it's a process many of us have worked through and as our identity has shape-shifted we've felt more confident!
I write for the fun of playing with words and rhythms... I write make sense of things and sometimes to create nonsense for fun.
"nonsense for fun" - yes i love this. It can all get so serious when really writing can just be a method for pure joy!
I fear I am twice-damned, since I am not only the author of some number of works but also the published composer of a respectable amount of classical music. Alas, as both musician and writer, I remain an "unheralded unknown." The financial rewards are modest: not enough to buy a new car, and barely enough to pay for a couple of oil changes! However, the deeper "rewards" -- the joy of creating something from nothing -- are truly enriching, so "yes," I am an author (and also a composer), even if hardly anyone reads my works (or listens to my music).
i love how 'joy' is really one of the resounding things in these comments! And yes, you are.
Thank you for your kind thoughts, @Abigail Bergstrom!
When I write, I write to pin down mercurial electrical pulses (thoughts?)on paper or now an electrical medium like notes to make them real and see 👀 them through another sense (eyes) instead of believing in my mind's eye 👁 that I get them when I clearly don't.
I also write to iron it out. The jumbled mesh of happenings and memories colliding in a crowded room full of 4 decades of real and make-believe, and getting away with it in vague violence.
Writing ✍️ is soul accounting done with refined claws that can hold a pen or type like a grasshopper on mobile. I like to look at thoughts imprisoned in another medium for eternity. Maybe writing is a fine form of world weaving like a silk worm or spider. It's a product plus a trap where tiny feet of wavering eyes of other humans will get entangled for a brief moment, even clinging like pollen and germinating in the field of fertile imagination spawning multiple possibles or summoning memories that'll feel familiar.
Writing ✍️ is also catharsis for pent-up energy dumped at the doorstep of mind and delegated to benign talents of tiny expressions through fingers when regular failures of other faculties in a body needing more muscle can't find an outlet.
Writing ✍️ is mimicking creation, 13 billion years removed.
loved this comment!! Thanks so much for sharing. "Writing is soul accounting" <3
I've been sitting with this article and question - loved it! Thanks for sharing! I write because the initial content that came out, wouldn't be left unsaid or lay dormant anymore. My mind and body needed to make sense of it all and have it out of my body. The purging came with a real embodied sense that my story and experiences were not in isolation and women's stories need to be told - by women! I write to witness myself and validate those experiences. I write to empower myself and others - to take up space, to use my voice, even when it's scary. I write to reflect on where I was at the time of the experience and treasure the growth that has happened in between. I write because I believe I'm not the only one that can learn, be seen and heard, and grow from the experiences I share. I write because it liberates me.
I remember as a child, writing fairytales. I wrote then to escape. To conjure up a dream world full of all the things I didn't have in the real world. It's wonderful to revisit your why. Right now, I'm pausing my writing to be embodied in my experiences once again, before I re-emerge on the page once more.
This is really beautiful, thank you for reflecting and sharing. My heart really relates to witnessing oneself through writing and validating those experiences even when they can be so hard to process.
I write because I am a Storyteller. I've told stories practically since I learned to talk. I learned in my youth that if I wrote my stories down, I could share them more easily with others. Over time, the idea of, "Hey, I can share my stories!" came to be an exciting ambition to follow.
Not all of my stories are fictional, and I don't share all of my stories. (I don't, for example, share the stories that flow onto my Morning Pages.) I do, however, find myself these days looking for the best way to share my stories with a wider audience.
The thing that struck me as I read this article was the idea that we sometimes hesitate to call ourselves "Writers" because there's an unspoken agreement that we aren't "Real Writers" until we've *published* something, especially through a *big* company. I disagree. I say if you've ever filled out notebooks with stories, or snippets of stories, then you're a Writer in my book. 😊
i agree with you completely. Also there's something to be explored further in the medium or form of writing... morning pages like you say facilitate something different to a story we're crafting with the intention of sending it out or sharing - but both contribute something to our identity as a writer.
I want to quote a lot of this article. It resonates a lot. Thank you for your honesty and insight.
I don't think I can quite articulate why I write. But the closest I can say is that it would also edge on that need to remove words from myself, things that are there under the surface and cloying and have to escape. It changes a lot with mood, though. And I haven't been writing for long, so there's a lot I've compressed or simply haven't admitted to myself over the years. And though such topics don't come *to* the page, I think they inform how I write and, subconsciously, why I write.
(I have no idea if that makes any sense! 😅😬)
i think that makes perfect sense. And it's definitely a process... i was a lot more reluctant to call myself a writer in the beginning. Joy and necessity at this 'cloying' as you put it seem to be embedded in the 'why' for so many of us. I find such comfort in that.
What a delight to discover your Substack and this 'oh-god-this-is-obvious-I-think-like-this-all-the-time-but-don't-voice-it' question ... I've decided that much like a friend is a musician but doesn't play in a band, I'm a writer without (yet) a commercial outlet. I'd only ever describe myself as a writer to my hard-won group of friends who are in EXACTLY the same position as me ... to everyone else I'm silent on the matter ...
And yet you're a prize-winning writer :)
I write to explore how childhood wounds have kept me small in all of my relationships. I write to de-mask, to de-armour, and to enjoy the peacefulness that follows inner work. I consider myself a writer because I write. It’s not a label for me; it’s not part of my identity; it’s something I love to do. It doesn’t matter what I write, how often I write, whether I’m published, or whether anyone reads what I write. Others have different benchmarks and that’s OK too!
Ah yes, the peacefulness that follows on from deep inner work and process... that's the real elixir. I like that the word and meaning resides in the act for you. That feels important somehow... are we then still writers if we are not writing? Perhaps not... i don't know but it's got me thinking.
For me, when I stop writing, I’m not a writer anymore. Identity labels are sly little devils. I try not to get attached to “I’m this or that.” I want to remain fluid and open. When you write about your personal journey, I feel connected to you. When you write about your professional career, I celebrate.
I love this post! I’m new to Substack, so I’m mostly reading not publishing right now, but I wonder whether I hesitate to call myself a writer because I only write for myself not for others. Like lots of these comments, I write to make sense of my own thoughts, and I don’t know if anything I write is particularly ‘good’ because it’s never mattered. It’s for me. Pen to paper slows down my racing mind and allows me to process my thoughts as they’re happening. In my daily life I write events in my mind as I go.
I wrote this a little while ago:
I’m not a consistent writer, a published writer, or even a very good writer, but I put pen to paper or thumbs to screen to make sense of my world. So yes, I am a writer?
I think in prose and potential poetry, monologues and haikus, metaphors and alliteration; I live inside words.
It's sometimes hard to remember why I write - it takes so much energy and focus to see something like a novel through to the end - so it's a good question to mull over now and again. I think mostly I write because literature is the art form that moves me the most. My saints are writers. I'm painfully aware my own writing will never compare to theirs. I write my paltry offering anyway, slowly, doubtingly. I write.
Maybe that's an easier response to the question, 'What to you do?'.
Not 'I'm a writer' but 'I write'?
Your words resonate with me, Abigail. I get your drift. Writing has always been my passion. I’ve always loved books, and I wanted to be a writer, but I began hammering on a piano and composing tunes … and I got diverted into writing music rather than words.
For years I earned my living composing music for TV—and with hindsight, I’m glad I chose music rather than writing. It’s far more challenging to make a decent income from writing (well, literary fiction anyway) than from composing media music (mainly due to the way music royalties work). Perhaps I could have carved out a career as a writer, but I doubt I’d have the good fortune to be living here in las Islas Afortunadas (the “Fortunate Islands”, as the Canaries are called), free to write whatever takes my fancy.
Writing is a steep learning curve and we are all students in search of perfection. I’m very fortunate to “live my dream” (to use the jargon of reality TV), here. Stories, characters, ideas, and words are my obsession, and my motto is: Keep Scribbling—and write the story only YOU can write.