Writing is Hell...during the Holidays

But also, how writing sustained legendary writers through tough times and can help us too.

From l-r : Yiyun Li, Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison and sons, Virginia Woolf, Zora Neale Hurston

Thanksgiving was mid for me. It has been a year of too-mixed blessings, from my grandfather’s passing to projects falling through or being suspended, to friendships imploding, ADHD mayhem, stressful high school applications, and other stuff no one cares about except me. It has been such a relief to stop whisking and resume writing.

The holidays are supposedly a time of togetherness, family, rest, and making wonderful memories, but in reality are a tough time for many. In some ways, this is especially true for writers and other creatives, who must lean into the wind emotionally for their work, and often experience shame at such times, unable to impress relatives with the traditional markers of success, the car, the fancy spread, the grandiose job title. They may find themselves confronted by the same triggering issues that forced them onto the blank page in the first place, but unable to write.

So yes, I am grateful to be done with the current holiday and sitting at my laptop today, with the time, health, and luxury to write for a bit and think about my upcoming projects. I am reminded that in difficult times, writing can be a welcome relief from troubles, distracting one from wanting, airlifting us into another reality, returning us to a sense of purpose. Writing can be done without fancy equipment, a beautiful view, or a club membership. You only need a pencil and some paper, ultimately. You can even go sit on the F train for a bit and let the chugging lull you into semi-consciousness for an hour as you write - several writers have famously written whole books this way.

For many of the greats, writing and hardship went hand in hand: Zora Neale Hurston, whose writing sustained her even in the lonely, impoverished exile leading up to her death. It kept the lights on so to speak, the ones within us.

Virginia Woolf’s writing kept her ‘afloat’ during the ‘gloom’ of manic depression, and Toni Morrison wrote incredible books despite ‘unbearable’ conditions (raising two children and a full-time job as a senior editor at Random House), and never had the luxury of sustained periods of time to herself.

Cormac McCarthy’s wives fled his asceticism - his iconic settings required an idiosyncratic lifestyle intolerable to most, and Yiyun Li has continued to write through the unimaginable heartache of the suicide of both her children. In a Guardian interview, Li wrote that writing In Nature, Things Merely Grow, a memoir about the death of her sons, was not cathartic but offered solace.

‘“it was the solace of thinking”. “When I was writing the book it felt like I was at the centre of a hurricane. The eye of the hurricane is the stillest place. It’s very quiet and clear,” she says. And then she finished writing, and she stepped back into the hurricane.’

If it is possible to still write through all of the above, then there must be something pretty sacred about writing itself, something that is not simply for the reader but on a deep level for ourselves.

Happy Writing!