on screaming into the abyss

I recently learned that I enjoy writing much, much more than I enjoy hearing what people think about what I write.

Case in point: I’m typing this whilst nestled on the couch, and my partner has just leaned over and commented on my title, and now here I am, self-conscious, resisting the urge to close my laptop and come back to this in the morning. I’ve instinctively turned a little to angle my screen away; as if I’m writing filthy secrets; as if I’m not going to hit ‘publish’ at some point and have these words sent into his inbox.

---

“I fear that to over-share is to seek out the rewards of being loved without submitting to the mortifying ideal of being known.” — Eda Gunaydin

If you’re reading this, and have read any of the other little snippets I’ve published here: congratulations! You know stories about me that I don’t think I’ve ever told my oldest friends; you know my views on subjects I’d never bother or dare to broach in a conversation with a human being, face-to-face. There’s just something about this process of gathering my thoughts into words, and then sending them off into the world via the interwebs, that emboldens me to be more honest and unfiltered than I’d ever otherwise be.

I guess that something is the fact that I don’t actually have to acknowledge that you exist, or listen to what you think of me. You are a ghost; the ‘audience’ is a concept only. Hilarious, ain’t it? I am brave enough to attach my name and my face and my identity to these words, yet not quite brave enough to receive feedback, not in real time, certainly not in any kind of forum that would require me to recognise you as my witness. please do not perceive me

---

Last month, I took a class in personal essays (with Maria Tumarkin no less, god she is brilliant), and in that class I learned that I am a paranoid writer. I’m that bitch whose footnotes rival the body text in length; I cite everything; I add caveats upon caveats. I struggle to contain my thoughts within the allotted word counts because I am desperate to pre-empt every possible critique. I write like I am glass; I want you to look at me, examine the light, but I am scared to break.

In that class, we discussed samples of each other’s writing. And even though people said very nice constructive things about my work, I experienced it like a burning at the stake.

---

I’m presenting at a conference in a few months’ time, about my research to date. And even though my literature review is excellent, even though I know my shit — getting up onto a podium and having to watch people watch me right back, and listen to the measly possible truths that I’m cobbling together as ‘findings’, will feel like being skinned alive.

Yeah, I asked to do this, because I am a baby academic, and I want to tell you about the things I’m curious about. But it turns out it’s a fair bit less intimidating to share knowledge with the void