Save the Writers.

Let me preach, okay?

This was back in 2018. I was in my second year of college and I was taking a literature class called The Experience of Reading where the books that we read featured protagonists who (also?) loved to read. The course was taught by Margaret Thickstun. She wanted everyone to call her Margie and I thought it was a cool nickname to have. Could I be Ishanie? Funny.

We were assigned a few papers (I think four?) for our evaluation. I was a young boy from Nepal in the United Slaves of America. I did not know how to evaluate a literary text. And we were reading across genres. Many texts, many styles. Some dense, others not. That was the first time I had to compare texts and have an opinion on their style, their themes, their characters, their stories.

I wrote the first paper and I got it back in a few days after Margie graded it. There was a long comment about Margie’s own thoughts about ‘the authorial intent’, a topic that I had written about. But at the end of it all, she had penned down with beautiful cursive, “I enjoy how your mind works. It’s a treat to watch it work.”

Someone actually liked reading what I wrote…

The joy of having your work being enjoyed. A rarity, I believe. But one of the grandest of joys nonetheless.

I hated my paper. I thought it was full of bullshit. I was just saying things because anyone could… say things. But I was as earnest as possible. My beliefs were my beliefs. I did not try to Americanize it. I did not talk endlessly about race and class and then go on to sit in the White-only section of the cafeteria (for those unfamiliar, the racial divides in the States can be visually and spatially witnessed with as much ease as one breathes).

And someone enjoyed it.

—

Some say that writing is a process of discovery. I believe in it. You have some rough idea, you start somewhere, you keep on writing, you stop and re-read what you have written, make small edits, continue the work, repeat the process till everything is done. You realize that whatever you though either was not completely true or was completely false. A discovery is made.

But what about the audience then? Do we keep the audience in mind while writing, while engaging in personal discovery?

There are many who do. They know that the young BookTok audience love smutty literature, they think of the readers and the trends and the market and the money, and they make a living. But I wonder how many of these people enjoy what they write. And whether they discover something about themselves or not.

And there are those who don’t. I have met a few of these individuals. Most don’t make a lot of money. But they enjoy their work.

For them, it is not a matter of holding an attitude of ‘fuck the readers’ till eternity. The attitude is mostly present, but only till the final period/full stop. Sometimes terrible writing is produced when allowing oneself complete liberty on what is being written and how it is done. Other times, something irreducible is revealed — a work that can only be felt and understood through its whole and not its parts.

But the readers too matter. People like Margie make the process so much more joyous.

I am glad to have many more Margies in my life. Sometimes, like most readers, I do feel the loneliness of working alone on a piece of text. Sometimes I even enjoy it. But melancholic joy is temporary. It’s fun for a while, but then what?

—

All of this is not to mean bother people endlessly to have your work become read. To give, one also has to receive. And even if you both give and receive, your work still might not be read.

But one rotten potato in a sack metaphor works with a reverse logic too. A sack of rotten potatoes might also have a few remaining good ones. Sometimes, you might even find the potato mafia bro’s golden ring.

The point is to read other peoples work and if it’s worth something, be like Margie. And if it is bad, feel free to be critical, but know that every cow or crow or dog has its day (I’m excited for Tihar!) And the point also is to share your work. Don’t expect to be read by all and don’t expect generous comment, but the onus of showing the work the light of the day, or week, or year is up to you and you only. Very few get discovered through a private patron.

I am trying to be preachy. Let us save the writers of the world. Let us save the writers by becoming readers ourselves and also allowing ourselves the grace to share our sometimes lovely, sometimes sickly work with the large, large world.