Itsy Bitsy Spiders

Why Writers Write Plus a Few Thoughts On the Recent Glennon Doyle Incident

Years ago, when I was living in Mozambique and Vanuatu and had to take long flights, I used to buy a paperback at the airport. I’m afraid of flying, and immersing myself in a book was my way of getting through the journey. I often thought at the time how wonderful it would be if I, too, could one day write a book that brought comfort to someone like me.

But I didn’t think it was likely, because I have an attention disorder. I never believed I could write a whole book with a beginning, a middle, and an end, even though I’d always loved writing. I just wasn´t good at keeping things together.

Long story short: I did end up writing a book, years later. I published my debut at the age of 57. I hadn’t planned it at all. One day, I just started writing because I didn’t know what else to do. I had lost my job, my husband had left me, and my youngest son had fallen ill. My life had spun out of orbit. I wrote about how meditation and spiritual practices saved me from a difficult place. Back then, I really did think I had figured life out — but no.

It was exactly as Eckhart Tolle once said: people awaken when they have slept long enough. And then, all excited, they write a book about it — only to realise it was too soon.

Yup. It's also worth noting that I didn’t so much write a book as I downloaded what was dictated to me — in a very curious way. I always say my texts arrive like faxes from Heaven, and then the editor turns them into books. Without editors, there wouldn’t be books — just a bunch of words and sentences and documents on my hard disc.

The publisher did see potential in my sentences, and I got a publishing deal right away. My book sold reasonably well, for a debut by an unknown author, at least. I also received a lot of reader feedback. One woman told me she held my book in her hands when she felt unwell. And once, at a café, a woman came up to me and said my book had saved her life.

So my wish came true.
But it didn’t make me any happier.

In fact, almost the opposite happened.

Now, after publishing four books, I’ve sometimes felt more miserable than ever.

And yet I don’t regret that I started writing.

Down came the rain…

Recently, I was at the book launch of a friend. She’s a celebrated novelist and always gets great reviews. I asked her how she was doing. Her answer: I’m a nervous wreck. I feel terrible! When I complimented her on how slim she looked, she said it was because she hadn’t been able to eat. She was so stressed out.

There was another writer there, too—also successful and respected—and she wasn’t doing well either. She had just published a book and was afraid of how it would be received.

Neither of them seemed particularly happy.
And yet, the three of us keep writing.

Why?

The recent Glennon Doyle incident here on Substack made me think about all this again.

For those who don’t know, Glennon is a mega-influencer who announced that she had come to Substack, with her whopping 217K followers—only to disappear the next day.

The reason for her abrupt departure is not fully known, but it is speculated that it was because some (or many—I don’t know) Substackers felt Substack is not a place for such celebrities, because they attract so many subscribers that there’s nothing left for us, the unknown writers.

I still don’t know what to make of the whole thing, except that regardless of whether I personally like seeing mega-influencers here or not, there’s probably no objective reason they shouldn’t be allowed to post content and build their communities wherever they want—even if it causes backlash. What I think about other people´s businesses simply doesn’t matter, I´ve learned, so it’s best to stay out and focus on mine.

But what the Glennon incident did do was make me think about writing.

…and washed the spider out

Writing is a curious business.

If you’re a fiction writer, there is probably a story inside you that needs to get out. Homo sapiens is a storytelling creature. Imagination—and the desire to communicate our imaginings—is our species’ superpower.

So it’s natural that you’d want to publish what you’ve imagined, because “publishing” is how you share stories these days.

But while the desire to share a story is natural and even good (because we all want to hear stories), publishing it in printed form for everyone to read is another matter entirely.

Once your book is out there, it’s game on. The nightmare begins because the old devil called Ego wakes up and starts asking questions, like:

Will the book sell?
Will it be liked?
Will it be super-liked, so it becomes a bestseller? Or at least enough-liked, so that the publisher does not get disappointed and start regretting the book deal they made with us?

“Will the book make the world a better place?” is, of course, a question all writers should be asking first—but do they?

Nonfiction writers who are on a mission to educate the general public with their wisdom and insights perhaps do. But even they can’t protect themselves from the darker side of the publishing world. It gets under your skin. And it activates Ego´s shit talk.

Book publishing is a business. And a business is an operation that needs to produce profit. For a publishing business to thrive—or even survive—books must sell.

And for books to sell, they must get attention.
We live in an attention economy.
Attention is currency.

And girl, does Ego love this!

To understand how the book publishing industry works, I recommend R.F. Kuang’s novel Yellowface. It is harrowing. It makes it clear that writers are not only writers. They are influencers.

The whole business is fucked up, is what one wants to say (particularly after reading Kuang´s novel)—but doesn’t—because it’s not only fucked up. Publishers do good, too.

A Finnish publisher once said in an interview that they had bought the rights to an international bestseller and had it translated from English to Finnish—a major investment. The result? The book sold 15 copies. The publisher said he did not regret the decision. He believed it was important that the book be made accessible to Finnish readers. It was a meaningful book, he said.

Be that as it may, the situation is tricky from a writer’s point of view.

I, for instance, write because I must. I really must, the way Bukowski describes in his poem So You Want to Be a Writer? Writing does come “unasked from my heart and mind and mouth and gut”. I must write every day because it’s my way of making sense of this experience we call life.

If I didn’t write, I’d be an even bigger mess than I am now. Also, I´d be like the Border Collie who, in the absence of anything meaningful to do, will start eating the sofa, as another envy-worthy mega-influencer/writer, Elizabeth Gilbert, has said.

Writing is one of the few times when I’m fully present, in flow—or the “hum,” as screenwriter and producer Shonda Rhimes calls that mystical creative trance that makes people do crazy things no one is asking them to do.

I love words, and I love sentences, and I love how they create visions. It is magical.

But what’s far from magical is the publishing business.

Once the text is out there, presence and flow and hum are replaced by agony, at least for me. And after talking to many—even successful—writers, I believe this is very common.

And up the spout again…

The friend I mentioned at the beginning—the one whose book launch I recently attended—got a rave review in a major Finnish newspaper (the only one that matters in this country) last Sunday. I’m sure she was very happy, perhaps for a day or two. Perhaps she´ll be happy even for this entire week.

But she won’t stay happy for long. She’s writing a new book. The insecurity, self-doubt, anxiety, and fear will kick in again. She’ll lose her appetite. She’ll lose weight.

And we’ll get together and, over a glass of wine, we’ll lament our sorry predicament - again. Why do we write? we’ll ask each other. And we won’t answer, because we don’t need to.

We write because.

It is what it is.

So - how did I feel when I read the praise for my friend’s book?
Awful! I was envious as f*ck!

No major media outlet has ever reviewed any of my books, and I’m bitter. I could lie and say I’m not, but I am. We Finns are poor liars.

It is what it is.

Human nature.

Always nursing a scarcity mindset.

Not believing that if someone else succeeds, so can I.

But that’s a topic for another post—one I was supposed to write today, about envy. But I didn’t because it was this text that wanted to come out today.

That´s how it is.

A girl must do what a girl must do, even if others are doing it so much better and have a billion more subscribers. Good for them! And while they are busy being famous, this not-famous spider keeps climbing up the waterspout, over and over again….

(Image: Spider in web/Pearson Scott Foresman - Wikimedia Commons)