what I've been doing.

I'm not in a writing slump, I'm just bored

I haven't written an essay that feels like an essay in so long, but I've decided that that's okay. At some point between my article about ‘Machine in the Garden’ and ‘Not Like Us means you, too’, I had a bit of a reckoning with what it means to truly write an essay.

According to Merriam Webster, an essay is defined as “an analytic or interpretive literary composition usually dealing with its subject from a limited or personal point of view.” Notice how the words ‘interpretive’ and ‘analytic’ are present, but words like ‘conclusion’ or ‘answer’ are not. I fear I've been treating my essays like the scientific method, always looking for “the right take” before I've even explored the forest of ideas. The Hot Take Industrial Complex has begun to take root and I found myself policing my paragraphs into shape before I've even figured out what I wanted to say. So I paused for a few months, leaving unfinished work in my Google Docs to rot.

The constant jolt of energy to rush to whatever topic my substack feed chose to discuss that day was not a creative energy. It was the feeling of an opportunity. To do what, though? This is a social media site now. What would this possibly do other than get a few more people than usual to like my posts and nod along in agreement?

I don't want mass agreement. On a site like substack that used to claim to be a place of intellectual exploration, I feel repulsed by the idea of thousands of people quoting my article and just going “speak on it, girl!” like they do on Twitter. I don’t want to write for the sake of agreement - I want it even less than I would want people to argue in bad faith with me and yell in my comments, which if you know me should really say something. I'm a conflict-averse libra. My history on here is a testament to indecisiveness (though I like to call it “range”).

My posts would jump from lists of favorites (at one point I thought I was going to full-on pivot into writing blog posts about perfume and whatever shows I had been watching), to stream-of-consciousness opinion pieces and personal reflections on my childhood (I learned that truthfulness and profundity are two different things). Then my pen went dry - or rather, my hand cramped up before the words could get out.

I would have an idea, then feel as if the proper ‘time frame’ to post about it had passed and no one would care to read it anyway. It's a silly thought, to be worried about the algorithm on a platform that promised us that algorithms wouldn't matter as much. Or I'd be in the middle of writing an intro paragraph and realize that I had taken on the stylistic voice of a Buzzfeed article, my worst nightmare. When did my thoughts become summaries and regurgitations of fact?

Years of rote academic writing, I suppose, has its drawbacks; unless you intend to post a research paper you have to claw your way out of the high school, Intro-Body-Conclusion format sometimes to write anything even remotely compelling. It damn near requires an exorcism trying to transcend it.

I've thrown out a lot of essay topics because they were framed in such a manner that I'd feel compelled to give my ‘hot take’ for five paragraphs straight rather than genuinely explore and break down an idea. For example, I planned to write an essay on Sabrina Carpenter's musical influences and her odd relationship to black music, but spent the entirety of the intro ranting about how our evaluation of female musicians shouldn't start and end at “is she feminist enough?”

Whether I had a point or not is irrelevant, now, because I got so fucking bored and was revulsed by my reflexive need to dredge up a defense case for anything or anyone that I discussed in my writing, like we're in fucking Public Forum debate or some shit. Embarrassing.

Another subject I had wanted to cover: what it means to be the child of African immigrants in the US with a foot in both cultures. I think it could've been something, but a voice in my head kept scoffing and calling me a ‘diaspora writer’ every time I said some variation of “I don't feel like I fully belong to either side”. Whether that was an accurate or honest thought, I shudder at the idea of positioning myself as something special or unprecedented when I could just hop on a plane and head back to the motherland whenever. It's not like I can't pick up French or handle extreme heat, so what was I even lamenting about…?

Anyway, I'm not sure what I want to do now. Probably attempt to finish my piece on how Sinners and Interview with the Vampire deal with vampirism differently. The outline has been collecting dust for a while. But I think it was a good idea to take a break from pumping out essay after essay for an invisible (and potentially nonexistent) crowd of non-stop agreers. If you've been stepping back from publishing things (I refuse to say ‘writing slump'), do feel free to tell me what's gotten you to that point.