On authenticity

I never feel like I’m going to be That Writer. Every now and then, a literary-minded friend will share a call for submissions or an application to a writing residency with me and I’ll think, ‘Wrong number.’ 

It’s not even an “I’ll never be good enough” thing, but more an, “I’ll never be good like this.” 

I’ve been thinking of this as I revise an essay I’ve been avoiding. I drafted a version of it when a column of a Reputable Publication (that I won't name) was looking for pitches. I felt lukewarm about what I turned out, but people in my life egged me on with some variation on “Nothing ventured” and they had a point. It wasn’t picked up and I thought, immediately, Of course it wasn’t! Not self-pityingly or cringingly. Just matter-of-factly. I don’t write like that.

And I know you’re thinking that all kinds of writers write for Reputable Publication and you’re right. But there’s a way you can write for the RePub when editors there already think you matter, and I am not in that number. 

Depending on how you think, you might now be thinking that writers can work in different styles and that I could apply myself and learn how to carve a space for myself in the style I’m talking about. I wonder at this. Honestly, I don’t know that I could. I mean that I’m not sure it’s still possible for me to dedicate myself to learning something I am so uncomfortable in.

When I started revising the essay, I eagerly dove into the metaphor that had inspired it. In the Reputable Publication version, I’d tried to make the metaphor a clever, delicate frame: something that connected the ideas and hinted at imagination. The revision is full hermit crab, playful and moody with sharp edges around the collaged fragments. 

It is rougher and looser than the other draft, and as I write it, it sings. It also snarls, and murmurs, and claps its hands in delight as if to say, Now we’re getting somewhere. The Reputable draft was silent — it creaked like an uncomfortable chair in an echoing auditorium, its voice all rasp and crackle. 

And of course, I could be totally wrong and the Reputable editors might have loved a weird draft from a relative nobody (this is not negative self-talk) and snapped it up. But I couldn’t have written the weird version for them because they represent a kind of Serious Writing for Serious Writers that I've never seen myself in. The relief I feel every time I stop chasing it — like a breaking the surface for a breath of air. 

The truth is, I don’t want a Reputable Publication by-line. Not for my own sake. I’m not saying I’d turn them down or that I’ll never pitch them again. But I want their acceptance because it will make me more legitimate in certain eyes. Not just editors and book agents and authors I admire (sometimes I imagine Kiese Laymon posting a screenshot of my by-line to his IG and instantly start sweating), but also those friends who have always seen my writing as a hobby. As a thing I do rather than a craft I wield. 

And I can’t ever show up as myself when I’m trying to be someone else — someone they would like better. 

I hope it’s clear that I’m not saying not to pitch the Reputable Pub or not to go for a dream publication. I’m not saying if an opportunity comes up, you should ignore it, or that there’s any purely authentic way to write and publish. I just know that there’s a truer version of this story and I can’t bring it out with so many eyes on it. It needs its time in the dark, the quiet chaos of generation, without every internalized gaze I own pressing it under the glass and wondering why it’s so flat. 

What are the spaces, genres, or topics where you feel most grounded in yourself and voice? Do you experiment in these spaces? Are they safe for you to take risks and get weird?

Thanks for reading xo, Priscilla! I always love to hear from you, so leave a comment or drop me a line on IG/email (hello@wordsbypriscilla.com) and stay tuned for a workshop on hermit crab writing later this month!