A thing or two about personal essays
The Cut personal essays did it once again and why I write personal essays.
When people ask me what kind of writing I do, I tell them that I’m an essayist. It’s somewhat important to me to categorize my writing as an essayist because I never write fiction, I’m not a novelist, a reporter or even a journalist for that matter. Writing essays - personal ones - was/is a way for me to connect with people, people that I didn’t think I would ever be able to reach. Especially in times of loneliness, writing about that experience not only brought me comfort but it gave me clarity - not the answers to things necessarily but a type of ending that I needed to see on paper (or on google docs) for my story.
Anyone can be a writer but not everyone can write with honesty and conviction. I don’t want to sound like a hypocrite so I would say it now but most of my essays written here are things I experienced after the fact and processed through it - I’m never in the middle of going through the thing while I write my essays. In that sense, my level of honesty, the type of vulnerability I’m showing to the world might be different because it’s somewhat already dealt with within and the words I choose to use are on the ‘safer’ side. My favorite writer, Dolly Alderton said multiple times on record when she wrote her first book, Everything I Know About Love that she was in the middle of going to therapy while she was writing her memoir and she doesn’t know if she would do the same thing now if she was going to write it today. It was a huge hit because it was honest and real, but I’m sure it was also risky and terrifying for her too. Dare I say, writing with honesty does require bravery because it’s not always the most Jane Auston-esque beautiful stuff.
What comes with honest writing is also to find a voice, your own voice. I’ve been trying to figure this out while I write along the way, but one of the biggest pieces of advice you get from other writers is “to find your own voice.” In times like now, with lots and lots of writing accessible all over, I sometimes forget what I actually think or what I actually like. Don’t you feel like you are told what we are supposed to think rather than making our own decisions sometimes? I think we can say the same thing with the recent gatekeeping culture topic and recommendation culture. It’s good to have your own taste and essentially not to be lazy. But it’s so difficult to do that because there is just so much out there that you would rather want someone else to decide for you. While I was finishing up this piece for the week, I saw this piece by
the personal essay rat race is exhausting and it’s exactly what I wanted to talk about here as well. As Chen writes, the cut’s personal essays are certainly giving “delulu confessionals” (lol) .I wonder what’s the difference between a “delulu confessional” and an honest personal essay? Is it the pure authenticity of the material and whether it carves out interesting questions? or is it just about whether it’s an engaging piece of material as a reader or not. Because at the end of the day, does everyone want to read a piece on how I cooked my eggs this morning and how my day went? Or is it more engaging if it’s about how I felt when a foreign women on a train started talking to a little Japanese girl in a school uniform and showering her with words like “kawaii” for the entire journey of that little girl’s train ride and it gave me the ick? Like stop harassing this little girl and weirdly objectifying her when she doesn’t have the means to protect herself. The latter topic has more relevance on culture and how we objectify girls and women. I could probably even tie it with foreigners fetishizing Japan and it’s ‘kawaii’ aesthetic - that’s an engaging piece with current cultural relevance than just talking about my eggs that I made.
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I don’t know what it is with The Cut essay section recently but oh boy, they sure are on something these days! Is it for clickbait? Is it for engagement? Who really knows the answers but regardless, while it’s entertaining it’s also just annoying to read essays that just don't get it. With honest writing, I guess that’s what we have to risk - some may never understand what we stand for but if you believe in it, you want to ‘write your truth’ per se.
Exhibit A; (and the only exhibit for today)
Recently, there was this article that was published under the name of a writer called Grazie Christine on “The case for marrying an older man - A women’s life is all work and little rest. An age gap relationship can help.”
I was of course intrigued because the last time I read a Cut piece that was a personal essay, it was also… a bit off in my opinion. Also, since I am in an ‘age gap’ relationship myself, I was curious to know what wisdom or things she learned herself through her age gap relationship. This wasn’t a “thinkpiece” but more so an ‘enraged piece’ - snipping that one from the 550 comments.
Personal essays are sacred, invasive even, and maybe a little voyeuristic but it teaches us one thing and that is the life of strangers. It’s helpful and better yet, a doorway into understanding each other a little bit better - or at least that’s how I take it. This piece certainly taught us a few things on what the writer herself values in life and prioritizes. Is she someone I would love to be friends with? Probably not because in her words she would think that I’m pathetic for not using my youth to get male attention, older male attention that is. “ーI could not understand why my female classmates did not join me, given their intelligence. Each time I reconsidered the project, it struck me as more reasonable. Why ignore our youth when it amounted to a superpower?” Just this sentence, it’s a stab in the heart to ‘Progress.’ She mentions this as well and it seems like a nod to self awareness but believes that her actions of marrying an older, wealthier, financially stable man who teaches her which wines to drink is a feminist choice, which of course is a fine choice but one I don’t particularly want to participate in. What’s more concerning here is that she is condoning that as women who struggle to ‘have it all’ should marry older and richer to solve all problems. “Delulu” yes.
Age gaps can work, but we also need to acknowledge that not everything will go as an equal playing field. If this was a piece about exploring those questions or asking the difficult questions to herself, is there anything that prevents her daily livelihood by being with an older man? Why does that happen? Do we have some set of stereotypes that we need to change or is there a flaw in society? Attacking other women, or questioning women’s intelligence is probably not the right way to go about it and surely, “marrying older” is not our solution to equal rights. It will ultimately become a think piece but that is where we are and editors are commissioning pieces as such and as a freelance writer, I’ll have to make do with that.
I’ll leave with a round up of what personal essay Substack’s I enjoy reading but
is one of my favorites and I saved one of her notebook pic on why she writes. “For all the conclusions I’m still trying to reach” is one of my favorite quotes from her. I never think that for writing, especially a personal essay, there isn’t always an answer and if anything maybe the big question can be kept afloat. Maybe there can be room for readers to examine and join in the conversation, for comfort, for solace or for nothing at all.
In closing, I shared this before but I will share it again by Annie Dillard on Write till you Drop. For me, all I want out of writing is to feel pleasure - if I get engagement or if a lot of people resonate with my writing, that’s extra points for me - but I hope that the only thing that will keep me going is to have fun with writing.
One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now.
I’m skipping the normal other stuff section today but instead, I’m listing some of my favorite essayist and essays here. I would actually LOVE to hear what are your favorite writers you follow or read that does essay writing - I want to know more!!!
- writes She writes so many beautiful, thought out essays - I would say she’s definitely someone I aspire to be as a writer.
- writes She makes $$$ on Substack for a reason. (Not that that’s the only reason for doing Substack but writing is equally a business too!)Her writing is not only about honesty but it’s also culturally relevant and she isn’t afraid to do what’s best for her and her audience.
- writes and it’s self explanatory because she writes the most basic and yet unasked questions often - at least to me. When I’m stuck with writing, I love to read some of her pieces. The tenderness of emergence is a gentle read <3
- writes and although it’s not necessarily a personal essay style writing, I love his writing a lot. It provokes worthy questions that I would ask myself as well. This one on likable characters and art should be a doorway, not a mirror is a great piece.
- writes and I loved this piece on feeling stuff but not becoming it.
Let me know in the comments what are your other favorite writers <3
Some essays that I keep reading back on
A Japanese essayist, Awa Ito, but I would rather call her more of a wordsmith if I had to describe her. I found her viral piece on Note drifting around Twitter. This piece is about her relationship with her dad and this one on language and being a mixed race kid in Japan is intriguing as well.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner is normally a celebrity profile writer and last year, I read her phenomenal Taylor Swift piece on NYT. I really loved her voice and looked through some of her other writing and this one in the NYT, mourning in Paris is a soothing essay.
This essay on Joy by Zadie Smith published in the New Yorker in 2013 is something I go back to often. The difference of joy and pleasure.
Men not allowed beyond this point on the Paris Review by Molly Pepper Steemson is a very beautifully tender essay that I send to a lot of my friends when they need a little moment of hug.
I am aware of Lena Dunham’s controversies, but still I love her writing. I do resonate to a lot of her memoir writing and this one on False Labor when she goes through IVF is a compelling essay to me.
Thank you for reading this week’s love or not to love :) I appreciate you as always, and you can follow me on Instagram megsgumis for some more fun and yum content. As always Bisous x Megumi