Writing Words That Disappear

In this newsletter, I reveal my greatest writing fear – that my words will disappear.

The time is soon coming when I'll be consulting my writing guru. She believes that two factors stop people from writing: fear and time. In my case, it's definitely fear. Fear that my words will disappear.

As someone who derives meaning rom being able to shape experiences through words, the fear that my words will disappear is a knife press in the ribs. There are many ways that words can disappear from you when you write.

The first time your words can disappear is when you're putting them on a page. Words that burn bright in my head turn to ash as soon as I type or write them. Sometimes the fire still burns, but I come back the next day to find they've turned into a pile of ash.

I could say this feels like an annihilation of the soul, but that feels a little melodramatic, even for me.

Photo by Zach Lucero on Unsplash

This is a pile of ash against a greyish-white background. The ash itself is dark grey.

When your words make it through the fire and you decide to publish them, another sort of disappearance happens. Everyone talks about the pain of rejection when you’re sending out your manuscript. No-one talks about how your words disappear after you publish.

When you publish, it can feel as though your words have fallen into a void. The poet Mark Roper told me that publishing poetry has about the same impact as a feather falling to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. A bleak image, but oddly comforting.

Your words also disappear when you promote your writing. I’ll have to be a little careful talking about this one. You are reading my newsletter, and I’m grateful to each and every one of you.

Substack tells me this newsletter gets hundreds of views, and I’ve learned to accept that most of those people will read and carry on with their day. And to trust that the seeds I plant will come up when I least expect it.

One antidote I've found for the fear of my words disappearing is to perform them. When I wrote my one-woman show People Wipe Me, the words were designed to disappear as soon as I spoke them. When you perform, you can see your words land with an audience, little fires lighting inside them.

I also perform my short prose pieces, and I’ll now clumsily segue into a plug for my next performance event. The next edition of SpeakEasy will happen on Friday 22 November and it features the poet Scott McKendry and the jazz musicians Darren Dreelan and Shane Murphy.

I'll be MCing the open mic, which I adore, and this time I'll make sure to perform a piece of my own. I flatter myself I may light a fire in myself and my audience.