The perks of being an accidental writer
I often feel embarrassed about stumbling upon writing as an adult and focusing on personal topics. But being a serendipitous hobby writer has its perks.
“Why do you need to put away your notes?” a friend asked when I revealed that whenever I organize a party or have friends over, I hide the notes for my Medium stories. I gather the sticky notes stuck onto my kitchen table and the notebook pages lying on my desk and organize them into a neat stack. Then I place a pile of books on top of them. Vanish Note Action!
I put away my notes because I wouldn’t want anyone to see the seedlings of a story: observations of my own mind and behavior, my little “epiphanies”, conversations I overheard on the tram, and bits of dialogue between my friends and me. (How awkward would it be if a friend, wandering around my apartment, suddenly found themselves in one of my notes while I was back in the kitchen preparing Georgian lobio — very, very awkward.)
But mainly, I hide my notes because not doing so might suggest that I take writing seriously (which I do) or that I’m devoted to it (which I am) both of which wouldn’t make any sense. They wouldn’t make sense, because I stumbled upon writing by accident. I didn’t grow up doing it and for sure didn’t study it.
What’s more, I don’t make any money from my writing (alright, I’ve made a whopping 25 dollars on my Buy Me a Coffee account). This would be acceptable if it at least was a strategic personal branding effort, which in today’s volatile job market no longer seems to be frowned upon. But no, I write about all kinds of petty, personal topics interspersed with stories about my work and the social science research I happen to find intriguing.
“Being the kind of writer that I am — a self-righteous hobbyist — is really quite embarrassing. Almost every time I’m about to hit publish, I think, ‘What the hell are you doing? You’re making a fool of yourself!’”
Being the kind of writer that I am — a self-righteous hobbyist — is really quite embarrassing. Almost every time I’m about to hit publish, I think, What the hell are you doing? You’re making a fool of yourself!
But as embarrassing as it is to keep scribbling and typing and hitting Publish, being a serendipitous hobby writer also has its perks.
I feel free to play and experiment
I was recently listening to an episode of the German Alles gesagt? podcast in which the artist Wolfgang Tillmans shares his experiences of becoming and being an artist. Tillmans says that he wasn’t traditionally talented in the arts growing up, which he found incredibly freeing. He goes on to share a piece of advice one of his teachers at Bournemouth had given him: “Your desire to succeed is indestructible so that’s why you should go for failure.”
The meaning of this sentence — its association with not having been an art wunderkind — remains ambiguous in the discussion. Did Tillmans’ lack of traditional talent make him less afraid of failure? Did it make him more comfortable with playing and experimenting? Hard to say. Nevertheless, this part of the podcast resonated with me.
I also feel a sense of freedom because I wasn’t a precocious writer. I feel I can write whatever I want because no one expected me to get into it. One month, I can write about my desire to go abroad, and the other, I can delve into the literature on self-control and turn it into a popular science story.
A few people have suggested that I go all in on one subject (usually something professional like design and UX research) instead of constantly jumping from one topic to another. I get the advice: If I focused on one topic, I could create a consistent brand, build a larger audience, and be more likely to make money from my writing. But trying to please the algorithm (or people) easily leads to a boring writing process. And although I occasionally get dazzled by the attention when one of my articles does a bit better, I’m in for the ride, not the destination.
One of my favorite things about the process is playing with the writing styles I come across in the books I read. I’ve practised using asides, either in brackets or footnotes, inspired by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. (Taleb also taught me the use of the semicolon; he uses it so often that I finally understood its purpose, or so I believe.) I’ve practised creating a certain rhythm through staccato sentences and short paragraphs inspired by Ryan Holiday. And I’ve practised writing in a maximalist, association-heavy style inspired by Michelle Zauner. If I were to limit the topics I write about or to aim for clicks and claps, I might miss out on this type of experimentation.
“So being a dilettante has its perks. Dilettantes get to play. They get to focus on practising their craft with low, if any, expectations of success.”
So being a dilettante has its perks. Dilettantes get to play. They get to focus on practising their craft with low, if any, expectations of success. And practising a craft is a genuine source of joy.
I feel free to write in a plain style
The Japanese author Haruki Murakami was a 29-year-old jazz bar owner sitting in the audience of a baseball game when he suddenly had an inkling that he could write a novel. And then he wrote one. Talk about serendipitous writers!
In his book Novelist as a Vocation, Murakami describes how he pulled off writing his first novel in a simple style “because I had never been obsessed by the idea of being a writer, so I was not hindered by that obsession.” He wasn’t fixated on certain rules and conventions, so he wasn’t constrained by them. (Apparently, he landed at his simple style by writing part of the book first in English and then translating it into Japanese.)
“Because I lack any official writing training — I didn’t study English or journalism or literature; I studied design — I don’t have strong preconceptions about what good writing is supposed to be like or literary friends to impress with words like ostentatious or austere.”
I feel similarly when it comes to writing style. Because I lack any official writing training — I didn’t study English or journalism or literature; I studied design — I don’t have strong preconceptions about what good writing is supposed to be like or literary friends to impress with words like ostentatious or austere. I’ve read quite a few books on writing and often draw inspiration from the non-fiction and memoir writers I admire, as I described earlier, but apart from that, I just write in a style that comes naturally to me and that flows when read out loud (which I love doing while editing).
Being a non-native English speaker also “helps”: People don’t expect me to write in a fancy style. Yes, I try my best to write good English and occasionally practice new vocabulary in my stories, but at the same time, I try not to try too hard. I don’t write sentences like, “The crickets ignited across the low shifting grass around the barn” — I happily leave those to the ocean vuongs. My simple and easily understandable style (if you allow me to describe it as such) is a predictable, and perhaps inevitable, result of my background.
I also simply enjoy writing in and reading that kind of style.
I once mentioned to a lover that I thought Glennon Doyle’s Untamed was well-written. “What was good about the writing?” he asked. “That it’s so easy and enjoyable to read.” As I spoke out those words, I realized I had a rather peculiar definition of good writing, one that may not be shared by others.
I appreciate it when the language doesn’t get in the way of the message. The magic of Glennon Doyle’s writing, for example, comes from her vulnerability, the honest observations of her lived experience, and her ability to turn these into a captivating story. The words and sentences themselves are quite simple.
Occasionally, I feel self-conscious about enjoying this type of plain style. But then I imagine all the readers who resemble me: the non-native English speakers, the ones who didn’t spend all their spare time reading growing up, and the ones who aren’t obsessed with a work’s artistic value but are content with getting a few insights here and there. I know I’m not the only such reader.
So when I feel self-conscious, I remind myself that it’s OK to write for those readers, too. As a serendipitous hobbyist, I feel free to do exactly that.
If you enjoyed this, check out my story on how I got into writing:
I became a writer by accident — or that’s what I’ve been telling myself
