On Legacy: Journal Entry, 06 June 2026

It’s eleven at night here in England and I wanted a space to write about the day. I should be catching up on sleep. When I looked around for my commonplace journal which would be the most appropriate locale for posts like this—because I don’t use Substack as a daily journal, do I—I couldn’t find it at first. But the when I did, I realised that my tennis elbow wouldn’t let me write anything by hand for now. Or for the next week or two. Which is just great. Somewhere in the background I have YouTube playing on which a writer chats about following Virginia Woolf’s writing routine.

English weather never disappoints. Which is to say, it always impresses with its unreliability. I do like stormy mornings though so I don’t complain too much about days like these, as much as my sun-adoring husband does. For most of the day I have worked on the novel. Not the first one. The first one is in the query trenches getting asphyxiated in the sludge that flows down the sides of the gutter. The second one is pure sunshine, in the rays of which I sit and write and grow stronger like Superman. Superauthor?

I noticed a social media post by a writer I follow who simply asked “Why do you write?” It is rare to come across simple posts from people who do not have followers leading to a decimal point in their leaderboard scores. These posts are usually followed by an army of hashtags, because aren’t we all just mewling for attention online in the hopes that hordes will think what we have to say is simply wonderful. But I thought of the question and I didn’t want to dwell on it too much because like every author active in writing groups and book communities, I have thought of the answer over and over again like a broken record in one corner of my head that I don’t like to visit anymore.

I write because it’s the only way I can make sense of my thoughts.

I used to think this answer was profound. It is true, after all. And it has the exact effect on others as I would want it to have, because they imagine that might be what writing is to them to. Maybe making sense of their thoughts is also why they write. I’ve received a lot of upvotes and likes and quotes and retweets every time I’ve provided this answer: I write because it’s the only way I can make sense of my thoughts.

Seven is the number of voices I have in my head at any random point of time. But sometimes it’s six and sometimes two, but mostly seven. Writing calms them all and scratches them at places that makes them go wheeee. But in the last year while working on the manuscript I have questioned whether that is the only reason I write. It is not.

I think I write for legacy too. It is for me, as it is to many authors, I would imagine, a way to immortalise myself. This is irrespective of specifics such as if I’m publishing my writing or not, if I’m getting traditionally published or pressing send on self-publishing, if I have three readers or three hundred thousand readers. All of that are sweet cherries on top of the basic cake I crave. The basic cake I crave is that my pieces exists. My writing simply exists. Across a few laptops and online repositories, a few literary journals and on handwritten papers scattered throughout the house and in a few of my tote bags. I may read it someday simply because it exists, my future child might, and when I’m gone my brother who comes to help my husband sort my things might read them and think of me.

Ten minutes to midnight. Have to hit Publish before the day turns, otherwise the date in the title will be wrong. Will I be keeping this type of posts up? I don’t know.

Happy writing!

Amrita