achieve a goal and suffer its loss*

all i would dream about when i started to publish my work in literary magazines was my future debut collection. sure, i loved sharing my work in journals, online and in print, but really, it felt to me that one's first real step into the literary world was via a book. something demonstrating your range of skill and versality, signaling your strengths and interests. i was so, so eager to be seen, to have this body of work to refer to in lieu of an introduction. something i could point at and say this is everything i've been thinking about for years and years, this is who i am.

then i got my book deal with House of Anansi (AH), and it felt like this enormous weight had been lifted off my shoulders. the book would be released in the spring of 2025, April 1st to be exact. i had done it! i could finally relax! i wouldn't have to keep proving my ability, my craft. the validation works wonders, really.

i just sent over a final copy to my editor this week after working on it for six months. (there's still copyediting, of course, but everything that will be in the book, is there.) but i wrote essentially a quarter of it — most of it a long poem — over the month of june, and that required much more discipline than i was used to applying to my work.

i had always known that a debut about climate change and capitalism would be incomplete without the involvement of colonialism. i'd been thinkin about writing about it for a year but i hesitated due to my lack of knowledge, and doubted my ability to do the subject matter justice. i gravitate towards shorter poems and find them much easier to commit, but i knew a poem on colonialism had to be long, at least six pages. (i could never write a novel just to shelve it. i'm obsessed with results, with completion, with ending things because i need the validation of achievement on a frequent basis.)

but committing my time to connecting these three subjects via writing helped ground my confidence in both my craft and my views on climate justice. not that they were particularly shaky, but over the course of the editing process i had wondered if i had rushed to publish my work. i wasn't proud of all of it because i thought that if i had waited to further developed my craft and background knowledge, my debut could be as good as the ones i admired. my favourite poets debuted (at least) in their late twenties, with work that was incredibly masterful and original. before my sprint in june, i knew that my ms wasn't quite there yet, despite the encouragement i had gotten from my friends and editor.

i'm really satisfied with the version I sent over this monday. i used a lot of guidance and advice that i will detail in another newsletter because this is already getting too long for me to want to edit. i'm so excited to rest now, since i had also been studying for an accounting exam that took much of my time and sanity.

but there’s a question that’s been lingering in the back of my mind: now that i've achieved The Big Thing, what am i going to do?

i'm not going to stop writing poetry of course because it keeps me sane. the poems excluded from the manuscript don't fall under a theme and/or are too personal to start gathering to publish. what it feels like i should do is write a novel, or at least try different forms of literature. i attempted a novel in the last fall and didn't stick to it, obviously, because i'm not a fan of the risk-reward ratio.

I read this essay on aspiring by celine nguyen here on substack dot com, which led me to admit that i should probably just accept the way i am and stop wanting to want to be someone else. i don’t care about eating enough to be a foodie. my main concern when getting dressed is the the weather outside so i can't be a fashion girlie. i’ve tried to hate myself into wanting something but that doesn’t work either. i wanted to want to work in public accounting (lol) and hated waking up every day for almost a year. my new years resolution every year is to stop being so really hard on myself so to find a balance between striving and relaxing, a step in the right direction would be to stop pretending that i want things that i don't actually want. i don't really want to write a novel! especially not a bestselling YA fantasy!!

at my birthday picnic, we were discussing those trending charm necklaces, and i said that i wasn't sure that i would get one because i might not be able to find charms that represent my personality. and what if i changed, or my likes changed? i wouldn't want to wear it — it would be feel dishonest to myself and the people around me. then someone was like: what's wrong with changing? a solution would also be to change charms every year.

but it's so grounding, so comforting to know who you are and the things you like. things that you can name, touch, point to. (this is also why i loved nana osaki from Nana. she was so sure of herself, so predictable with the list of favourite things that anyone could rattle off: vivienne westwood, the sex pistols, seven stars, asahi super dry beer, coffee with milk and strawberry cake. anyways.)

accepting what i don’t like also feels a bit like a failure. what if i has not tried hard enough, or the correct approach? what parts of myself should i be satisfied with, and which parts should i change? should i build my writing stamina for a novel? or should i just admit that what i actually want to try is curation and filmmaking. (i’m finally relating to that sylvia plath poem going around on tiktok about the fig tree branches representing the different paths you can take in life. finally, a real teenage girl experience.)

i think i'm always going to identify as a poet, though, because my personality and values are so compatible with the form. recently on the podcast poet talk, sanna wani said that it’s important to her to introduce herself as a poet because poetry is like a country that she comes from, “an array of being that was gifted to her by the people she values.” i too think that i was born to be a poet, at the very least because of the dogged compulsion to write it.

what i love about poetry, too, is the immediacy of emotional impact. there is no waiting involved. a lot of people don't have time to read a book but do you have a minute to read a poem? probably. i do think it’s harder to keep the reader engaged when reading a poetry collection because of inertia — the poem ends, and you remember that your phone exists and is simply dying for your attention. (stay with me now.) the pressure is real, for the reader's attention, which is why i think the beginning of the poem is so important. even as a poet, if the beginning doesn't engage me with its craft, i'm no longer interested in it as a whole.

writing the beginning, consequently, is always a little scary. beginning are why people don't try at all. i'm feeling the adrenaline of the last month wearing off a bit. i feel like this summer could go so many ways. i've always loved reading poets’ diaries because i’ve wanted someone to tell me how to live, how live a writing life. i spent my early twenties building my writing identity but perhaps a poet isn't all i am, perhaps i'm not only someone who writes. as demanding as it is to keeping finding yourself, i think that is what i'm going to keep doing.

hana vu's new album romanticism: grungy, lyrical, emotional (everything i love). i really love the song, Look Alive. it's exactly how i'm feeling right now, down to the condescending (almost mean) nature of the title. to tell someone to look alive is to tell them to get over how they're feeling. buck up, get better, bear it a little better. reminded me a little of how the phrase "a little life" was used in the titular novel by Hanya Yanagihara (though the contexts are completely different). also if anyone has extra tickets for the july 19 concert please contact me lol

french dinners: raw vegetables, buttery bread, some cheese at 8pm. this term is defined entirely by my interpretation of the meals eaten in the youtube vlogs of one american artistwho now a naturalized french citizen. i don't want to do anything else and if they can survive so can i.

that measured, factual tone in poetry: found in solmaz sharif's work, and now recently rediscovered in monica youn's work from the between the covers podcast with david naimon. (it's funny, i intended to read blackacre when it came out in high school, then totally forgot about it.) i love how cold this tone is, how authoritative, and the power it give the speaker in the world of the poem.

this Temu you got picked ad in my inbox: obviously not down for the invasion of my inbox by corporations, or the theft of my data from somewhere else on the world wide web, but i laugh every time i see it. if i was a pick-me girl i'd be ecstatic. yippee!

summer rain: i think there is actually nothing better. when i die i will miss it.

these uniqlo pants: came to the realization last month after visiting the cafe every day that i had very few casual pants for the summer. perfect length for short people, wide pant legs, adjustable waist, loose butt area, lightweight, neutral color, enormous pockets! i've been wearing these multiple times a week. i'm trying to streamline my wardrobe, bc i've realized that i don't want to spend more than 10 minutes deciding what to wear (ever) and that includes digging-through-laundry time. i’m sorry they’re sold out now i literally got one of the last ones.

cafes that are open past 9pm: there is a deficit. what else can i say. cafes should not only be reserved for people who do not work from 9 to 5, commute home and quickly eat, then set out to get maybe only two hours of writing time? i hate it!

*the title, by the way, was posted by leila chatti on twitter a long time ago. if someone knows the credit please let me know.

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