Am I overthinking or not thinking enough?
Stephen King, Mr. Bean and an essay.
A few days ago i restacked a quote by Stephen King that said:
Description begins in the writers imagination, but should finish in the reader’s
When I started my substack 3 years ago, my goal was to write one essay per week. Initially, i wrote fairly regularly and then i procrastinated every time i was out of ideas. i failed to see that i was new in the writing world, doesn’t matter how many controversial and unfinished essays remain in my drafts, i am still someone learning her way through. any poem idea that would spark would directly find itself in the deep pockets of google docs until i ran out of storage. it never made to substack because 1. my audience was limited, it comprises mostly of family members and a few people i am lucky enough to meet through substack and other writing platforms and so i asked, "who would read my unpolished writing?” . and 2. i was scared how people would perceive my writing, would they find it tacky? sappy? immature?
Till this day, i question my quality of writing and the ideas that I procreate. its been 3 years that i took up writing with a goal of being a professional writer someday, however, i am still extremely anxious to how people perceive what i write. Needless to say, there are only a handful of people who have read my original works, works that make me a writer and not a self acclaimed you-know-who in Wattpad.
“People like art varies from person to person but unlike art they are seldom interesting.”
The poems i compose are very much derived from real life instances, or from a stance i took that was unpopular or from a situation that is so sensitive that it’s sharpness can only be made blunt by using metaphors. Every time i start writing a poem, printing words on a paper, i write them unapologetically for me, i don’t judge my writing or over analyse it by pondering upon how others would perceive it but when i do write something with the determination of publishing, i try to see what i write from all the angles, dimensions and perspectives - the bad and the good. I’ve made the people closest to me read a poem at least 3 times asking them what they think over and over again, frankly its quite annoying but then i realise that what i am actually doing is the byproduct of my fear of my work not getting accepted publicly.
As an avid reader, i’ve read over 200 books minus the children’s books i’ve read when i was way way younger. I have never once thought what the writer was thinking while writing or composing this beautiful piece of art, i was too engaged in the story, the characters, the rhythm and the rhyme. i perceived art like it was meant to be perceived- from the readers perspective not the writers.
You know when you watch a movie you don’t think what went in the directors head while writing the script, you try to compare it to your situation and how the characters of your life fit. That’s how you know a show, music, a piece at an exhibition or a story stuck with you. It stuck with you because it related to your life, to your situation.
I have learnt to read, write and think through books and movies. I have learnt to grow alongside them. I have learnt to learn people by reading books and not socializing. people have a very fake facade, doesn’t matter how long you’ve known them, they are only true to themselves and no one else. Books help me see past that, it helps me analyse behaviours of my peers, helps me empathise and see people as they truly are. People like art varies from person to person but unlike art they are seldom interesting.
Art has an imagination of its own, its a way to express yourself. All in all, as a writer i should publish more of my work without the fear of readers judging it, as Stephen King said, its for you to perceive and for me to deliver and after that its no longer my responsibility to carry it through.
In the coming days, I hope to write more essays and maybe publish some of my own authored poetry and prose. I earnestly hope that whoever is on the other side of this 6 inch screen (or maybe a laptop, i dunno) will enjoy my writing!
Again, extremely sweet of you to read my sprawled thoughts in a thousand pixels!
Thank you.
Sprechless