The Writer: Morning Revisioning
Three
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“Anyway, what I really think good writing does: It enlivens that part of us that actually believes we are in this world, right now, and that being here somehow matters. It reawakens the reader to the fact and the value of her own existence.” -George Saunders
(have you heard of Saunders’s Substack, Story Club?)
resource
Have you heard of Chill Subs? This is an amazing resource for anyone looking to submit their work to literary magazines, find residencies, and all sorts of other writerly resources, all in one aesthetically pleasing package.
inspiration
Last night I watched the film Weekend. directed by Andrew Haigh. The film was made in 2011, and begins in a gay bar in a working-class British Midlands town. There, two men meet. One is out as a gay man, the other is not entirely closeted, but nonetheless is hiding much of himself away. They go home together and their one-night stand evolves into a full weekend of profound encounters and conversations.
The complexities of queer life aren’t often truthfully portrayed in media, even now. Real queer stories get marginalized in favor of queer narratives aimed towards straight audiences. What I loved about this film is the granular detail— the entire film spans only one weekend and most of the scenes occur at a bar or in the blocko flats where one of the men lives. I loved how the pivotal moments of the film were not climaxes but revelations, each revealing the layers of defense naturally accrued in each character, all layers so personal and invisible that they’re not only revealed to the audience, but the characters.
As writers living under patriarchy and capitalism and within narrow and confined narratives of beauty, gender, race, and sexuality, there’s always the potential for us to forget why we started writing in the first place. Or, I guess I’ll speak for myself. I started writing because I had to write. Because my whole life was a performance, and on the page I could be my true self. I wrote in my journals, and I wrote stories, and I imagined different lives for myself. I’ve been writing in journals and writing stories since I was little, because I wasn’t allowed to express my needs and desires to anyone for so long that I forgot to ask myself what they truly were. Writing was the only way I could find a way back to myself.
But reading helped me imagine lives beyond myself— and with time my reading and writing became a conversation. With more time, and education, I learned that I was participating in a conversation that’s been happening since we as humans began.
Now that I’m bold enough to call myself a writer (which I should have been doing way earlier), I know how easy it is to sacrifice my true desires for a paycheck. How necessary it is, sometimes (often).
I am not always bold enough to be loud about who I am. I am not closeted, by any means, but I am not truly living the full queer life I want to be living. Partially because there are few spaces in which I feel safe enough to fully articulate and express who I am, and partially because I don’t feel as if I should have to define myself to others so they can understand how I am different from them.
I really wish I could just be queer, and be nonbinary, and people would use my pronouns and accept that I do not identify as a woman despite my affection for makeup and dresses and my femme affectations. but what makes those things femme? What if they are just ways we can all express ourselves, just like I love running a chainsaw and lifting heavy weights and have enough rage inside of me to fill the barrel chests of a thousand strong men?
What I’m saying is that we all move through the world being perceived. Often we are perceived inaccurately, and we ourselves inaccurately perceive, because how can we not, when we have only lived inside of our own lives forever? From that space, how can we pretend to know anyone from a glance or an exchange?
This film reminded me how powerful a story about two people can be. A story about two queer people. A story that doesn’t shy away from their intimacy, their vulnerabilities, their fears and bravery, and the way their surrounding worlds, depending on where they live and their life experiences, can keep them hiding themselves away— the inevitability that we all hide parts of ourselves away, but that the stakes are often higher for those of us whose choices and genetics and desires strike enough fear in others that they wish us harm, or even death.
And telling those stories matters— especially when they’re unadorned, and real, and not made to convince anyone of anything. Of anyone’s right to be who they are, or even that they’re beautiful or perfect or good. What I loved about this film is that it’s not trying to prove that queer people are worthy of anyone’s love. Because it doesn’t have to prove anything. Because we are, all, worthy of love, and we are all just regular people trying to love each other and scared of being loved and hoping we’ll be loved when we show up without our masks on.
“Character-driven dramas are not supposed to make a show of backstory, but in the genre of the blossoming romance—focused on two people for whom the rest of the world has fallen away, and who are hungry to know everything about each other—there is nothing more natural than exposition.”
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