I have something to say.

A fourth attempt at a newsletter, and it's all about fear.

This is, officially, my fourth attempt at having a newsletter.

The first time, it was September 2020, six months into the pandemic, and newsletters had just become ~all the rage~. I figured it’d be a fun way to give virtual updates on my life to the people I couldn’t see as regularly anymore, and also to share recs of the movies/TV/books/music I was loving at the moment. It was fun for awhile, but tiring; I’d set myself up for an unrealistic (and, let’s be real, probably unwanted) two-newsletter-a-week cadence, and by the end of the year, I’d run out of steam.

A few weeks later, I tried again, sending out weekly recaps of my life over the past seven days. I enjoyed it, and it was easy enough to do, but in all honesty, it also felt like little more than an ego trip. While a few readers (hi, mom) seemed to look forward to hearing what I was reading/writing/watching/etc each week, it mostly felt like I was just writing about me, for me, with nothing much of substance to share. I stopped it after a few months.

At the end of 2021, I gave it another shot. By then, I had left my full-time job as an editor and had become a freelancer, spending my days writing articles for a variety of publications and teaching classes on the side. I figured that rather than talk about my life and pop culture, it’d be more useful if I talked about my work—specifically, the highs and lows of freelancing, in addition to sharing the stories I’d written each week. But eventually, I ran out of new things to say, and promoting my work so much felt just as vain and unnecessary as before. So, for the third time, I quit.

And now we’re here, eight months later. I can’t say whether this attempt will be any more successful than the last three, but lately, I’ve been feeling like I do have something to say, something worth sharing with you all. Something that isn’t just about me, for me, but about all of you. For all of you.

At least, that’s the hope.

I’ve been writing a book. A novel, set in high school during the late ‘00s, about a smart, talented, ambitious teenage girl whose dreams of success are threatened by her worsening mental health. It’s a book about anxiety, and popularity, and friendship. It’s a book that, I hope, will resonate with a lot of girls who’ve felt like they had to be on top of it all, no matter the cost. Girls who think they have to be everything, to everyone, at all times. It’s a book I think I could’ve used, back when I was 17.

And it’s also a major work-in-progress. I’ve been writing some iteration of this novel, on and off, for the past four-ish years. I’ve started and stopped in so many times I’ve lost count. I’ve written 50 pages, 100, even 300, and thrown them all out. I’ve changed settings and characters and plotlines, anything and everything in the attempt to Finally Make It Work. I’ve spent so, so many nights blinking bleary-eyed into my laptop, struggling to move forward, only to realize that I probably have to start all over again. I’ve cried. A lot.

For so much of my life, writing has come easy to me. I’ve never had trouble putting together essays and features, interviews and trendpieces. Even writing Pickleball for All didn’t feel that hard, minus the pressure to make my deadline. I knew I could do it, because despite its length, it was no different, really, than anything I’d done before. I just had to sit down, read through my notes, turn them into something cohesive. And I knew that when I did it, it’d be good. Maybe even really good. Because writing is my thing, the skill I’ve always been proudest of, that’s given me my career and my audience and, to be honest, much of my identity. I may not be able to do math or understand insurance or remember directions, but I can write.

And yet. Working on this novel has given me more self-doubt and fear than I’ve ever felt before. I want, so badly, to get it right, to turn the story inside my head into a novel worth reading. But truthfully, I don’t know if I can, if I’m good enough to do so. And that scares me, deeply.

What if I can’t finish this book? What if I do finish it, and it’s terrible? What if I put my heart and soul and years of my life into it, only to realize it wasn’t worth it? That, while, I may excel at some forms of writing, I just straight-up suck at this? What if I’m not the writer-and the person-that I thought I was?

Every time I start a new draft, or step away from the novel in a bout of frustration, these fears rise up. I am terrified of not finishing this book, of letting myself down. I feel like I have to write this book, like it’ll kill me if I don’t. But it also feels impossible, something out of my reach no matter how hard I try.

I’ve struggled with talking about these feelings, because I’m ashamed of them. I’m ashamed of my lack of progress of my book, especially when so many people in my life know I’m working on it. Whenever someone asks, “how’s the book going?”, I want to throttle them, because how dare they. Don’t they know how hard I am trying?! And I’m ashamed of how difficult writing it is for me, when it seems, if not necessarily easy, at least doable for so many other writers I know. They all have novels—why can’t I? And I’m ashamed, too, of that jealousy, of not being able to stay in my own lane, put my head down, stop complaining and just write.

I know most of you, reading this, aren’t writers. But maybe you have hopes and goals of your own that you want more than anything, but struggle to reach. Maybe you’ve also spent many, many nights working towards an end that feels in sight, only to realize it’s even farther than you thought. Maybe you know what it’s like to be scared that you’re not as smart or capable or motivated as you thought you were, and to be ashamed of your own potential inabilities.

But maybe you, too, keep writing—or whatever your version of writing is—anyway. Maybe you hear those worries and fears and what-ifs and still keep on going, because you can’t imagine not at least trying. Because that thing you want is so powerful, so consuming, that you’ll do anything to get it. Even if it terrifies you.

I’m writing a book, and I don’t know if I’ll finish it. But I’m going to keep on going anyway, because I have to. I hope you do, too.