2023 Writing Year Wrapped
another year in the wilderness
I started an MFA program in fiction writing this fall. In one of my final classes of the semester, we were able to ask our professor, Hannah Tinti, any lingering questions we had about writing. Someone asked a question that was on a lot of our minds going into the holidays: when someone asks what you do, can you say you're a writer even if you haven't published anything yet? We laughed about how most conversations go when you tell someone you're a writer. The response is almost always: have you published anything I've read? (Um, no I haven't and also what do you even read?)
When Gabriel Packard came to speak about writing and productivity at NYU’s MFA program earlier this semester, he identified this thing he calls the wilderness. He said, the wilderness is the period that starts when you cautiously set out on this long walk that is "being a writer" and before you reach your first major milestones, whatever those are for you. Though many of us are shy to admit it, at least some part of us wants to write that book that the random person at the cocktail party has heard of.
My biggest fear entering an MFA program this fall was that I'd experience a competitive environment that would crush the optimism and love for the craft of writing that I've so carefully cultivated within myself in the past few years. I was so pleasantly surprised to instead find a group of people with similar hopes and fears to accompany me in the wilderness of writing.
Hannah Tinti closed our workshop by having us write down a secret we've never told anyone. We hurriedly wrote each of our silent truths on tiny slips of paper and slipped into the back alley of the building where we take all our classes. A very New York courtyard with brick on four sides, cigarette butts and a steel candle holder still holding a melted candle from years ago. We burned our secrets in an abalone shell and stood over the small flame. We're writers so we're awkward in a group setting. We didn't know exactly what to do next. One of us started clapping and then everyone was clapping. Hannah said that taking something out of yourself and writing it down will heal you no matter how you choose to share it. And, the part she didn’t say was, no matter how that sharing is received.
Last year, when I wrote a post recapping my year in writing, it was the first full year I'd spent committed to my writing (you can find this post here). Ending my second year in the wilderness of writing, it feels like enough to know that I have things inside of me to say and I'm honoring my existence by trying to say them. For now, that’s sufficient fuel to spend another day writing and ignore the odd uncle who must know the exact details of my publication history.
I like to end my writing year by picking out a line or two I wrote from each month of the year. You can read my 2023 lines below. Send me yours?
12 months of writing
1. January
I write because my conscious memory doesn’t seem to work.
2. February
It was just a donut for dinner but she set the table anyway. The good silver forks on the left, a long butter knife on the right. A porcelain plate with blue daisy detailing over her summertime twine placemat. An empty wine glass and a full waterglass. The therapist left her with a prescription of sorts, in this time when you’re newly alone, set the table decadently. Do it just for you and nobody else. So tonight, even though it was just a donut for dinner, Lily set the table as she was told.
3. March
Over the phone, you said, I wish you could fall asleep on me with all the lights on. Like the time when we put on Christmas pajamas after having sex and you fell asleep on top of me, red snowflake fleece against red snowflake fleece. The TV played a log fire in the background even though it was mid-July. All of it like some commercial for lesbianism.
4. April
When Lib grabbed Carly’s hand partway through the drive, she could still feel the lake water on her cuticles and palms. Somewhere around the Utah state line, they came back into cell service. Their phones lit up green and blue with notifications. No matter which exorcisms or rituals Lib would go on to try, she would remember that moment for the rest of her life. Holding onto Carly’s waterlogged hand as the two of them sped down into the valley, high mountain shrubs on either side thinning out into dry desert, a big orange sign “Welcome to Utah - Life Elevated,” and a choking sound from Carly’s mouth. “He’s dead.”
May
Amy wore a headlamp and Lib was captivated by the way its light splashed across the ground, briefly brightening details that were otherwise covered in darkness. The green of a camp stove, the orange clay between Lib’s toes, the bubble letters of a marshmallow package.
June
The display was covered in framed photos of global women who fought back. Marsha P. Johnson, all three founding members of the pussy riot and a local group of indigenous women that had started an anti-rape brigade in their village. A posted flyer detailed how the women-owned shop could help you access any self defense strategies you were interested in trying out. Bright pink machine guns and Muay Thai classes.
July
Max was 13 years her senior, an age gap they’d personified and called Misty, their little baby girl who always did them right and wore her hair in bows.
August
Looking at every girl who serves him at Citgo or McDonalds he thinks, are you my daughter?
September
My name was going to be Iris and every time I see an iris I think about it. In my head, there’s a parallel world where me as Iris is walking about. It’s a life toned in purple and black hues. No artificial or forced sunniness. In this parallel life, I come out as lesbian much earlier, like 14 or 15. I wear a black dress to prom.
October
My day had started at my altar at 5 am. Each new moon, I wrote down my manifestations for the next moon cycle and the rest of my life and placed them at the altar. You could say Justin Bieber was the altar’s guiding motif. Any new photo of his I liked, I printed out at the public library. An arduous, multi-step process that somehow always involved me venmoing the librarian three dollars so she could just do it for me. Also at the library, I came across this book, Success by Color, that emphasized purple (luxury, power, ambition) and red (vitality, good fortune) so I took to gathering purples and reds whenever I came across them around the city. Cherry tomatoes from a bodega’s fruit display and a purple ribbon plucked from the updo of a rigid ballerina all found their way into my pockets. I also collected my keywords whenever I came across them, using a paperclip to chip them off of the plastered ads in the subway. Famous, star, celebrity, million. I collected all my findings in one corner of my room and called it an altar. The fruits fell to the bottom and rotted, making a black and blue fermented foundation.
November
Dan stood abruptly and went to his bedroom. He came back with a painted wooden doll shaped like a bowling pin. It was him. The same brown hair and large blue eyes. His lips were a bit bigger on the doll.
December
Four empty pill bottles and all two hundred pieces of her dutch figurine collection floated around her, clinking together like boats in a crowded harbor. The little glass figures looked more alive than her. Red cheeks on white porcelain stalled in the motion of clomping their wooden shoes or pouring milk into a barrel.
something to read & something to write:
Something to Read: During the holidays, I look to read something jolly and escapist. Extra points if the writing is actually good. Here’s a list of ones I’ll be bringing on my two week roadtrip around New England.
House in the Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (I realize this book doesn’t count as jolly but I love reading it in the winter)
Cleat Cute - Meryl Wilsner
Something to Write: Pick a line of text you've written from each month this year (it doesn't have to be something you wrote formally, it can literally be a text message), turn it into a numbered poem 1-12.
Today’s my birthday !!!! All I want for my bday is 29 more subscribers :) if you can share this post on your instagram or with a friend and encourage them to subscribe that would be amazing <3
xx,
Zoe
I really loved this. Such a fantastic idea, and suuuch beautiful sentences of yours. I’m inspired to mine through all of my own from the year, the wilderness really is a special exploratory place to be — thank you!
I love the idea of burning a secret!