How is your dream making you feel?

Or: Why write?

Love notes from Siel is a newsletter about love, writing, and the nomad life from me, Siel.

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Dear friend — 

I’ve been going through a writing slump. 

This slump has been plaguing me for months — or maybe I could say years, since the first and last book I published was in 2017. Yes, I’ve written things since that time — but they haven’t really “gone” anywhere. In the meantime, it seems like all my writer-acquaintances are popping out new book babies every year or two — and winning grants and awards and prizes besides. 

Last week, I got an invitation from one of these writer-acquaintances — to take a Literary Jealousy survey. Sample question:

The survey is the brainchild of

Lisa Locascio Nighthawk

, author of Open Me, who’s gathering info for a class she plans to teach. I’ll be taking it (the survey, not the class), and encourage you to too if you’re a writer. 

In any case, I think the existence of the survey in itself is telling. We writers are a jealous bunch — as are all humans.

My jealousy doesn’t bother me much. It’s there, but for the most part I can laugh at it — it’s manageable. What’s newer and more troubling for me these days is a growing sense of purposelessness around writing. Basically, I feel pretty good about my life in general but not about my writing in particular. I simultaneously feel bad I’m not writing more — and also find it hard to see what the point of writing more would be.

I mean, seriously: Why write?

And if I really feel that way, why do I still feel bad about not writing more?

I think a big reason I feel bad is because I’ve identified as a writer for so long. I guess I still do — my instagram profile reads “writer, nomad.” 

What would it mean if I updated that profile to just read: “nomad”? To do that would require that I let go of the idea of me I’ve held onto pretty tightly for a very long time — 

The “nomad” part of my profile feels less controversial at the moment. Being a nomad, I read a number of travel substacks, including

Brent and Michael Are Going Places

, written by a cute gay couple who started nomading in their fifties. Brent, like me, is a writer who used to live in Los Angeles. Unlike me, he’s a screenwriter — but professes to be a lot happier now that he’s backburnered his Hollywood dreams. “Traveling the world, my life was suddenly about 95% fantastic and only 5% disappointment…. The disappointment that remained in my life? Most of it still came from my writing.” 

In Brent’s view, “never give up your dreams” is terrible advice:

Put your pursuit of anything in the greater context of your overall life. In the end, how is it making you feel?

If it makes you feel like shit most of the time, well, why not give up that dream? Maybe you can pick a new dream. Or pivot to a similar dream.

Or don’t have any dreams at all for a while and see how that feels.

Of course, Brent hasn’t actually given up his writer dreams — he’s just given other aspects of his life higher priority. And of course, the pursuit of art and creativity can be rewarding and fulfilling in its own right. I was especially reminded of this earlier this fall, when I hung out with my little niece and nephew in St. Louis. These kids basically start a new creative project every day — drawing dragons, weaving bracelets, building furniture for mouse dolls — just because they want to. Sure, they like to have their work recognized; once they’re done they wanna show off what they’ve created . But their audience usually consists of just their mom and me — and this doesn’t bother them. They don’t spend time worrying about whether a creative project is “worth” doing. They just start doing it.

“It took me a lifetime to draw like a child,” Picasso famously said. And maybe that’s what I need to learn now. 

Today is my birthday, and what I’d like to relearn this year is how to write just for the joy of it.

Also, I just got to Buenos Aires! More on that soon —

Love,

Siel

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Last month in Flamenco Beach, Puerto Rico

Three travel substacks you might love:

1. Chris Arnade Walks the World
   — Each of Chris’ missives are like an eye-opening work of personal social and cultural observation, told from a pedestrian’s point of view.

2. Love Letter
   — South African poet Karin Schimke writes poignant little notes, often about her experiences traveling or living abroad — like this awkward encounter she had with a grocery checkout person in Germany. 

3. Brent and Michael Are Going Places
   — I love these guys for their humor, their unlikely semi influencer status, and their up-close considerations of LGBTQ issues around the world.

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