The Persistence of the Novice Writer
66: A Newsletter Thesis
Hi friends,
This essay was originally published on Medium on April 4, 2021. It was my seventh published work on the site and when I moved to Substack in June of the same year, became the thesis of this newsletter. It hung out as a link and quote on my About page, but I’m posting it here to a new audience’s eyes.
I’ve added audio to the end of the essay in this edit.
Name it and claim it.
I didn’t call myself a writer until earlier this year. I approach this space of accomplished authors with trepidation, as I feel unprepared to be among them.
Just starting out is intimidating. The initial gumption to set my words on a public page often gives way to fear and insecurity, as I fear no one will appreciate what I’ve, at times, put my whole heart into. Eagerly reading how the experts have made their marks, thus far, there have been mere pennies for my thoughts.
Writing feels like a search for connection, both between people and in myself. My most pensive moments are at night, when all is still and quiet. Usually fueled by jazz, any idea is welcomed in. The writing is best when it’s feverish, when I put placeholders for unresolved details and quickly lay down line after line. The refinement comes later. I am proud of most things, no matter how tiny the morsel. I wonder what potential each has to cross borders and oceans to reach someone. Who will this touch?
Wondering who is out there reminds me of all the characters in books and television shows who send messages out to space, hoping for a reply. Our collective obsession with the unknown is centuries old. Our journeys to space have, in the last 60 years, impacted planetary science1, literature, young minds, and the imaginations of millions.
In 1977, NASA launched two Voyager probes2 which at this moment, are still hurling through interstellar space. In each craft are capsules of what, at the time, were Earth’s best: whale songs, human laughter, images of everyday life, and even brainwaves. Golden records are pressed with this information and much more. It’s a fascinating collaboration of multiple disciplines.
This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.
President Jimmy Carter
To explore space has meant the inevitable search for intelligent life beyond what we know. So far, there has been no answer. The solar system seems utterly inhospitable to life other than microorganisms, but scientists finding even potential gas byproducts of what could have been life on Mars keeps curiosity alive. There is no useless mission, no fruitless undertaking. All of exploration is about what we gather and learn from what’s around us. The Voyager probes are billions of miles away on an open-ended mission to find other intelligent life. All we study on Mars or through other spacecrafts, like the Kepler3, gives us hope.
Thus far, I have settled on a few truths.
We all want to be heard and appreciated. But not all we produce must be for the purpose of consumption. I have a growing collection of work which may, piece by piece, find a home. There is no useless scrap. Each search for words and concepts informs the next. I still have a lot to learn about dialogue, structure, and plot. There is studying and research to do because above all, a story must be cogent to be compelling. There are essential elements of scene creation and character development. It’s important to know that growth isboth possible but also a process. The more you write, the more you learn.
Don’t be hesitant to share. Share anyway. Use writing and publishing to practice joy.
Learn from where others have tread. More experienced writers than me have provided valuable insight, though I can’t avoid jealousy seeping in when I see their amount of followers and views. I have to remind myself that building a career, if I want one, is not the result of overnight success. It is the result of what I am doing right now: honing my skills and respecting the work first and foremost. As a novice, it’s important for me to keep trying. Shear numbers of attempts make me more capable each time. Everyone’s trajectory is different.
We all want to have an impact. We have the ability for our words to reach far and wide, but when they don’t, it’s understandably disappointing. However, sometimes the audience most captured by your work has just not seen it yet. I remind myself to be patient. The starlight we marvel at in the night sky may be decades or even hundreds of years old. It takes time, but what a wonderful sight when it gets to it someone’s curious eyes.
My cousin told me once that posting on Twitter without followers was like yelling into the void. He was right. But eventually someone will respond. Eventually Voyager will reach someone on the other side, perhaps vastly different from humans here, who will delight in the treasure sent from so far away.
Hello from the children of Planet Earth.
Nick Sagan, son of astronomer and planetary scientist Carl Sagan, voicing the English greeting on the Golden Record
What’s next?
Hypnotic (The Listening Room presentation in October)
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4249
Jolliff, B. L., & Robinson, M. S. (2019). The scientific legacy of the Apollo program. Physics Today, 72(7), 44–50. https://doi.org/10.1063/pt.3.4249
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/mission-overview/
Mission Overview - Nasa Science
https://www.space.com/24903-kepler-space-telescope.html
Fentress, S. (2021, January 26). Kepler Space Telescope: The original exoplanet Hunter. Space.com. https://www.space.com/24903-kepler-space-telescope.html