Healing my relationship with writing

Plus, what's next for Night Hag

Happy first day of November, everyone! I had planned to bring this phase of Night Hag to a triumphant conclusion on Halloween itself, but alas my chronic migraines had other plans for me yesterday. So here we are, a day later and (in Virginia) 20 degrees colder. Hope you all had a deliciously spooky evening! I handed out candy to hundreds of small children and then watched Real Housewives of Atlanta (terrifying in its own way).

Below I’ve written a short essay about my relationship to writing and how complicated it became during grad school. I’m sure this tale of impostor syndrome and anxiety will be familiar to many of my fellow academics. I want to write about it because it’s something I’ve felt a lot of shame around for a long time. And it’s something that’s finally getting better, thanks in large part to Night Hag. Curious about Night Hag’s next phase? Read on!

There and back again: a self-doubting writer’s journey

By the end of grad school, I was convinced I was stupid. Or, if not stupid, not smart enough to cut it in academia. At first I thought I could use those feelings of inadequacy to motivate me, and for years I pushed myself to work harder, hoping that one day I would feel like I was good enough. But eventually I was just depressed, exhausted, and increasingly in physical pain (see: chronic migraines). And I no longer enjoyed writing.

For most of my life, writing was a source of pleasure — something that made me feel confident, competent, and creative. The one thing I knew I was good at. I don’t have many “accomplishments” in the Jane Austen sense¹: I can’t really play an instrument, I’m truly terrible at sports, and I certainly can’t “paint tables, cover screens, [or] net purses” (whatever that means).² But I could always write.

When I got to grad school, however, I had professors making comments like, “do you think before you write things down?”. (Yes, that’s a real comment that was scrawled in the margins of one of my papers. And okay, yes, there have definitely been times that I wanted to say that to a student. But I haven’t!) That flavor of feedback, combined with being told repeatedly that I couldn’t hack it and should probably just leave my PhD program, caused my confidence to collapse. I lost a lot of faith in myself and my abilities, and my relationship with writing became tortured.

Here’s the thing: in order to be a good writer, you have to trust yourself. You have to be able to tap into your intuition, follow your instincts, and just let things happen. Good writing is an exercise in balancing flights of fancy and control. But whenever I sat down to write — whether articles, grant proposals, or conference papers — I was overcome by self-doubt. What if someone thinks this is stupid? What if what I’m saying isn’t 100% accurate? What if someone else has already written about this? I couldn’t get the (sometimes imagined, sometimes real) voices of my critics out of my head. I would get stuck on individual sentences, even individual words, unable to move forward, completely hamstrung by the fear that one error would disqualify me in the eyes of a potential reader.

That is, until recently. In the last year or so I’ve been experimenting with other kinds of writing. I took a fiction writing class, and I’ve been playing around with some short stories. And most importantly, I started this newsletter!

It’s only been 6 weeks, but I’m shocked by how much Night Hag has done to restore both my confidence and my joy in writing. In an academic context, I wouldn’t let myself write about these topics, either because (a) I would deem it “not serious enough” or (b) I would assume someone else has done it and done it better. But here I’ve allowed myself to write about whatever I want, what I’m interested in, what I’m curious about, and wow has it been fun.

It makes me think of this quotation from Women Who Run With the Wolves:

Practice listening to your intuition, your inner voice; ask questions; be curious; see what you see; hear what you hear; and then act upon what you know to be true. These intuitive powers were given to your soul at birth. They have been covered over, perhaps by years and years of ashes and excrement. This is not the end of the world, for these can be washed away. With some chipping and scraping and practice, your perceptive powers can be brought back to their pristine state again. (68)³

The pressures of academia made it really hard for me to connect with my intuition. I would go so far as to say that for a while I was almost completely cut off from it. But Night Hag has given me the space to trust myself again. It has allowed me to start chipping and scraping, washing away the ashes, rediscovering that inner voice.

As I’ve tapped into my intuition, I’m noticing an accompanying feeling of ease in my writing. I’m sure many of you are familiar with the concept of flow — a state of mind in which you become so deeply immersed in a task that you lose track of time. I recently learned that in order to achieve a flow state, you need to be doing something that challenges you and you need a high enough level of skill to rise to the challenge. I might have had that level of skill in writing all these years, but I didn’t think I did. My often paralyzing self-doubt made it nearly impossible to achieve flow in my writing. But recently that has changed: when I’m writing this newsletter I find myself in flow states all the time, and it feels amazing.

So I guess what I want to say is: thank you. Thank you for reading and commenting and reaching out to me. Thank you for supporting me in this effort and cheering me on. In addition to the pleasure of writing Night Hag, I have loved being in conversation with so many of you about books, the Gothic, etc. And I’m looking forward to more!

What’s next for Night Hag?

And now, the question that’s been on everyone’s mind, keeping you up at night: will Night Hag continue?? I’m delighted to announce that the answer is…yes! But with some changes.

I want to give myself space to work on other things, so I’ll aim to publish twice a month rather than twice a week.

I also want to expand the scope of the newsletter a bit. I love the Gothic, obviously, but I’m also really interested in surrealism, weird literature, folklore, detective fiction, and possibly even sci-fi…we’ll see.

And, finally, I want to think beyond the recommendation format. Don’t worry, I’ll still write recommendation posts! But I also plan to experiment with personal essays, reflections, book reviews, etc. If you have any thoughts about what you’d like to see (or feedback about what you’ve particularly enjoyed), I’d love to hear it!

Until soon, and with lots of gratitude and love, your very own Night Hag.

Thanks to Eric Walle for the card that I took the witchy cover image from. The artist, Anna Brones, is so good! I want to buy everything in her shop.

1. “A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word [accomplished]; and, besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved.” These lines are spoken by Caroline Bingley so, you know, take it with a grain of salt.

2. More Pride and Prejudice. Same scene.

3. Thank you, Ann Walle, for giving me this book so many years ago!