And I'm an avatar of Emily Dickinson

Title is in reference to a certain Prime Minister who claims to be an incarnated deity

When I was a child I read this poem by Emily Dickinson and promptly jumped up and down with feelings I couldn't understand for well over an hour:

For the first half of my life I wrestled with the first verse of the poem. I wrote poems, stories and letters, mostly about nature–to no one. Never mind questions of publication, I couldn’t even bear to see them myself. They were too raw, almost naked. I destroyed a lot of what I wrote, until at sixteen I finally found a reader who would write back.

The second half of my life has been spent wrestling with the second verse. I write letters to friends I cannot see. I struggle with social media, wondering at the ease with which younger people are able to bare themselves to strangers. The speed and ease of online conversation eludes me. I agonize about saying anything at all, never mind asking to be judged tenderly. 

There’s a word for the fear of social media: visiobibliophobia. But the fear of being seen, being judged, definitely transcends any modern medium. At work, I have to constantly remind people that it’s better if you share a draft early and get feedback, that way it prevents wasted effort later. But I get how hard it is, because I was nearly thirty before I was truly ready to publish my work, and even then I wanted to do it under a pen-name. I still barely exist on social media.

I watch people pitch their work to agents online, talk openly about their successes and failures (got a full request from an agent! Yet another rejection today 🙁) and I marvel at their ability to experience the full range of that emotion so quickly, to process it, articulate it as text, publicize it, respond to feedback and sympathy, internalize that and move on, all usually within the span of 3 minutes. It takes me that long even to know how I feel about any event. 

Maybe there’s such a thing as a fear of being jinxed. The internalized parent / teacher saying, “Don’t talk about your successes, that’s showing off!” or “Don’t celebrate too loudly, you’ll make others jealous and draw the evil eye.” Combine that with cultural norms around expressing emotions publicly and you have a writer sitting on her couch with a champagne flute terrified to share that she is very happy.

I am going on leave from work, starting today, to write. Next to me is a stack of hotel and flight bookings to places from Santorini to Rishikesh (photos will be shared on Instagram). And today I received the proofs of my upcoming novel, Her Golden Coast, and it is starting to feel real enough that I will talk about it despite the fear of being jinxed.

On Wednesday, I had a grueling dentist appointment (taking out retainers, putting new ones in), a flurry of work deadlines before I could leave, and at the end of the day, reading the sample first pages from the book’s interior designer. At 2 AM I woke up in a panic and emailed her that since the book has a lot of anti-capitalist themes, the chapters should probably not start with capital letters. On Thursday morning I woke up wondering if it was a dream, if I’d actually done it or just thought about it, whether it was a good idea at all or a melatonin-induced hallucination. Then I stopped worrying about any of it because my retainers were misfit and I had to go back to the dentist, and then to work, and so it’s only now that I’ve had the chance to actually see my book’s first page. 

Here it is. I’ll be sharing a lot more about it over the next few weeks and months, on the journey to publication. Judge me tenderly!