Vulnerability. When you are a writer and poet, people seem to assume that you find vulnerability an easy act; we write with our souls and hearts on our sleeves. We have ink in our soul and it must be spilled. It never gets easier to be vulnerable, especially when it comes to sharing online. Today, I’m feeling drained from the rising summer heat and I’m raw and exposed as I started to make big changes in my life this week. I have started to notice that there is an intense feeling of inadequacy returning when it comes to my writing journey. As someone who is trying her hardest to release conditioning and retrain her brain to not look for external validation I’ve found this path is becoming increasingly more difficult. Something that I acknowledge in myself is that I am always a walking contradiction; I am a Persephone personified. I want to champion my fellow creatives who work tirelessly for their opportunities and who are such incredible talented individuals. They are my peers, my support, my colleagues, and they deserve more recognition than they receive. If I can ever help them receive that, I always will. The part that irks me though is that there is always a little part of me that begins to feel that there is very little point in me continuously working myself ragged to try and find my place in the writing world because there is always someone doing what I want to do, saying similar to what I want to say—only better.
I didn’t go to university, I was so burned out after school, that I was just clutching to whatever I could for a long time afterwards. I now understand it more as I have been diagnosed as neurodivergent, but back then, I had absolutely no real conviction for what I wanted to pursue as a career. I had always loved writing, when I was very young, I dreamed of being an author but as time went on, I think I saw it as a pipe dream. I didn’t believe that could be a life for a small-town Scottish girl who wasn’t from an affluent family or area. I had every intention after leaving school to go to college, I entered a HND in Media as I wanted to pursue music journalism. I last only around six months with a shaky attendance rating to my classes as I realised early on it was designed more towards PR in media than anything I actually wanted to do. After that I had no clue what to do or where to go, my options were get any kind of job that I could get. I started working my first job as a Produce Assistant in Tesco part-time. I was there for nine months before I left and got a job in as a waitress and after that I had large periods of times out of work, desperately applying for jobs and attending interviews, waiting to hear back from applications and losing my soul along the way. The best job I had was as an Assistant Vet Nurse—I overall really loved the job but I found my personal circumstances and issues with staff that I wasn’t confident enough to broach too much. After two and a half years, I left after not being able to mentally recover from a miscarriage. My life just seemed to give me one curveball after another and my health and mental wellbeing suffered tremendously as I tried to keep up with the conditioned neurotypical life I was being shown to take.
As it does, my body eventually stopped me on its own accord and in February 2013 I was diagnosed with the beginning of several chronic illnesses. My world felt so isolated, so bleak and hopeless and in all honesty—even thought I had my husband (then fiancé) and soul dog by my side, I just wanted to disappear. There was so much darkness in my life that I didn’t ever see a way out. I knew I had been in dark, toxic places before, depression and I were no strangers but this was a whole other world. It wasn’t until 2021, after covid and now being a mother of two sons that I made the decision to tentatively pursue the writing dream again. I had been writing for ME Support UK blog from 2014 to 2022 but it was a lot, the community wasn’t very supportive and I felt like my time, advice, and energy were not being appreciated. I had the intention of learning skills to write a book; I wanted to write a book about the journey I had with my soul Vader who passed away in November 2018. I joined many workshops and many different cohort calls, the book kept changing form, but alas it never fully came to fruition. I did get back to poetry however and within a span of two years I had over two pamphlets worth of poetry sitting in my metaphorical back pocket. I started the submission minefield and there was instant regret; it made me feel like I was job hunting again, waiting on replies, filing out application after application and never really getting anywhere. It was another dark night of the soul era. I kept writing, there was no way I could stop—I’ve always said that Sylvia Plath and I are more alike than I often like to say—we are home parents looking after two children who write through grief and depression. Plath is quoted saying, “I write only because there is a voice within me that will not be stopped”. I feel that vehemently in my being. I had some articles published in magazines; Happiful, Edition Dog, Conscious Being, Rock n Roll Bride and even Mashable. I’ve written for The Everyday Magazine and I’ve done music journalism for them, twenty years after giving up on it. I’ve had my five minutes of opportunity and gratitude for each one but I always ended up back in the void again, howling and hoping someone could hear.
In the past year or so, my writing has taken a new path and shape and I’m very much being called and drawn to ecological writing. Writing the wild, writing grief, writing about the thresholds between the human and non-human. I’ve got such a deep need within me to write something of worth and meaning. I see so much regurgitation now, especially with the rise of AI, and I often feel such hopelessness again. How can I truly make a difference? What can I write that is meaningful enough that it makes an impact strong enough to shake something awake? The comes the doubt; do I even have the intelligence, comprehension, and skill to do that? Another Plath quote—“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt”.
I started writing this today because I sat down in my spiritual practice and I burst into tears; I just kept repeating ‘I just want to write something meaning, I want to make a difference’. I want to collaborate with the right people, I want to build my voice so strongly and with such unshakable foundations that nothing will bring it crumbling down, I want someone to read something I’ve written and say, ‘This is what I needed’. With every fibre of my being, I want to help our climate crisis and the wild world that is such a big part of us. I know that creativity is one of the most punk rock and sustainable ways that I can do something but the barriers comes in of how do I make sure it gets out there? All of this hinders my actual creative process and it then becomes a violent spiral. This year I have tried to put myself out there more, I want to expand and grow to master skills and to learn as much as I can from the incredible creatives I have the privilege to have connection to. I want to collaborate with aligned people and have it be meaningful. I’m focusing on project ideas for two very different books and a second poetry pamphlet and I truly do have belief in these; I’m just currently wavering in the belief of self. All I can do is keep howling; it’s all I know now.
In the wild and in-between,
Rochelle x
