4. "The self is not a static thing."

Celebrating two years on Substack, discussing the nature of change and evolution as it relates to a writerly self, and Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Dear reader,

On December 11, 2024, this newsletter celebrated two years on Substack. Whether you’re new, have been with me since the beginning, are somewhere in between, or have only read an issue here and there—thank you for reading, thank you for supporting. Writing is, of course, an intensely personal act, but it is also a communication, a communion with whoever’s on the other side if and when they come across the words; and us writers are nothing without our readers. So thank you ❤️

For those of you with a statistical persuasion, today’s issue is #64 since I shifted the original Storyteller newsletter from Mailchimp, with 13 issues including Creative Chats (at this point I must also thank all the lovely authors and publishers and publicists I’ve worked with, whose time and insights have made these chats possible; and who continue to be the reason for my early access to so many upcoming books).

If you’re new or new-ish here, a quick recap. I started The Storyteller in March 2020, when I was stuck in Boston because, well, pandemic. It began as a once-a-month in-depth chat with an author that quickly shifted to two a month, and would go on till the March 15, 2021 issue. A variety of overlapping reasons caused what was then supposed to be a mini hiatus to transform into one that lasted until December 2022. I later planned a switch to part paid and part free subscriptions but that was scuttled due to technical factors out of my control.

And then, much more recently, there was the rebrand to What About Words. It’s been quite the journey.

To be very honest, I’d been wanting to pivot again for months. It was a combination of not having the time and spare brain cells to sit down and think about what I really wanted to do with this space, and also of not yet being the person I needed to be to put that into practice. These things happen on their own time, as they’ve shown me time and again, and I should have, to use a perhaps overused phrase, trusted the process, after doing the things in my power.

The fact that this was happening in parallel to the final stages of an ongoing silent evolution of my writerly self has made the last few months quite exhilarating and nerve-wracking. I’d briefly referenced this in my first What About Words issue some weeks ago; what better time to write more than when I’m looking back on two years here, before turning my gaze onward?

I came across this Substack post when I was thinking about the specifics of my rebrand and it really struck a chord with what I was trying to articulate.

When you’re someone with a public account in any online space with a decent number of engagement, there are certain considerations that creep in even if you’re treating it as a hobby. One of them includes the question of what one’s niche is. For me, with the blurry lines between work and writing and play, with my multiple interests, online has definitely been a complicated space to navigate at times, especially because a lot of the front-facing tasks don’t come naturally to me. I’ve had to spend time to figure out what works for me.

But how often have we heard that change is the only constant—how often do you apply it to your understanding of your own evolving self? We are not static beings. We live many lives and inhabit many selves, layers upon layers, and there’s no final destination except the ultimate one none can escape. Of course, there’s an essence, a core, that makes you uniquely yourself that you carry through all the years and the seasons of your life, but that’s not what I mean. I’m sure you’ve looked at photos of yourself from a while ago, even as recent as a year ago, and while you know that was you, that a part of that person lives on because without it you wouldn’t be the you you are at this very moment, you can’t shake the feeling of not being able to fully recognise that person.

I find that this feeling is much more intense for me when it comes to words I’ve written. Especially when it comes to my fiction. I can’t always recognise the person who wrote those words or those stories, even though they are still very much a part of me.

Now, I mentioned a fiction-writing hiatus too, a few issues ago. For nearly two years, I didn’t actively work on a new story. There were a few half-finished stories that I completed, but even those will need revisiting now. And yes, I did play around with ideas in my head, noted some down, but didn’t feel truly compelled to start developing any of them. The longer this went on and the longer I felt like I didn’t really have anything to say, a story to tell, the more I panicked. Who even was I without being able to build stories? What if this was it?

After a while, I convinced myself to pull away and let my story-brain rest. I read widely across genres, I wrote about these books, I wrote non-fiction—essays, football features, interviews, you name it—and I didn’t actively think about any of the ideas I had been working on before this lull hit. During moments when the self-doubt still slammed into me and when I missed the feeling of being excited about creating stories, I reminded myself that Summer Melody (my debut novelette, for those new here) needed a decade to become what it was meant to be and for me to become who I needed to be to write it in that final form. That sometimes, many times, things take time.

So, I waited.

I did publish ‘Ruby Whispers’ (my standalone fantasy flash) during this time, but it was a story I’d written prior, during a burst of a few months of intense and sustained writing.

And then, as October of this year came onto the horizon, I started to sense those voices again, and, suddenly, they were a chorus, talking over each other. As if they’d been waiting all this while for me to become who I needed to be to jump out at me, full-throated.

It’s always easier to look back and connect the dots leading you to the present moment—and I cannot claim to have guessed its exact arrival—but this time I’ve also had the sense of being able to understand and feel some of these shifts while they were occurring, and it has given me a better understanding of myself and my creative process at large. Looking back over the past few years, I also see the evolution of my reading taste and how it was preparing me, in its own way, to become the writer this next phase of my writing needs me to be.

Far from being worried at not having anything to say or write, I’m now scrambling to pin down every fleeting word before it speeds away. I now have ideas that I cannot wait to sit down with and explore; some are the ones I’d previously noted down, but magically transformed so as to be in line with the stories I find myself wanting to tell now (perhaps they were always in that form, it just took me a while to get to that perspective). I feel free-er and more willing to experiment with form, style, and story than ever before, and it’s a heady uncertainty that I know every creator must contend with, even embrace, along the way.

I read a serendipitous essay last week (more solidarity that I’m on the right track). Serendipitous because of its content but also because I’d just picked up the author’s novel as my next read. I’m talking about Tashan Mehta and Mad Sisters of Esi (which I am taking my time with, utterly captivated).

Here’s a simple way of thinking about it. The book you’re writing, the story, the people, everything, exists. It’s out there somewhere, shrouded from you, and you can see it only in pieces. To join those pieces correctly, to make them more than the sum of their parts, you must become the right interpreter of the information you’re receiving.—Tashan Mehta, ‘For That Which Lives Outside of Understanding’ (The Bombay Literary Magazine)

You can read the full essay here.

And when it comes to niche? When you think about it, it’s only natural that your online endeavors reflect your changing self, if you are to continue to remain authentic (which I most certainly want to). Cue another timely post dropped into my lap that is a fantastic reminder that I am the niche. That as long as I’m true to who I am at any given point in time, that’s all that matters.

For those on this journey with me from the beginning, and for those who joined somewhere along the way and have stuck around, thank you for validating the same when you stay with me, my words, and my ongoing selves. It means more than I can say.

~

If you wish to read Summer Melody, here are the links:

Ebook

India | US | UK

Print

US | UK

Anu Recommends: Orbital by Samantha Harvey

What can I say about the latest Booker winner that hasn’t been said before? I don’t get along with many of the titles longlisted for awards such as these, but I’d been curious about this one from the start. And I’m happy to report it didn’t let me down.

This is a distinctly original narrative experiment that takes place over twenty-four hours, aka the time it takes six astronauts aboard the International Space Station to complete 16 orbits around Earth.

Imagine that: 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets in just one earthly day. There isn’t any scope for boredom, with nearly every minute of their day allotted to domestic tasks, to meals, to scientific research and documenting, to exercise, and, of course, to sleep (“not to wish the time away but to try to tether it to something countable”). But a repetitive nature is inherent in this limbo-like life, this “constant state of plummet” and it is bound to creep into everything—the way Harvey structures certain recurring elements of her story brilliantly ties into this (“go nowhere but round and round with the same old thoughts going round and round with you” — “there’s a lot of contemplation of how it’s possible to get nowhere very fast”).

Similarly present is the philosophical pondering which cannot be escaped when you’re at the privileged vantage point you find yourself (“the thoughts you have in orbit are so grandiose and old”), with the “godly view” of “a planet contoured and landscaped by want” that’s both a blessing and a curse. This pondering is brilliantly contrasted with the prosaic, encapsulating our contradictory nature and existence on the planet (“our lives here are inexpressibly trivial and momentous at once…both repetitive and unprecedented”) and outside of it (“the small things are too mundane and the rest is too astounding and there seems to be nothing in between”).

Over the course of short chapters encompassing each orbit (ascending and descending), we get to flit into the minds and lives of all six astronauts who, despite the mere glimpses we are afforded, are whole and real, so very human and yet extraordinary for the lives they’ve chosen.

For a book that comes in at under 150 pages, this was dense and felt much longer (with a noticeable lull around midway), but there was so much to enjoy, to marvel at, and ruminate on. But I can also see why it will be a book that you either enjoy or don’t. It’s thin on plot, nothing much “happens”, and there’s a lot of narrative meandering—not a sure-shot guarantee of my approval in the past or in the future. Here, however, this part musing on life, time, space, climate change, and the planet, part sci-fi, part literary fiction, part love letter to our life-giving planet was just what I needed. I loved, also, the gentle echoes that rippled out and back from this to the start of the year when I read Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino, another standout read of 2024 for me, a nostalgic literary fiction with undertones of (very mild) sci-fi but many of the same thematic tenets as Orbital.

“The earth, from here, is like heaven. It flows with colour. A burst of hopeful colour.”

Orbital*

Buy ebook | Buy print (India) | Bookshop.org (US)

From the archives

Inaugurating a new sub-section where I’ll share an old issue in each issue going forward. I can’t think of a better one to start with than this newsletter’s debut Substack issue.

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If you’ve enjoyed today’s issue, here’s a few things you can do:

• click on the heart to like it

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And of course, send me your recommendations and tell me what you’d like me to write about next! Let me know what you’re currently reading and watching, send me rants/ramblings/excited monologues, GIFs and memes (especially them). 🤓

Thank you, once again, and I hope to keep writing to you for many years to come.

Take care and I’ll see you next on December 29!

Anu

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You can find me on Bluesky at @anushreenande (yep I finally created an account and I’m really enjoying it—my Twitter remains online so far but I’m not actively posting on there anymore) and on Instagram at @anushreenande. You can support my work at https://buymeacoffee.com/anushreenande.

*the book buying links I share on here are affiliate links, which means that if you make any purchases through those links, I will receive a small commission from the sale at no additional cost to you.