Lonely people write, I realize that. People that feel they’re never listened to “in real life.” For God knows what happens on “the page” is hardly real. That’s why writers can imagine someone is listening if they just “put their thoughts out there.” It’s much less demoralizing than being ignored in real time.

I also know that it’s mostly only highly narcissistic people that write. In fact, that’s usually the more common trait than loneliness—especially “these days.” You’d be hard-pressed to find a writer (or, more often than not, a self-described writer) doing it all for the sake of “the craft.” Oh no, by and large, they’re doing it to be recognized by some hyper-niche, increasingly small circle. Though circle jerk is more like it.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t deny my own participation in the circle jerk. My own vexing desire to be a part of it. Only, unlike most modern writers, I lacked the highly important skill of asshole-licking in order to be better recognized by “the system.” And yes, the Literary Establishment is very much a fucking system. Like all systems, a bum one at that. Rigged. Impossible to game. Unless you were either 1) adept at swallowing shit (from all the assholes you were licking) or 2) born into the system. Tragically for my writing “career,” I fell into neither category. And it was starting to weigh on me. Like, I was wondering if, had things been different—had I managed to fall into one of those categories—would everything be easier for me? Would it be totally irrelevant as to whether I had talent or not? Obviously, you dumb cunt. Do you even need to ask? I did. Every day, contemplating how my “writing life” would be so much better if I could, ugh, network (that disgusting word). Or at least go back in time and be born out of a literary agent’s womb.

Oh the travesty of having instead been born as myself. Antisocial, unconnected me. Two undesirable qualities that both of my parents never failed to point out, saying things like, “Rina, you’ll never make it very far if you don’t learn how to get along with people.” Mm, wise words goddammit. Then again, such words weren’t “wise” so much as another sign of my parents’ over-willingness to adhere to the system. Perhaps because they, too, had once tried and failed to exist outside of it. Which is perhaps even worse/more challenging than trying merely to buck it.

And then there was the none too small matter of my name to take into account. Rina de la Chaumont. Not exactly easy to pronounce. Worse still, it sounded like a made-up name. As though I actually chose this pretentious moniker. But no, somehow, it was my “birthright.” The de la Chaumont name. Maybe I’d have more success with it as a romance writer. But the thought of churning out some hokey, pornographic shit for tradwives was more than I could possibly bear. Better to fail as who you are than to thrive as someone you’re not. Or so I told myself each and every day after waking up, once again, as a nobody, a nothing. That is, within what was left of the literary system.

Then, when I really examined what it was I wanted to be “part of,” I realized it had nothing to with “a sense of community,” and everything to do with “the glory.” The notion of being seen as a Great Writer. More to the point, “one of the last Great Writers.” The only “saving grace” in a sea of literary banality. This was a delusional, narcissistic fantasy, I knew. But then, being delusional and narcissistic were the two primary prerequisites for being a writer—and a politician. And I suppose that’s what I hated most about “what it means” to be a writer…now more than ever. There were so many times when I wished to be anything else—to actually want to be anything else—besides a writer. But like I said before, lonely people write. And I am far more that than I am a narcissist. I’d like to believe… Because, it’s true, there is something much nobler about being lonely than there is about being narcissistic. At least if you’re lonely, it means you’re suffering. For there’s nothing people—discerning people—like more than feeling as though they’re not the only ones in misery. Yes, the old cliché is true: “Misery loves company.”

And what better company than an equally as miserable writer? One you know is as broke (if not more so) than you, the reader. Ah, the reader. The last of a dying breed. After all, it’s just as they say: there are far more writers than readers now. A glut of writers with no one to read (a.k.a. care about) their “precious thoughts.” Their worries, their woes. What, then, is the point? That’s what few writers dare to ask themselves. Because if they truly did, they might not keep writing. The answer to the question of “why?” inevitably leading back to the truth at the heart of the matter: vanity, stroking one’s own ego. In short, it’s all for “masturbation purposes” a.k.a. self-pleasure. Once upon a time, however, there was a shared delusion among writers that the aim of their “craft” was not in service of the self, but in service of the masses. To take what they saw in the world—the pain, the horror—and translate it into something meaningful, something “understandable.” Better still, relatable.

Alas, it’s hard to be relatable anymore when everyone is living in their own separate reality. In other words, no one is sharing the same algorithm. The same interests or “POV.” Which makes it even harder to write for an audience that has become, let’s say, impossibly fragmented. Increasingly “niche.” Yet write I still do. Write everyone else (and their mother) still does, too. The irony being that there’s never been so many writers at a time when there are so few readers. Everyone writing “their piece” and submitting it into an abyss. Regardless, we all hold out hope that, sooner or later, someone, somewhere within that abyss, will see our words. Will understand them. Or, at the very least, make a negative comment about it, therefore indicating a visceral reaction of some kind to the material. For what is the purpose of writing if not to rub people the wrong way? More accurately, to rub the “comfortable” the wrong way. Because, whatever form or era writing exists in, it should still adhere to the César Cruz aphorism, “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”

And that goes perhaps double for the artists creating said art. Mucking about in the excrement of their own mind and flinging it at any unsuspecting “passerby.” The reader. Of course, when put that way, it’s no small wonder there aren’t many of them left.