It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged, hasn’t it?
Blogging used to be a big part of my life from 2014-2022. And if we’re being honest, there were quite a few notable gaps in those 2020 and on periods.
But there’s this crazy thing when you feel like writing is your calling. Sometimes you sit yourself down and remember—I just want to write, don’t I?
So here we are sitting down and we’re writing.
I watched a video recently from an essayist named Ismatu Gwendolyn. They’re very articulate and thoughtful and discuss a lot of fascinating societal angles and perspectives. They work really hard to try to open people’s eyes to new things. However, in this video they were really struggling with the model of the internet. How algorithms like TikTok adore giving people seeds of information but rarely encourage you to plant those seeds. How its evangelized discovering information, not doing things with it. Using it to evolve ourselves, our lives, and the world around us.
While very intense at times, Ismatu’s message was an honest and vulnerable moment of heartbreak and despair. Someone who wants to share knowledge and feels like what they love isn’t reaching people. That’s heartbreaking.
And as all viewers will do, I related it to my own struggles as an author. Because I so desperately want to give people ideas and complex themes and all the layered nuance of the research and design and careful braiding I do to write books. The way I took seeds and grew a garden. But I’m trying to do that in a commercial world where what’s wanted is tropes and excitement. And I don’t blame people for wanting that—there’s a reason I am madly in love with Mad Max: Fury Road. It gives that excitement while also taking the time to till and grow really powerful themes of loss, redemption, fighting against subjugation, and changing for the better. I don’t fault people for wanting to lay back, read, and be thrilled.
But it feels so disheartening to grow a garden and watch people walk by it, dazzled by little but seeds.
I am not owed an audience. I understand that. I just have to work on working backwards. Leaving a proper trail of delicious seeds to my book. Get better as a marketer. It’s just that I fully understand that anguish that Ismatu felt, feeling like they have to do all the work to lead people to water, only to watch them sip a little from an acorn cap instead of dipping their head in the lake and drinking deep. To have people watch a video thesis but never read/listen to the whole essay.
The world is what it is and we must adjust, and also its alright to be disappointed.
Recently I watched the film American Fiction, which absolutely wrecked me as a writer. It’s a fantastic look into how a creative can make themselves miserable, wanting things from readers and people that they aren’t entitled to. A writer cannot make others see a black person or any other minority as they do. A writer cannot write themes into their book and make every single reader understand and agree with every ideas. A writer cannot make the public want the books they want to write.
A writer can be correct in wanting a more nuanced, colorful perspective, but they cannot make anyone else want it.
All they can do is offer their writing and pray, knowing the prayer may never be answered.
Issa Rae’s character in American Fiction, Sintara Golden, was correct. Write with heart and soul, but success will still come with writing within the margins of what people want to hear and see. Jeffrey Wright’s Monk has a right to want a more nuanced story about being a black man. A right to be frustrated with how the black experience is often portrayed. But he cannot stop the public—led by white voices—to stop wanting what they want. And he cannot take the experiences that do get written from the people—including fellow black people—who deserve to hear them. He has to work within the confines of this world and accept imperfection, or chase perfection and never please the world. If he doesn’t choose he’ll spend his life a miserable, unknowable man.
Now, I do struggle with such ultimatums. There’s a reason that choice is a huge theme of my own novel. Because in truth, no one has to choose one route from the other. I think the importance in American Fiction’s message is understanding the trade off. That one day you can be heartbroken and rage against the system and cry out, begging for a more nuanced world. But to be able to stomach those days you scream, you also have days you lay back, rest your head, and accept the world as it is.
You don’t give up nor do you disappear in your acceptance. You find a space where you can scream in peace. Where you can feel like your garden matters. Some days you’ll show it to the world and call it the finest little nursery for the tastiest little seeds. Other days you’ll sit inside it and revel in all the hard work it took to get the garden as beautiful and complex as it is. Hopefully, you find a few people who can revel in it with you.
And this concept doesn’t need just apply to writing or essays or teaching. It could be that you love animals and the injustices and cruelty against them eat you up inside. You don’t have to upend your life and become a warrior or scream until someone, anyone, listens. You can find your voice in smaller spaces like volunteering or donating or telling your loved ones.
Or, you can find it in blogging.
And there it is my friends. The full circle. The reason why I’m here and re-welcoming you to this blog. My rage against the machine.
I don’t have a very strong voice. Its not very easy for me to be loudly aloud. But on the page, I scream.
Find your place where its safe to scream.
Steph Roehler 
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