What are you prepared to be consumed by?

A tale of three suitors

Many years ago I was studying for a PhD in London. I was doing my research part-time while working for a non-profit the other half of my days. I remember how my fellow doctorate students would talk about their research all the time, fascinated by their subjects, overtaken by it to the point that they couldn’t switch off. It consumed them, delighted them, became a part of their identity. I remember my professor telling me that I might go a little mad ruminating on my thesis all the time and I remember thinking, Nope, I won’t let that happen to me. The thought terrified me. I didn’t want my life to become my doctorate, I had so many other things that I loved and that pulled for my attention. Two years in, perhaps unsurprisingly, I gave up my PhD and moved to Mexico.

In Mexico I became a travel writer and wrote happily about my beloved new home for many years. At some indeterminate point, however, I began to find it hard to distinguish life from work. Everything was a possible story. Every restaurant I ate in I was evaluating for an angle, every interesting person I met, I wondered if I could write about them, every town I visited I would distil down into a two line description within a few hours of being there. In addition, people befriended me so I would write about their product or their business. It was tricky for a while to identify my real friends. Travel journalism was also a competitive game, I always felt like someone might find the story before me, so I had to be hyper-alert to any interesting tale that might cross my path. I grew resentful. I wanted my life back, I didn’t want this work to infiltrate everything, it felt suffocating, claustrophobic.

There was lots to love about travel writing though. This piece for BBC Travel was one I happily got consumed in.

Cut to now. In contrast to the PhD and travel writing, I realise I love nothing more than when fiction writing overtakes me, when a story consumes me, when I am unsure where the edges of myself and the edges of the story lie. I love to get lost within a story as if I am pulling a blanket over my head and hiding within its cosy confines, discovering its secrets until reluctantly, I have to drag myself out the other side to eat or to sleep.

Fiction to me feels like the lover I can’t get enough of, the lover I am so happy to spend time with that an hour passes in a minute and I don’t want to drag myself away from them, the lover that is so all-consuming that they take over my thoughts. I cancel plans for fiction, I pray for rain so I can write, I long to stow away to a cabin to be alone with my stories.

Photo by lucas Favre on Unsplash

I resisted this though, only letting myself spend short spurts of time in my books at the beginning. The writing had other plans.

I have had clients tell me that they are scared to let the writing take over, of what that might mean. I understand. It can feel out of control like a large wave barrelling down over you and you can flounder to find the way out, fearful that you might not. Nowadays, I don’t flounder, I float and pray I can stay longer before I am released.

The writing owes me nothing, it gives me everything.

Someone told me this about meditation once, they said they went so deep into peace that coming out to face the mundanity of life was harder each time. It can be like that with writing, the solace so immense in times of so much uncertainty that coming out can feel like being ripped from the womb.

And so, I have found the thing that I am willing to be consumed by for good or for bad. Sorry PhD and travel writing, you offered me so much, but it seems you were a little too realistic to fully win my heart and soul.

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