I am going to write anyway.

Maybe this is a shit piece of writing. But it doesn't matter.

Some days I am terrified of writing and I feel like a shit writer. Most days I think I am an ok writer. Some days I feel like I get lucky; kissed by magic and I think wow, I love what I wrote here. But it’s momentary. I usually just think meh, it’s ok.
I might be a Leo that wows herself a lot - but really, I am just a scared kitten. Most of my writing is practice, it’s urge, it’s necessity, I don’t think it’s the gift of the gods.

The empty page scares and excites me all the same, every time I sit down. My thoughts buzzing around like mosquitos that I can hear, but not catch.
When I have an influx of new subscribers I get paralysed. I have to impress them now. I don’t feel pressure of writing per se, but pressure of writing something great. Because if I impress you, you will like me, if you like me you will stay, if you stay I will feel loved. If I am loved, I have finally succeeded. Please approve of me, love me, like me, subscribe. If you tell me I am a good writer than maybe I will believe it some day. Tell me I am worthy.



I have always been a writer, even though I have not called myself one until I was 34. I have never sold a book, how could I claim that title? Aren’t writers people with book deals and beautiful vintage desks under a window looking out into a picturesque garden or a bustling city like Carrie Bradshaw in SATC?

All I’ve done is journal since childhood and collect stacks of journals filled with my life that are three decades old. All I’ve done is go to my local library every week when I was a child, devouring books like the very hungry caterpillar. All I’ve done is written stories and novels when I was a teenager that nobody ever read and that ended up in the bin. All I’ve done is start a blog on blogger.com, then on Wordpress, writing whatever musings I couldn’t verbalise to others. All I’ve done is spent hours (years?) of my life researching words, investigating history and meanings. What does this word mean? is one of my favourite questions. All I’ve done is obsess over the origin and meaning of words and the power of language. Am I a writer?

Words, of course, are a portal for connection.

And because little me has always felt alone and disconnected she needed words badly. To make sense of everything. To try and understand others and try and make others understand her.

I am a child of Sicilian immigrants who spent most of her childhood in Germany, so I grew up bilingual (or trilingual if sicilian counts as its own language). The first years of my life I read all my books in italian or german. Both languages thick and rich in their own way, winding roads of long sentences and poetic trails.

And then came english.

When I was 10 years old a family friend gifted me my first english book. It was a children’s story about Jesse the dog. I was hooked and smitten immediately with this new language. A door to a whole new world (cue Jasmine and Aladdin).

As soon as I got half a grasp of english, I started writing in it, as well as german and italian.
Because english is a mix of germanic and latin it was a breeze for me to learn (not a brag, just pure luck).

I loved having all these new possibilites. Experimenting with words, filling in gaps in one language where the other one lacked. Feeling my way through meanings and cadence, practicing sounds, marvelling at the depth some words could reach in english, where italian or german wouldn’t be able to go and vice versa. Discovering all the similarities and differences. Oh the way you could play with english! I didn’t know you could do that with words! Compared to what I had known before english seemed easy, simple, straight forward, a clear path on a sunny day. I had yet to discover that english too, could be complicated. I had found a new treasure chest of words, meanings and feelings that came with it. A whole new set of tools to express myself in! To feel in!

From age 10 I started using english and I never stopped. And I used to be quite satisfied with my writing - until I moved to England.

I came here and suddenly realised how bad my english was. I felt inadequate, insufficient, a big fat cheating imposter. I was surrounded by native speakers now. And it changed everything. What I had written so far, learned so far, it all seemed silly. A child’s play. I felt immature and definitely not good enough to share my words here, in the country that invented this language I had been using for decades. When I was a child borrowing an english book from the library, that was all that it was: one book. One world at a time. It was neatly packaged, one edited piece of a person. I could read 2 to 3 books a week maybe (I read through the night often) - small bites compared to what we can read now in just one day.

Now, there was social media. I started following incredible writers, book authors, from the UK and the US; even just non-writers, everyone just sounded so much better than anything I could write in english because they were native speakers. And unlike years before, without socials, now I would read their words every single day. Thousands of words. Incredibly beautiful, masterful word smiths. I was in awe. And terrified.
Sometimes I read the stunning laid out sentences some people create, the worlds they paint with words, the beauty that bleeds from their pen - and I can’t close my mouth, cartoon-style. I hear myself ohhhh and awww or cry or laugh out loud to myself and wonder How the hell can someone write like that. HOW STUNNING.

So I became incredibly shy about sharing my writing, feeling stumped, frozen and dumb. I didn’t like what I was writing for a long time - and I kept writing anyway. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, reading this.

I knew my torture was partly homemade - from writing in a language that isn’t mine yes, but also from comparing myself to people who are writing in their native language.

Over time, I realised that the insecurity of writing in my third language was sometimes an advantage too. I could be daring, untamed and unhinged. I didn’t understand the rules so I could break them without agonising over it.

When I was a wedding photographer I had a season of loosing myself. I was looking at so many other photographers for ‘inspiration’ that I forgot what I liked, who I was and what my own style was. My work subconsciously started to look the same as other peoples and I grew more unsatisfied with it. I was not aligned, not in integrity.

With writing, I was not going to make that mistake. I would stick to whatever this was. This ‘style’, my words, my heart wanting to speak in the way it does. I am embracing whatever clown show I am. Fully. Even on my most doubtful days I know it won’t last. I still am able to remember who I am and why I do this.
I feel the fear but I am not afraid of the fear anymore. I feel the doubts but they don’t stop me for longer than a few hours or days.

No matter what, I write.

In Heather's latest newsletter called “clown” she speaks so beautifully on this. You need to read it. She is one of my favourite writers, who leaves me feeling everything all at once every time.

When I read writers like her and wonder how can someone do this? and I start to feel the faintest pressure to be a ‘success’ or write something ‘sharable’, I stop the little capitalist trying to worm its way into my brain.

I refuse.

Writing, like anything else is a practice. I don’t know if I am ‘good’, I don’t know what the measuring scale is and who owns it. I don’t know how my writing will evolve, if people love it or hate it, I don’t know if I am ‘improving’ and if that even matters.

But every time I feel insecure, paralysed, pressured or scared of writing I remember this:

I don’t have to out-perform my latest popular post. I don’t have to keep up with others and not even with myself. I don’t have to go viral. I don’t have to be a success. I don’t even have to be great.

I just have to keep writing. Because I can’t not write.
It will be good sometimes. It will suck often. It will be great on occasion. And hopefully someone will find a piece of their heart in my words every time.

I have to keep writing because it’s an urge, a necessity. The words want to shoot from my fingertips like I’m Spiderman. Spill from my mouth untamed, irreverent, odd or clumsy, beautiful, strong, ugly or weak - but always honest. The page always calls me back, the love always beats the fear.