Last month Tiffany Phillapou wrote a very honest piece over on her Substack Tough Love about how to write when you just, seemingly, can’t - often at the point of emotional pain. She is the author of Totally Fine, one of my favourite books, which addresses the complex topic of grief. You can read my interview with her here.
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I thought that the piece was absolutely brilliant; it has been a while since I have felt ‘seen’ by a piece of writing. We think so very often about writing in intellectual, and very often quite capitalistic, terms. Manuals about how to write better are virtually always bestsellers, authors and journalists are asked about their routines, there are podcasts devoted to the craft of how to write and how to write better.
But. But. How can you write when you just, seemingly, can’t?
There’s a quality in the work Phillapou produces, in how unafraid she is, in looking at some of the toughest topics. Grief is a topic we societally have yet to actually cope with, let alone sit with or delve into; there’s a one dimensional way of thought as well, in the line of tragedy vs triumph at the best of times. But this was such a great piece of work - a reminder to us all.
So - I tried writing how she put together that piece - feelings, thoughts, words with the context of ‘Dear Omicron’ - things learned in just over a year, and kind of processing. This is what I’d like to share with you now.
Lydia x
One of the things that has perhaps proved hardest, and among one of the most upsetting things to deal with, is how a year after catching Covid, I’m still experiencing a degree of word loss. There’s what feels like a black hole at the centre of my brain - where the retrieval of words for speech or for writing get lost. The translation of from brain to mouth or the page can sometimes get mangled, especially if I am tired - the semantic construction of sentences on a page make it so much harder to write coherently. There is a lot of frustration ion having to re-learn many, many skills - and the lack of understanding this reveals too often, as well as how there seems to be no help available. Just don’t mention the fourth letter asking for anxiety service referrals now.
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