is writing supposed to be hard...
Wednesday, January 21st, 2026
dearest reader,
this week has been filled with snot.
i have been sick sickity sick. i take care of my mom, so i took her to the hospital last week because she was also snotty and gross. they told her it was just sinusitis and sent her home with a nose spray. she’d already been sick for about a week and was mostly fine.
me, on the other hand?
i came home from the hospital and woke up with a full-blown upper respiratory infection. lol.
so i have spent the last few days writing and recording from quarantine in my room, surviving on medication and vibes. i am recovering now, thankfully, which meant i was able to leave the house on thursday to go to a gundam double feature with my mate—and it was awesome.
i love the gundam movies so much. giant robots with political themes? say less.
this week also included book club on sunday. it’s just me and my best friend, but we talked about mister magic and somehow always end up having the most expansive conversations about literature and meaning and life. sometimes i don’t know what to do with how lucky that feels.
small joys and quiet focus
a lot of my attention this week has been on building a routine, especially around yoga. yoga school starts next month, and i am so, so excited. like—deeply, sincerely excited. i am ready to add another mastery to my belt.
this week also brings the animal crossing update, which i genuinely cannot wait to play.
and yet.
despite all of this joy, i am absolutely, desperately craving pho. with every fiber of my being. however, i made a promise to myself to only eat out three times this year: my birthday, my anniversary, and my mate’s birthday. all from my own coin.
may cannot get here fast enough. your shapeless stardust of a narrator is ready for the noods.
i have also been working on finishing my crochet project—a skull sweater. i’ll share it when it’s done.
on writing (and why it’s hard)
i’ve been reflecting a lot this week on my role as a writer, and on what i think might be the biggest blockage to finishing my project.
at some point, i was told that the things you are meant to do will come to you easily.
this is not true.
at least—not for storytelling.
writing is supposed to be hard. anyone who tells you it’s easy is lying to you.
fine. i’ll admit it.
i hate writing.
yes, reader. you heard that correctly. me—the writer—hates writing.
i hate the way a blank page looks. so i fill it. then i hate the way the words sit, so i move them around. i try different voices. different themes. i change the characters. i play with white space. i flirt with grammar. all of the usual tricks to try and make the process more fun.
but it just isn’t.
to be clear, i’m not saying there is no joy in writing. for me, the joy lives in the reader—the way their eyes light up at good wordplay, or at the pacing of a story that lands just right. i would be lying if i didn’t also admit that i love when people are impressed. i love being impressive. mostly because i am very impressed with myself and often feel like no one notices how awesome i am.
still, none of that makes showing up to the page any easier.
and that’s not what they sell you.
authors teaching authors will tell you that it eventually becomes fun. that the work is brilliant and exciting. that if you just keep showing up, it will get easier. sometimes they’ll mention a bad day here or there, but they don’t linger on it. they’re trying to be encouraging. they know how easy it is to become disheartened.
so they handle you with kid gloves.
but the truth is this: writing is hard. it is frustrating and challenging, and there is often more anger and sadness in it than joy—because the joy comes at the end.
the hard part is getting the words on the page. and to do that, you have to be willing to get ugly. to get angry. to get dirty. you have to show up cigarette-stained and broken so the story can get out.
not because you want it to.
because it needs to.
the story doesn’t care what you want.
you weren’t chosen because you desired to be a writer. you are a writer because the story found you. without the story, there is no need for an author. and good stories are never clean. they demand that you show up in the sludge and the funk and the mess to tell them.
that’s the part no one tells you.
because it’s not easy to romanticize. because it could crush you. because it might turn you away from writing altogether.
so writers teaching writers become agents of the stories themselves, encouraging you to show up so the story can be born safely into the world.
and now, unfortunately, you are one too.
a story chooses its author because the author is strong enough to bear its truth. authors are not chosen to enjoy the story. we are chosen to harness it.
and that is no easy task.
anyway.
that’s what’s been sitting with me this week.
weekly reads
the starless sea– erin morgensten
i have been working through this book for little over a year and it is so difficult for me to get through. not because it’s bad but because it’s so good. i’ve never experienced a book that was structured quite like this before and it is honestly just so fascinating.
weekly watches
the thursday murder club
this movie follows a delightfully robust club of geriatrics who meet every thursday to solve cold cases. i expected it to be a run murder mystery, but it delves into the themes of endings, beginnings, finality, and humanity in a way that had me sobbing at my own mortality.
my hero academia
i am doing an emotional watch through of one of my favorite series as it finally comes to an end. all i have learned is that i am a bakugo katsuki stan, and that i too can be a hero. i wonder though–what does being a hero really mean.,
Writing Sneak Peak
an impact.
our first meeting was an impact.
a moment so cataclysmic that just for a second–a singular breath– everything froze.
the death, dust, and debris was suspended, cradled in the air like an offering to him as he came from the sky. blacked out clothes clinging to coiling muscles that bunched and braced for the bearings of boots to make contact with the earth. with how smoothly he landed, it was as if the earth had risen to meet him. his golden curls pulled back into braids coming to meet in the high pony tail of a warrior. in one of his half-gloved hands he held a grenade, in the other a gun. as he launched himself between me and the fanged beast that had just thrown me, his larimar eyes caught mine. anger blazed brightly there like the strike of plasmatic lightening that he had arrived on.
see you soon
hues