It’s been shown repeatedly that New Year’s resolutions aren’t effective. The sudden burst of energy and ambition on January 1 is great for setting goals, but sustaining that energy is nearly impossible if the flip of the calendar was the main impetus to dream of change.

AND YET…I set some creative resolutions for myself this year:

Resolution #1: Become a better writer.

I’ve heard (and trust me, I believe) that most of writing is actually rewriting, but I had no idea how to begin editing my own work. How can you take an objective, critical eye when you’ve let your heart bleed onto the paper? I needed some training, so I turned to Megan Falley’s Poems That Don’t Suck class. She provided charts, and checklists, and mental models for thinking about how to make your words do more for your reader–all the things I needed to write a few pieces that pushed my comfort zone, then edit the heck out of them until the originals barely resembled the later drafts. I’m not exactly checking off this resolution as “achieved” yet, but I have more tools to get me there.

Resolution #2: Expand my creative formats; play more.

I’m talking form and medium for this one. In the writing itself, I want to play more with length, spacing, rhythms, genres. In its presentation, there’s a lot of value in spoken word, mixed media, video, illustration. I don’t want to let my creativity get stagnant.

So it was time for a change–the timing of which coincided perfectly with the start of #The100DayProject this year. As you may know, I’m a huge fan of the project. It’s the reason I have anything resembling a writing process, a community, and a self-identity as a creative. I decided to take on 100 days of cutout poems, essentially adding words cut from magazines into handwritten pieces. On top of that, I’m sharing 100 days of prompts based on images cut from magazines as well. Last year, this small daily creation was immensely helpful for creating within constraints, turning off my inner editor for a while, and connecting to others for inspiration. I’m hoping the same will be true this year.

Resolution #3: Collaborate more/don’t always create alone.

I discovered the joys of collaboration in 2020, and I’m committed to dispelling the myth that creation has to be a solitary act. Working with another person is a great way to see how their mind works, and to step into their shoes in a way that forces you to expand your usual boundaries and methods. Two poetry community friends set their sights on the same goal, and I’m excited to work with them on something collaborative once my 100 Day Project is over.

Resolution #4: Submit work for publication in lit journals; start thinking about a book or chapbook.

Writing some stuff and putting it online is easy enough, but striving to publish forces a greater focus on what the reader thinks. It means opening yourself up for rejection. And writing a collection also requires a change in perspective–how do my themes work together? What’s my overarching thesis, and what sub-themes articulate that narrative arc over multiple individual pieces?

Reframing resolutions

In writing this little letter, it hit me that exploration and play, collaboration, and striving to publish (resolutions #2-4) are all just ways to push boundaries and hone my craft. In other words, ways to become a better writer (resolution #1). So maybe that’s a better way to handle the fraught concept of “resolutions” anyhow. I can reframe these 4 Big Goals™ as one main focus for the year, with three mechanisms that can help me get there.

And because “become a better writer” is a lifelong process of improvement and growth, there’s no pressure to have an endpoint, and thus no getting disheartened and giving up entirely when progress is slower than I would like. I can resolve to do the same thing next year, and the year after, and the year after–repeat forever–and still have been achieving that goal the whole time.

Now that’s the type of resolution you can keep.

It sounds simple, but if you’re feeling a bit stuck creatively, a great place to turn is collaboration. Feeding off someone else’s energy and riffing on each other’s ideas can reinvigorate your process and push your boundaries into paths you don’t usually tread.

Ways to collaborate

Collaboration comes in so many forms that the only limit is what you can imagine. As I’ve seen writers put out “collab” poems on Instagram, I’ve taken to asking how they collaborated. The answers I’ve received are always varied: they traded off every other line or stanza, one person started the piece and the other finished, or they came together and worked side by side on the drafting and revision from start to finish.

These collabs can be one-offs, or they can be part of a bigger collaborative project. First Line Poets, for example, represents more than 100 poets who are paired weekly to provide a first line to their partner, who finishes the piece in their own style.

Editing can also be seen as collaboration; giving and receiving suggestions that changes a piece in some way, especially if the writer wouldn’t have considered that angle or word or literary device, is a form of creative partnership. This is why feedback is so important. We are better together than we are apart.

A recent collaboration

Recently I released a collaborative poem that I co-wrote with my friend Kanwal (@poemslikememory on Instagram). Our process definitely fell into the back-and-forth style of collaboration.

It started with her mentioning that a piece I had written reminded her of a concept called Pepper’s Ghost. I wasn’t familiar with the idea, so I asked her to explain, and I fell in love with both her explanation and the concept itself. It felt unfair to just take the idea and run with it, though, so I suggested we collaborate. I took a stab at some hodgepodge lines, using this phase to find our narrative point of view within such a specific phenomenon.

It was a messy start, but I delivered several options to Kanwal, who settled on an angle and returned a first draft. I liked the perspective, but the piece was clearly in her voice: rhyming and nostalgic. I tried to weave back in some of the original lines, but it broke the flow. Everything I tried felt smashed in, not deliberate.

Hitting roadblocks

When writing a poem, you have to balance form and function. This is true of all art. The trick with collaborating, especially when your styles differ so greatly like mine and Kanwal’s, is that one of those elements can fall by the wayside when pursuing harmony in the other.

For us, we had swung so far into function to create a cohesive narrative that form was struggling to keep up. I needed a breakthrough to resolve the rhythm and spacing of the piece before I could add my perspective in.

I dropped the whole draft into a 2-column table. The poem had two writers, why couldn’t it have two narrators as well? I put Kanwal’s lines on the left, and then pieced mine together on the right. I was feeling good as I sent a picture of the new layout back to her.

Coming together

She agreed the new structure solved a lot of the poem’s problems. Now we could re-focus on the narrative. We got feedback from some friends to get outside eyes–we’d wrestled with the piece so much that it was hard to tell what would make sense to someone who hadn’t seen every iteration of the draft–and then Kanwal put “Pepper’s Ghost” as the 27th prompt on her November prompts list.

When I saw that, I knew we needed to kick it into high gear. It became a tacit deadline to actually get this piece that we’d been passing back and forth for weeks, months even, finished and out into the world. Deadlines are the fire we need when the initial spark of excitement fades into the struggle of perfectionism.

She sent me more revisions on her half, which changed our narrative arc for the better. I followed her lead, and revised my half to match. Another round of that and we’d settled on the final words. All that was left was a title and coordinating the aesthetics of the post around our individual styles.

On November 27, we released the piece on Instagram, reveling in our pride for finally finishing it. I was also proud of the collaboration itself. Neither of us had ever written a collab poem with someone else before, and we worked well together–the right balance of pushing and forgiveness, fighting for our own vision and inviting in the other’s. We plan to collaborate again someday, but not until we’ve taken a few deep breaths.

What makes a good collaboration

Who you collaborate with is key. Despite our different writing styles, Kanwal and I make good collaborators because our friendship started in a setting where feedback was part of the culture. We both felt comfortable making suggestions, being vulnerable when we couldn’t figure out how to push through a block, and protecting our own voices on the page.

Not only does the finished piece truly represent both of us, but it’s also better and more interesting than it would be if either of us attempted to write it alone.

Working with someone else tunes you into the creative process itself. When you aren’t creating in a vacuum, you have to be more aware of who you are and how you create. It may also open your eyes to a different way of doing things, which can strengthen your independent creation too. No matter what you’re making, collaboration is a truly powerful thing.

It’s well known that the life of an artist can be solitary if you let it.

Creativity often requires looking inward, which often also means forgetting to look up, out, around. It can turn into an echo chamber: an idea strikes, you pursue it and explore it and rework it, and if you fall in love with it, you can fail to hold it at a distance to see its nicks and flaws.

Leaving your comfort zone

I’ve learned that the first step to exiting the echo chamber is putting your art out for others to consume.

The next step is putting your heart on the line to ask for critique.

These days, my main artistic community is on poetry Instagram. Like any community, it has its ups and downs.

I love its endless fountain of inspiration–prompt lists, for example, always quench my thirst for ideas when my well runs dry–but it’s not designed to go far beyond simple encouragement to do the writing.

Jump-starting creation is absolutely valuable, but what’s missing is the feedback loop that will help writers actually improve their craft. This creates an echo chamber in and of itself, a room where affirmations bounce off the walls without differentiation.

Pure encouragement has its place. I truly appreciate that Instagram poets, many of whom I wouldn’t be able to recognize on the street (but I know their handles by heart), always come to the comment section to voice their undying support: “love this!” “wow, that final line!” “this is beautiful!”

I don’t take it for granted that these internet strangers spend some of their one wild and precious life to validate my writing. But I don’t usually need validation; I rarely publish my work before the reverberations in my ears ring only with pride and satisfaction. The dopamine boost from these compliments is powerful…but what if we could help each other grow as writers too?

What if we could change the social norm to encourage meaningful feedback?

In the last two weeks, I’ve actively engaged in seeking, providing, and normalizing feedback in this community. Some opportunities have been off-the-cuff, others more deliberate and meticulous.

For example, I got invited to join a handful of other poets in a Zoom call where the norm is to write for a few minutes, then optionally read what you wrote. One person hesitated about sharing because her piece didn’t feel right and she didn’t know where to go with it.

“Isn’t that what we’re here for?” I asked as the newcomer who wasn’t sure of the usual dynamics. “Maybe we can provide some ideas or constructive criticism?”

“Everyone’s always so nice though!” she replied. “They always say how good it is but I don’t know if I believe them!” I offered up that I would be happy to be constructive, if she was open to feedback. This opened the floor for others to join in providing ideas and suggestions in addition to affirmations of her undisputed talent.

In another example from this week, a different poet friend posted a piece with the caption, “I’m not happy with this and I can’t figure out why! Help me please poetry community.” For once, the comments included not only “I love this!” but also “this line didn’t work for me, maybe try this instead?” Using these comments, she has a path forward for revision–and a bunch of us decided to create a group chat where we can ask for feedback less publicly to workshop works in progress.

Also this week, a poet I really admire posted on their Stories that they had finished their chapbook manuscript and wanted feedback, with the caveat that “if you’re going to tell me how amazing I am, please don’t!” I spent two hours with the draft annotating areas where I was confused, where I saw opportunities to “kill their darlings,” where to tighten language–and, yes, where their vivid imagery blew me away.

Be afraid to not receive feedback

Escaping our solitary echo chambers of creation is essential to making good art.

But catapulting straight into another echo chamber where you only hear how fabulous you are won’t make you any better.

Feedback is a gift. One of my colleagues is teased for repeating this phrase often, but it’s true. It is an act of generosity to thoughtfully approach someone’s work with an eye towards contributing to their development and success. Critique serves to improve your art, to make you a better creator.

Here I leave you with a question that doubles as a challenge: How can you change the norms of your process (or your community) to open channels for feedback? How can you plant seeds and nourish the soil that will help you grow as an artist?

A few days before the end of September I put a poll on my Instagram Story: Should I do a prompt list?

Months earlier, running out of steam on my 100 Day Project, I had turned to prompts on Instagram–primarily geared towards poetry–to keep me motivated and fueled for daily creation. It was so helpful to me that I never turned back, often incorporating them to conjure the beginning of a piece or in revision to strengthen a poem with a metaphor or image I wouldn’t have considered.

I figured this would be my chance to give back to a poetry community that had so inspired me, and luckily the answer was quick to come in: people wanted prompts.

How I created my October poetry prompt list

For me, it was a simple and gradual process. In August, I started collecting words and ideas in my notes app. They’d pop into my head while reading, writing, or just being out in the world, and I’d suddenly think, “I’d love to see that in a poem, even if I’m not the one writing it.” Onto the list it went, slowly throughout August and into September.

As I put the finishing touches on my #finesseprompts list, I noticed other October prompt lists getting shared. Many of these lists included spooky-inspired prompts. Two poets teamed up to do “Literary Shocktober,” inspired by bloody and monster-y classic literature. Another wrote an entire list based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. And so on.

Mine? Totally seasonally agnostic.

This isn’t a big deal, except that it’s common for Instagram poets to respond to multiple prompts within a single written piece. Would my list work for someone who wanted to write spooky things?

I analyzed the prompts:

“Suffocate”? Excellent.

“Include 3 body parts starting with the same letter”? Doable.

“I Should Live in Salt” (after a song by The National)? Visceral.

Okay, this would work.

Which prompts were most successful?

I recently talked with a friend who writes highly structured rhyming poems that lean on absurdity, onomatopoeia, and humor. They are truly delightful. But they aren’t trendy, he laments. It’s been impossible for him to get traditionally published and to sell self-published work because “it’s not the current formula.”

So what is the formula? What can #finesseprompts teach us about what’s popular among Instagram poets right now?

As of this writing (Friday night, Oct 30) there have been 156 posts that use the tag #finesseprompts. The platform is currently blocking all hashtagged content from being seen in reverse chronological order to avoid the proliferation of questionable political content leading up to Election Day, so the following stats are close but not perfect.

You ready to nerd out over some data?

Unsurprisingly to me, the “assignment” prompts were the most popular, with 73 total responses. If you are starting completely from writer’s block–and thus turning to prompts–a prescriptive idea is more likely to get you going than a single word or line.

I fully anticipated “Things that require hopefulness” to be one of the most popular prompts, since list poems are always enticing. “Use both morning and mourning” also has a clear poetic and emotional resonance, so that makes sense too.

I was a bit surprised that the “3 body parts starting with the same letter” prompt was one of the top choices in this category, and that almost nobody responded to “words that should be snarled.” The prompt “incorporate an email subject line” only got 4 responses, but those were some of my favorites of the whole month. Quantity and quality are not necessarily the same!

Single words were the next most popular approach, coming in at 56 responses. The data here is likely a bit skewed, because a few individual posts included several of the single words, versus the “assignment” prompts which were rarely combined with other prompts from my list.

The popularity of “suffocate” was very expected–we poets are often writing about (metaphoric or literal) breathing and drowning and choking–but I was surprised to see “overgrown” resonate so much! Nature imagery is common too, but grass isn’t the most poetic plant, and I so strongly associate that word with suburban lawn care.

I’m thinking “sterilize” and “trestle” may have felt too specific or uncommon, while “notion” felt too formal.

The borrowed line/song title prompts were drastically less popular, with only 28 responses. Some people don’t like writing “after” poems, and including a full line might clash with certain poetic styles.

No single prompt got more than 5 responses, with “Horoscopes for the Dead” (after Billy Collins) and “I Should Live in Salt” (after The National) topping the list. I definitely predicted the former, and could have probably assumed the latter as well. I’m a bit disappointed nobody responded to Jason Reynolds’s “Even though I answered years ago, the knocking continues,” but then again, I didn’t either!

I did think the two “eyes” prompts (“I Saw You Close Your Eyes” by Local Natives and “Two pairs of eyes, gazing only at each other” by HMVU) would get more traction, but they may have felt a bit cliche or they may have cannibalized each other’s popularity.

Takeaway: the most popular prompts were poignant on their own and encouraged first-person poems about emotive experiences.

What I learned from running prompts

Creativity is so cool

Okay, duh. But every day in October I woke up and was astounded at how no two interpretations of any prompt are the same. For example, the fairly prescriptive prompt “title your poem ‘things that require hopefulness'” implies a straightforward list poem, but it spurred lists and sectioned poems and meta commentaries on hope in general. The only similarity between them was an identical title. One poet even spun it into “people that require hopefulness” instead.

All of that is not only allowed, but encouraged. Prompts are just a starting point, and each individual poet gets to put their unique perspective into responding.

Perfectionism is not very cool

Okay, also duh. Battling perfectionism is a big thing for lots of creatives, and I chose to tackle it this month not through the writing itself but by hosting Instagram Live readings of some of my favorite prompt responses.

Watching yourself on camera, monologuing to a live audience for 30+ minutes is a little scary and definitely triggers imposter syndrome. But I did it, people came (and even more people watched the recording afterward), and it was another dent in perfectionism.

Engaging is exhausting

The general expectation is that if someone writes for your prompt that you’ll at least comment, and likely share to your Instagram Story too. I found myself staring at my screen far more often than usual this month.

Plus, at the beginning of October, I felt obligated to write and post my own work daily, to churn through the list myself. Eventually I gave up on that pipe dream, and I’m ready to have a quieter November without the pressure to engage as much.

Prompts are fun!

From curating the list, to writing your own responses, to seeing what others come up with and feeling a sense of collaboration with them, prompts have proven to been a great way to connect more deeply and frequently with other writers and poets, to analyze my own work, and to give inspiration back to the community that rekindled my love of writing and creativity.

 

Despite the sliiiiight burnout, I’d definitely do it all again…after this year winds down. And hey, the #finesseprompts hashtag lives on, the list is forever live, and the writing doesn’t have to end just because the month does.

Last month I had to give a short talk at work about how I stay inspired to create.  I used the opportunity to talk about my 100 Days of Pantone project; the presentation date happened to fall on Day 100, so it was natural fodder for a case study on my own creativity. During the Q&A, someone asked whether I regularly kept a journal prior to this stint of daily writing.

I felt my cheeks flush with shame as I deflected with a cheery “hmm, not really!”. I call this–my lack of journaling diligence–my “bad writer” trait.

When you read about writers’ daily rituals, almost all of them include meticulous journaling. Start every morning writing a few pages, they often advise from personal experience. Carry a notebook with you everywhere; jot down your feelings and observations in the world.

This is not bad advice. Writing, like any skill, requires practice and commitment to develop. I know this on a conscious level, but until recently I subconsciously expected that someday the perfect words would come to me without having to muddle through them.

Poet Megan Falley recently shared that “one of my frustrations with my profession is that it seems to be one of the few arts, or activities really, where people expect to be naturally good immediately. People don’t talk about how much writing requires practice, just like playing the piano or a sport. And to think that you should be effortlessly wonderful without practice? Do you expect to run a marathon before you run a mile? That’s ridiculous. Think of learning to write just like learning to play the violin. This is your opportunity to begin your practice of writing.”

The word “your” there is important to me. It’s not “a” writing practice, or “the” writing practice, which both tacitly imply the existence of a perfect way to show up for your literary muse. It’s your practice, which is however you choose to create.

I have been embarrassed in the past of my shelf full of notebooks that represent a collection of fits and starts rather than anything cohesive. In fact, any single cluster of consecutive dates maxes out at about 4 entries before a multi-month gap. Rinse and repeat, and repeat, and repeat.

But through trial and error, I’ve started to both fall into and consciously create my writing practice.

Currently it’s made up of a few elements:

• Regular writing sprints, whether solo or with external accountability via Zoom from my local Shut Up and Write!
• Structured short-term projects that require daily writing, like the 100 Day Project and Camp NaNoWriMo
• Engagement with communities that encourage writing both implicitly and explicitly; for me, my small Instagram poetry community is always there for motivation through user-generated prompts and glowing feedback

So far, this trifecta has inspired me to regularly show up for my writing. As a result, it’s also helped to turn down the volume on my inner shame spiral re: daily journaling. In turn, that has made space for me to forgive myself when projects don’t go as envisioned–like this newsletter, which I once dreamed would be weekly insights on what I learned while exploring the (now mostly closed) big wide world.

Commitment comes in many shades and shapes. Guilt about your method is unproductive.

That last phrase is probably the only real advice I have to offer.

James Baldwin once told the Paris Review, “Write. Find a way to keep alive and write. There is nothing else to say. If you are going to be a writer there is nothing I can say to stop you; if you’re not going to be a writer nothing I can say will help you. What you really need at the beginning is somebody to let you know that the effort is real.”

And I think that’s why my current practice has been working. I’ve found others who I know will remind me that the effort is real–but it also has built-in milestones and structures that are for me and only me.

Chasing both internal and external muses is part of what “being a writer” means to me. As it turns out, daily journaling didn’t spark my internal muse to make it stick. The good news is that the other part of “being a writer” is enjoying when you end up meandering onto a more scenic, but less efficient path.

That’s the phase I’m in right now–solidifying my resolve just to show up, while letting go of the “shoulds” that put too many trail markers along a path to a specific finish line.

Maybe someday I’ll take up daily journaling. Maybe I never will. Or perhaps I’ll do it for awhile, and then taper off, and then pick it back up again.

It doesn’t matter, because there is no right or wrong way to create. We all need that reminder sometimes.

When lockdown began, I assumed I’d be erased of all inspiration and creativity.

In the Before Times, I always sought inspiration from novelty (traveling to new cities or exploring unfamiliar streets in my own) and observation (eavesdropping in public or basking in art installations). Almost all of those experiences vanished in lockdown, so I figured my creative expression would too.

Simultaneously I hold the firm belief that constraints are essential to creativity. Discovering, embracing, and even creating constraints forces you to alter the boundaries of expression from what you’d like to do into what is possible. By condensing opportunity, you have to work differently and thus more creatively.

Quarantine is the ultimate constraint. 

Despite my initial nerves, lockdown hasn’t stopped me from creating. If anything, I’m creating more frequently and diversely than ever. The stimulus for inspiration is just different, which means the projects have been too.

Gallery wall

I rarely follow Instagrammers just for their aesthetic, but @thecraftedlife is an exception to that rule. The balance of bright colors and white space feels both satisfying and aspirational, especially in her home decor photos.

Enter the gallery wall. She posted hers in January, and I’d been thinking about ever since. Without the ability to go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, despite its tauntingly close proximity to our apartment, I decided to create my own art museum in the living room.

Three years ago I bought artsy postcards at every stop on an around-the-world trip, but I never displayed them. Unrelatedly, right before lockdown, we had scored a bunch of cheap picture frames at A.C. Moore’s going-out-of-business sale–without a specific plan for them. These two circumstances converged, and a few hours later, Harsh and I brought my gallery wall dreams to life.

Takeaway

If you’re feeling uninspired, derivative work is totally okay. Recreate your favorite painting, read a poem from a new-to-you author and try writing in their style, or steal a home decor idea from Instagram to adapt in your own space.

The Art of Inspiration zine

Last weekend I participated in a virtual CreativeMornings FieldTrip on the topic of zines, both their cultural significance and how to actually create one (with work time!).

If you’re not familiar, zines are essentially self-published booklets that often incorporate drawing, writing, and/or collage to share a narrative on topics big and small. They’re commonly associated with counterculture because zines democratize publishing, leveraging photocopiers and zine libraries over traditional book contracts.

After just a 45-minute session, I had made an 8-page zine about inspiration and creativity during quarantine (it’s been top of mind recently, hence this letter).

Is it perfect? No. The fold is definitely a bit wonky.

But I stretched my boundaries into a new medium (hello, novelty and observation!). I had a literal bounce in my step for the entire rest of the day because of the influx of inspiration.

Takeaway

Everyone has something to teach you. Whether you tune into a virtual FieldTrip, reach out to a friend for Their Favorite Hobby 101, or watch a tutorial video, learning something new and trying it yourself can reignite your creative flame.

Final Takeaway

Quarantine is teaching us all that if you can’t go to it, you have to make it. That’s why everyone is baking bread and experimenting with elaborate recipes. That’s why zines were started–people didn’t see their ideas or identities represented in publishing, so they published their own narratives. And that’s why we ended up with a gallery wall, to tide me over until the doors of the art museum reopen to the public.

When you make something, you have control, a feeling that’s been eroded over the last four months of stay-at-home orders. Creating is how we reclaim power over ourselves and our voices, no matter how uncertain the world looks.

I don’t know how exactly old I was when I started losing interest in holidays and other special dates. I’ve been uninterested in Christmas for at least five years, if not more like ten by now. Many of my birthdays have been unremarkable at best. Valentine’s Day – whether single or in a relationship – has always yielded an eye roll or two from me.

But recently Harsh and I passed the one-month-since-getting-married milestone, and it sparked an unusual rush of emotion. We didn’t even do much to celebrate beyond acknowledging it verbally, but I was filled with a sense of accomplishment that I wasn’t anticipating.

Our wedding was planned for March 28th. We called it off on March 12th; with the spread of COVID-19 moving so quickly, we determined it was too much of a risk for Harsh’s family to fly here from India, and we wanted to give our guests ample time to cancel their travel plans and reservations. It was a decision that came with grief (that I believed I’d moved on from, yet is conjuring tears as I write this), but it made sense at the time. And every day our decision was validated by the rapid shutdowns across the city. By the time our “wedding day” snuck up on us, all non-essential businesses had been closed, including the art gallery that we had been so excited to choose as our venue.

We were lucky to have decided early on to do a “self-uniting” marriage–I almost typed self-isolating there, a fitting Freudian slip–which meant we didn’t need an officiant, just two witnesses to sign the license. After spending a few weeks deciding what to do, we texted our friends in the first week of April asking them how to make socially distant witnessing work. How seriously were they taking it? Should we drop off an envelope and return to pick up the signed document later?

We ended up standing on the sidewalk outside their apartment, watching them scrawl their affirmation of this moment while congratulating us through makeshift bandana masks. We interrupted a stranger’s dog walk as we blocked the whole sidewalk as we posed for a socially distant selfie for posterity. We couldn’t mark the moment with hugs or even see our friends’ smiles.

A few days later, on April 11, we had a Zoom call with our immediate families where I put Harsh’s ring on his finger and he reinstated my engagement ring as his mom held up the wedding band she’d had made for me in India to the video camera. We hadn’t even written proper vows in the hustle to organize the logistics of the day.

Ironically enough, when Harsh and I first started talking about getting married, my first suggestion was to get legally married ASAP, then give ourselves a year or so to save up for a wedding and enjoy an unrushed planning process. It ended up not being too far off from our reality–except we had everything ready besides the playlist (and the vows), thus we had an actual picture in our heads to mourn the loss of.

That Monday, people asked how my weekend was, and I answered with “well, I got married!” When they cheered and asked how I felt, I answered with “basically the same–sorta like when your birthday falls on a weekday, and it doesn’t feel like anything has changed until you have the party.”

But now, just over a month later, I do feel different. It’s certainly not how I envisioned my first month of married life (to the extent that anyone has a particular vision for that period), but I’ve probably learned more about us as individuals and as a couple by quarantining together than I would’ve if we’d been spending the last few weeks honeymooning and writing thank you notes for wedding gifts.

We’ve learned what our priorities are for ourselves: I’ve been committing more to writing and exercising during this time, while he’s upleveling his gaming skills and investing extra time in his circle of friends. I’ve been reminded of his good sides–like how he unexpectedly causes me a laughing fit multiple times a week–and learning how to live with his not-so-good habits, which will remain unnamed. We’ve both made peace with our different circadian rhythms, and I’ve gotten better at not backseat driving him while he’s cooking. These among countless other lessons.

Interestingly, the trajectory of getting settled into married life has mirrored my adjustment to stay-at-home orders.

There’s a permanence to marriage that I was struggling to come to terms with once our wedding plans got derailed. That shift from “together for now” to “in it for the long haul” passed quietly and faintly once our wedding plans got derailed, so it didn’t carry as much weight. And now as the pandemic stretches from what we were told would be a two-week shutdown to a completely unknown duration, it has required a similar journey to acceptance of its own “in it for the long haul” feeling.

I’ve seen a few times on social media the sentiment of “the pandemic isn’t over just because you’re bored.” We still need to stay inside even as the weather gets warmer and Zoom fatigue sets in and the curve starts to flatten. Choosing to marry requires the same level of resolve and of deciding that we still want to be together even when we disagree or life gets busy or tragedy strikes.

So now we go forward together, attempting to focus on the silver linings of self-quarantine while also doing our best to concentrate on our gratitude for each other during this weird time–and that we have way more time to work on (…or procrastinate) our wedding playlist.

In the latest 99% Invisible podcast episode, host Roman Mars acknowledges the strange new world of self-quarantining with a tranquil ode to the little-known stories behind the ordinary objects in our homes.

He tells listeners about the historical connotations between windows and wealth, the cultural associations between fans and death, and the rise and fall of the hall.

And then, as the episode rolls into its credits, the Beauty Pill song “Exit Without Saving” plays, repeating the chorus “you recognize that this is noise, right?” over and over.

The combination of that line, its slightly eerie tone and cadence, and the truly unprecedented happenings and emotional states of the last week or two, ignited something inside me.

It felt like a chemical reaction, or perhaps a spiritual revelation. The lyric plugged into an open socket, and suddenly I had a moment of clarity that came with a slight chill.

So much of the news around COVID-19 has been constant unimportant chatter spurred by the 24 hour news cycle and the endlessness of social media feeds. I recognize that a lot of it is noise, yet it can be hard to look away. 

At the same time, the response to COVID-19 – namely, self-quarantining and social distancing – has revealed the noisiness of life before the pandemic.

My (previous) life’s noise was the constant pressure to 1) achieve career ambitions; 2) dedicate myself to my partner; 3) build local friendships and 4) maintain long-distance connections; 5) learn new work skills and 6) expand my professional network; 7) adhere to a consistent exercise routine; 8) plan healthy and sustainable meals; and 9) take care of the house. Oh, and 10) be cool with failing to perfectly balance everything because I also need to 11) be a good feminist.

It’s only through the absence of externally-dictated schedules that I’ve discovered how wildly overwhelmed I felt by all of those things.

A month ago, “You recognize that this is noise, right?” is a phrase I could’ve heard but not felt. I hadn’t yet had the time or space or context to consider my choices in that way. 

Obviously the coronavirus is not all smiles and sunflowers. I admit that I have great privilege in seeing the virus as an opportunity for recovery and self-reflection rather than as doomsday.

But COVID-19 does present what all design thinkers espouse as the #1 driver of creative greatness: constraints. 

Due to our current constraints, artists will explore new mediums or use their scraps in unusual ways.

Distant lovers will get to know each other through the Netflix Party Chrome extension, living room picnics over Zoom, or FaceTime book clubs that bring them closer despite being held apart.

Gym rats will discover the powerful resistance of their own bodyweight.

New home cooks will emerge, and seasoned ones will try new ingredients (I myself have made a few things for the first time, including beet greens, cornbread, and lemon bars).

Podcasts and talk shows will try new lo-fi at-home formats, and they might end producing our all-time favorite episodes, like the one that spurred this letter.

We all, I hope, will recognize what is noise, and which signals most potently drown it out.  

During this strange time, I’ve been focusing on a few things most strongly: opening the blinds in the morning, checking in with friends regularly, stretching both my literal and creative muscles, and taking periodic work breaks just to hug my fiancé Harsh. 

Turns out these things are signals, and they’re all pretty good at dampening the noise.

If you look at my Goodreads “want-to-read” list chronologically, it’s a pretty fascinating archive of what was most important to me in each year of my recent history.

The list never stops growing for a few reasons: 1) there are always more books than there is time to read them; 2) I have a tendency to hoard items and interests rather than sloughing them off; 3) the nostalgia I retain for the period in which I curated the list tricking me into thinking that someday I’ll read one of those 350+ books rather than requesting the latest flashy-covered bestseller from the library.

It occurred to me recently that a “want-to-read” list–also known as a “TBR” (to-be-read) list–doesn’t serve a purpose if you don’t actually want to read the books on it. I set out to cull it down to a manageable and authentic TBR, and soon discovered patterns in my former selves via the titles they added.

In 2013, I added a lot of books written by long-dead white dudes that’ve been hailed as American classics–think Hemingway’s famous tomes A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises, Orwell’s Animal Farm, and everything Steinbeck has ever written.

Did I actually want to read these books? Probably not.

Did I want to have read them in order to reference them and sound smart to my peers, especially the similarly mediocre albeit alive white dudes who surrounded me in my senior year of high school? For sure.

That year included a lot of overanalyzing while driving around in circles around the lake in the center of my hometown, both alone and with friends. We spent a lot of time discussing the pass, the future, and the social issues we were now old enough to start understanding. It only makes sense that I’d feel compelled to read stories that spoke to that overstimulated ennui disguised as existential pondering.

My list-culling started here, since I no longer really care about reading The Road or Trainspotting just to prove that I can. I cut out about 50 books by old dead white guys writing about an America I never experienced through a lens that I can’t relate to.

In 2014, I started thinking more about representation in literature. College was making me more and more woke each day, and I became convinced that everything authored by a person of color had more gravitas (this may or may not be true, but the idea isn’t substantially less problematic than its opposite). I still showed an interest in YA, but leaned toward “intelligent” (a.k.a. diverse) YA.

On the whole, good for 2014 me for starting to abandon the idea that I needed to be reading books deemed important by a white-dominated patriarchy. Present-day, however, I removed probably 30 books from this section of the list, keeping only the ones I’m genuinely interested in.

2015 piqued my interest in both graphic novels and poetry books. Fewer Words With More Weight seems to have been the name of my game, both in consumption and expression. I frequented the Portland Poetry Slam and the spoken word poetry shows at college, carried a notebook with me everywhere to collect lines to develop into my own pieces, and thought maybe someday I’d author a chapbook of my own.

I still adore graphic novels and will pick one up from time to time, but I’ve fallen out of love with poetry as a genre. I painstakingly went through all of the titles on the list and cross-referenced the Philly library system catalog. Any title not in circulation got removed from the list.

The following year I added a strangely small number of books: just 24. Hypothetically that would’ve been a manageable number to actually read over the course of the year, but it’s always been more about collecting the titles for me. All but two of those 24 books–A Little Life and Angela’s Ashes–were unfamiliar to present-day me, so it was easy to cull them.

No patterns to speak of in 2016, which tells you just as much about that year’s version of me. I was incredibly busy with school and working multiple jobs and juggling friends, so I didn’t exactly have time to be interested in any particular topics. I did still read, mostly over the summer, but there was no defining aspiration that guided my TBR.

I added one book to the TBR in January 2017, and then I seem to have either abandoned Goodreads entirely or simply put my habit of collecting titles on hiatus until September when I jumped back into it briefly. Only 10 books made the list in the whole year, and they’re a strange mix of classics (like Frankenstein), memoirs, and a nonfiction tech bro pseudo-psychological manifesto.

Much of 2017 was spent traveling, and my choice in books was primarily dictated by whatever the hostel’s take-one-leave-one shelf had in stock. I read to pass time, not because there was anything specific I was dying to read.

This year I’ve added 45 books, mainly memoirs. I love reading memoirs, including the obscure ones that aren’t bestsellers. My 2018 TBR additions feel authentic, and I’m actively excited to read every single title on there.

Culling my want-to-read list was a moderately grueling process, but it wasn’t just about reducing excess books. It was about releasing the feeling of being beholden to my past selves.

I no longer care about name-dropping books into conversations like 2013 me did. I read diversely because I think it’s important, not because I agree with 2014 me that I’m more intellectual for it. I’m nowhere near as captivated by poetry collections as 2015 me.

I don’t owe anything to my 17-year-old self who truly though that reading Cormac McCarthy would make me cooler or to my 19-year-old self who perversely yearned for a broken heart to write angsty poetry about.

What we read is a reflection of who we are and who we want to be. And these days, I’m way more committed to being authentic, genuine, and thoughtful about those things in the present, rather than attempting to relive the past.