Just Seeing What Happens

On the Two of Swords, fiction vs. newsletter, and a scene from Silicon Valley.

I am trying something new where I pull a tarot card and write about it freely for an hour. Then, a week later, I edit it, after the message has digested.

I.

Earlier this year, I was in a group tarot session in which, as I was shuffling my deck, a stray card fell out. ‘Oh, a jumper,’ said the kindly Virgo next to me. She was in her 50s and had a gentle Yorkshire accent; I could never imagine it shouting or snapping. She was the most guarded person in the group, least willing to part with any kind of biographical info – somewhat necessary in a tarot group, which is not dissimilar to AA or group therapy. I was enchanted with her air of competence. When the mosquitos came for us she was the one with lemon essential oil and a clicker for quick mosquito bite relief, and shared them willingly. She was the most concerned about the disappearance of the science journalist Michael Mosley, who was last seen on a Greek island not far from where we were gathered.

I had never heard of him before, but from what I understood pre-Googling, he was a more legit version of Dr. Oz or Deepak Chopra, the kind of TV doctors whose books my mother had in the house; the reason a cold press juicer appeared on the kitchen island one morning, or why frozen grapes became a household snack for a couple of weeks. All the women in the group, who were in their 40s and 50s, had listened to his radio show on the BBC and were invested in his disappearance. They kept an eye on live updates and stopped the class to announce if there was any significant news.

What was he thinking, going out for a walk in this heat? One person offered. He’s an Aries, hot-headed. Maybe there was an argument and he stormed off… I’ve come to understand that these are the kind of statements one makes when they know the worst is coming, and their resolve to hope for the best has cracked.

Michael Moseley had meant a lot to these women, and after listening to an old episode of his podcast, I can see why. The podcast’s premise is him giving one small, simple tip for better health and well-being. He makes wellness seem easy and achievable. He talks to experts who know the stats, and normal people who confirm the stats work. Episodes range from the obvious (home cooking, breathing) to surprising (reheat pasta, walk backwards). They remind me a bit of the gentle educational children’s TV shows I watch with my nephews – the compromise my sister makes when the kids are kicking and screaming for Paw Patrol or Spiderman. In these shows the problems are big but the solutions are actually way easier than imagined. There is always time and opportunity to make things better, just like the big wise panda says.

I don’t say this to disparage the podcast or their interest in it. Having listened to a few episodes myself (and done some backwards walking as suggested), I rate it highly. My point is that it is really harrowing when someone with whom you have have a parasocial relationship is no longer accessible. Especially when that person made the mundane stress of daily life seem a bit more manageable. Why should children be the only ones reassured that there is always time and opportunity to make things better?

Oh, a jumper!

II.

While consulting the tarot for help on what to write about in this newsletter, the Knight of Wands popped out while shuffling. That’s the second time a Wands card has done that to me this week. It tracks: wands are enthusiastic, energetic cards, like Fire signs in astrology. Interruptors.

The card I actually pulled was the Two of Swords, which could not be more different. Here is a woman blindfolded, holding two swords pointing in different directions; two paths. The crescent moon looks like it’s going to bite her. The fact she (he?) is dressed in all white makes me think she is in some sort of institution, a mental asylum. Maybe she is marooned on this island and the swords present her only two options of escape. It’s giving Scylla and Charybdis. 

The Knight of Wands, in contrast, charges forward. Enthusiasm without direction, is one interpretation I’ve read. This Knight has momentum – inconceivable to Ms Two of Swords. But at least she’s safe on the island, physically and emotionally (out of water). She has to leave, though, and she knows it.

The Two of Swords gets to the heart of an issue I have been debating for a while now: Is writing on Substack detracting from my efforts to write a second novel? Time and energy-wise, yes, but also, is it ensnaring me back into my natural inclination to seek validation from others and people please like it’s an Olympic sport?

And on the other hand / the other sword: Will anybody even read my second novel if I don’t keep up some sort of online presence as a writer? Will anybody read my first?

III.

The solution is simple, really: do both. Limit the amount of time I spend writing Substack posts to one hour, one hour in two weeks – that’s nothing; just redirect the time I spend doomscrolling to this.

I have tried. But I struggle to write Substack posts in a non-chaotic way. It will take me hours if not days. And then when the stats don’t match the effort, I get discouraged. Even though I know that stats never, ever match effort, unless you’re like, Taylor Swift. But even she seems to constantly doubt that.

The time-consuming part of writing this newsletter always comes down to making sure that every bold, potentially controversial statement has 12 addendums explaining the exceptions to my claim, or counter-arguments, so nobody can criticise or make a fool of me. I shift uncomfortably under the eye of the most ruthless, ungenerous imaginary reader, who does not exist, and will never exist, because the real life version could never be as cutting as the critic in my head, who knows exactly what buttons to push.

What I’ve come to love about writing fiction that any unsavoury statement can be blamed on the character rather than the author.¹ Fiction is, after all, the author’s way of working through unsavoury thoughts – it is for this author, at least. There is a part in Silicon Valley where two friends, Dinesh and Guilfoyle, are talking shit about their other friend, Richard, but they can’t do it without first saying: ‘Richard is a great guy, but…’ or ‘He’s a brilliant coder, but…’ So, to be more efficient, they compress these cushioning statements into the acronym RIGBY (‘Richard is great, but you-know…’).

That’s the luxury of fiction – no RIGBYs! Just straight to the story without trying to control people’s judgments or arguments. (90% of my editing is de-worming this kind of thing.) When I write Substack newsletters, in contrast, the RIGBY is lurking behind every semi-colon, comma, and em-dash. Believe me, I insist, I have thought this through. And the medium kind of demands it, if you are writing an essay. Essays are arguments, after all.

But are these posts essays? I’m not sure. No, actually, they are not, because that shit takes time, and I am short on time. I think I’m also someone who really needs an editor when I write an essay, otherwise I will talk in circles and ricochet between sides, contradicting myself constantly because I can’t just understand all sides from a distance – I need to believe them in order to understand them. Like method acting but not cool or productive in any discernable way. I am deeply impressed by any writer who can write essays alone, but I know it’s not me.

IV.

So I think what these cards – the Two of Swords interrupted by the Knight of Wands – is saying is maybe just put down the swords, take off the blindfold, and face the sea. Accept that I have no idea how to do something correctly, but charge forward anyway, or at the very least, just look forward. Just see what happens.

Links:

• My friend KO Humphreys wrote this great piece about the murky borders of performance, vis-à-vis Lucy Liyou and the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. A quote I love: ‘What happens when the lip sync skips, and the words don’t quite line up with the motions, when we teeter on the brink of failure? When the sand beneath your feet isn’t what was promised, when the stage we won doesn’t make us safe?’

• My novel, Ghost Chilli, is available in the UK now, and will be available in the US in July 2025.

1. Yet another reason I hate the whole ‘is this novel based on real life?’ question. Please, if you are going to dissect the author, at least make sure she’s dead first.