Why We Should Keep Writing, Even When It Hurts

by Charmaine Li

I am still relatively new to the world of freelance writing, but I am already seeing a pattern: the pieces of mine that tend to do well are pieces where I have been vulnerable. For example, I’ve written about forgetting my mother tongue, living with OCD, and being a late bloomer to dating.

I didn’t expect this as a nerdy ten-year-old who wanted to be a writer when she grew up. Back then, I saw writers as having the best jobs in the world, jobs where they could create fantastical worlds and go on adventures with wizards and dragons.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that there is definitely more to writing than wizards and dragons. Even J.K. Rowling has stated that the thematic motivation behind the Harry Potter series is death.

Some stories have yet to be told

Freelance writing has proved more emotionally tiring than expected. Case in point: I recently piqued the interest of an editor for a major publication and submitted an article that detailed my experience with OCD, only to have it rejected.

Having put 110% into something, only to be rejected – while revealing very personal details to an editor I’d never met in person – was a massive blow. But after this, I felt even more compelled to write about mental health. Despite recent progress in the de-stigmatization of mental health issues, OCD remains poorly understood and is still used as a playful adjective and the butt of jokes.

I took that rejection as further reason to be proactive. I found a Medium publication called Invisible Illness that was willing to publish a lot of my work. Subsequently, I have been working on maximizing my output of OCD-related stories on Medium.

Most recently, I came across a Twitter thread where OCD Action, a U.K.-based charity dedicated to spreading OCD awareness, called out a Wall Street Journal op-ed for claiming that OCD was somehow beneficial to fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. Many Twitter users with OCD took great offense to this article, which was published by a highly-respected, mainstream media outlet and written by a psychiatrist to boot. I was angry too, but I also saw an opportunity and sat down to pen my own op-ed.

I quickly published my rebuttal on Invisible Illness and shared it back to the Twitter thread. It was met with applause by the same OCD community. I am not sure how many people ended up reading my piece, but from the handful of responses I got, I still felt like I accomplished something. 

Because OCD is such an under-represented mental health issue in the current zeitgeist, I understand who I’m writing for. I’m writing for the person who is undiagnosed and distressed, searching the Internet alone at night for an answer. I was this person once, Googling for any resource that could explain my intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviours. And while I’m not a psychiatrist, I do hope that by telling the story of my experience, I can help another Googler feel less alone and point them in the right direction.

Telling stories as a vulnerable, under-represented author

In addition to mental health, another topic I have felt compelled to write about is my experience as a member of under-represented communities. (By under-represented, I mean groups that are less visible in the Western literary sphere – writers of color, writers with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ writers to name a few.)

I have published with a number of literary journals, so I am no stranger to the vulnerability often required of literary fiction and poetry. But I had a dramatically different experience when I decided to write a short story set during the 2019 Hong Kong pro-democracy protests.

As a descendent of Hong Kong immigrants, I felt strongly compelled to write this story and bring awareness of Hong Kong’s relevance to the West. But the research involved was emotionally intense. I studied Hong Kong’s history: as a symbol of humiliation during the Opium Wars, as a site of World War II violence, and today, as a fiercely independent city fighting against authoritarianism. This was all quite heavy stuff. Even conversations with my contemporaries (family members and online) got stressful. 

I had to take many breaks throughout the project. I even debated whether to continue it at one point. But I did, and my first workshop reacted very well to it.

I don’t think people in well-represented communities understand how big a deal it is to see a story that reflects you. But it is for the rest of us, who didn’t grow up with stories of people who looked like us, with our surnames and family dynamics.

So, when I read about a child of immigrants struggling against their traditionalist family, or about Asians suffering xenophobia associated with Covid-19, or when I read something that acknowledges the seriousness of Hong Kong’s situation – even if these stories weren’t written by me, somehow I feel I did write them. And that by other people reading them, I am heard.

Of course, there is room for pure escapism. But even the most outlandish, escapist narratives can be read politically (just look at accusations of gratuitous misogyny and racism in Game of Thrones). And they should be. Because storytelling has power – the power to challenge perspectives, to incite sadness, empowerment, grief and other emotions. As writers, we are uniquely equipped to wield this power.

And this is why I get up to write every day. I write about my struggles with OCD, about the oddities and triumphs of being bi-cultural, even about the embarrassing parts of my love life. Because someone out there needs it.