As a member of the London literati, Wednesday was the highlight of my year, the London Library’s Summer Party. Where else can you drink bad wine and sweat profusely in an unventilated room before being kicked out at the ungodly time of… 8:45 p.m.?
I had a lot of fun and find the party a nice way for me to mark the progress I’ve made in the last year. Maybe I don’t have a book deal, and in its absence, I’m trying to game Curtis Brown Creative’s monthly writing competition to prove that I’ve still got it1 like when Jessie J entered that singing competition in China, but I have friends that I didn’t a year ago, and even if my publishing status hasn’t changed, I have - because, and get ready for this, I am now comfortable speaking about my literary ambitions in public.
I think there’s a concern among those who know me that I perennially sell myself short, and not because I have a chic penchant for discretion and would never want to make anyone feel uncomfortable with the sheer scale of my achievements, but because I don’t think I’ve achieved anything.
The experience of one’s friends being bigger champions of your work than you lies at a strange midpoint between flattery and embarrassment. It’s lovely to feel supported, but in my case, the embarrassment came not from my not wanting to appear sincere, but because I couldn’t do it for myself.
When I was a teenager I developed a speech impediment that absolutely tortured me. I would know what I wanted to say, but my tongue would latch itself to the roof of my mouth, and as a beat’s delay in responding turned into several torturous seconds, the sting of humiliation would soon give way to my questioning why I had even bothered to try.
Soon after, my ability to sustain eye contact vanished, and I promptly swapped the school playground for the library at breaks. That I started writing during this time cannot be dismissed as a coincidence - I found a new way to articulate my thoughts and feelings, and, should it become a profession, it was one that accepted, nay, welcomed insularity. After all, wasn’t Marcel Proust essentially a hermit, living nocturnally and lining his walls with cork to reduce the noise from outside? And wasn’t Proust read and beloved by homosexuals like Yves Saint Laurent? Who could take issue with such a fate?
Me - obviously.
It’s hard to describe how thick the dread that floods through your veins is when you realise that you cannot say what you want to, be who you wish to be, or rather, be the person you wish to be perceived as. In an attempt to fix this, I would shut myself in my room and give myself elocution lessons by way of watching interviews with Darcey Bussell and Emma Watson2 and imitating them to the best of my ability.
I trained myself to stare at the end of a person’s nose so make it look like I was making eye contact, before gaining the bravery required to look further up. I rehearsed what I wanted to say over and over again, flattening out the creases and hitches of my speech until it resumed a degree of regularity.
Eventually, my stammer vanished, but my penchant for rehearsing remained. I told myself that it was just an extension of being a very considered person, of wanting to get the anecdote right, and be the best possible version of myself, but I never challenged the idea that there was something wrong with how I spoke, or changed the way I operated when I was trying to correct a speech impediment…for twelve whole years.
Things only started to change recently. Compounded by watching the second season of The Rehearsal, it struck me how out of hand my rehearsing had gotten when I was giving a party and realised that my preparation hadn’t properly accounted for my friend’s behaviours when they struck up conversations with people I didn’t expect them to. That I was keenly aware it didn’t matter, and that everyone was having a nice time regardless, only made the feeling of failure worse.
In the televisual masterpiece, Interview with the Vampire, Louis asks, “Are we the sum of our worst moments?”
I think the answer is yes and no.
As I’m writing this, it’s 28 degrees and I’m wearing a long navy dress3, a deep burgundy lipstick, and the black dye is slowly fading from my hair. I refer to Interview with the Vampire as a televisual masterpiece - obviously, I was a depressed teenager, but is that any reason to become hemmed in by my own insecurities and indulgences?
On the other hand, what if you rehearse only brings distance to who you are and what you want to say until someone comes along and expects you to be someone else entirely4?
As much as I would like to be Mary in Party Girl, the only parties I organise are means to hold a surprise Papal Conclave or burn a friend in a Wicker Man. I know you think I’m probably this really chic, beautiful, alluring, devil-may-care, come-hither temptress with a lust for life and a God-given talent for literature, and maybe I am, but I’m also someone who just this Wednesday spoke so passionately about Nicolas Fouquet that I spilled wine all over my dress. I don’t flounce, but I aspire to. I am not immutable and my present circumstances will not stay this way forever.
At the same time, I think there’s a danger in leaning into the stereotypes of what you think you should and shouldn’t be. Humans make sense of the world by putting everything into categories, but why would you want to limit who you are and all you could be for the sake of convenience? I like Marcel Proust the writer, but Marcel Proust the person sounds like a fucking loser.
The thing that has genuinely transformed my ability to be articulate is just telling myself I’m articulate, and I’m certain that by the time the next Summer Party rolls around, I will be even more flouncy and garrulous. I would also like a book deal because even if you win a £50 voucher, there’s something deeply unchic about taking part in writing competitions on Bluesky.
I was speaking to a friend about the dangers of confining one’s identity to a type, and we got onto the Myers-Briggs test. When I was sixteen and had a stammer, I did the test on a PHSE day at school (never let it be said those weren’t a profound waste of time) and got INTJ, which the wholly legimitate website claimed was a personality type I shared with Michelle Obama and Gandalf.
This week, I did the test again and got ENFJ. Maybe that’s something to celebrate, but I’m the type of person who's really quite above knowing if it is.
Thanks so much for reading! This piece is dedicated to my pals and their endless indulgence.
If you enjoyed my work, please consider subscribing or sharing with a link - both really help.
L x
July’s runner-up and the recipient of a £50 discount, thank you very much
To this day, my impressions of both remain rather good
I feel I should mention that I’ve spent sufficient time on the continent so as not to overheat and not a bead of sweat is currently present on my person
This is a reference to something pretty major that happened to me on my publishing journey, but I’m trying to allude to it in the vaguest possible terms so I don’t get in trouble
I was convinced by you as a budding novelist when I met you at the Library drinks! I agree that we must strive not to hem ourselves in with rigid notions.