I’ve said before that writing Diwa & Kaffi did a number on me mentally and emotionally, but not because it was a hard book to write. On the contrary, it was an immensely pleasurable book to write, even despite the occasional pitfalls and issues I had with it over the couple of years I worked on it. So what happened?
What happened was that I wrote a book where I dialed it back.
My writing, even my juvenilia, has always had that element of emotions at full volume, much like my life for years. It wasn’t real or important unless I was feeling it fully, intensely and completely. It’s just the way my brain had been wired all this time. You can definitely see it in the Bridgetown Trilogy, and even in Meet the Lidwells! and In My Blue World, though in a more muted way.
It was while I was working on Diwa & Kaffi that I realized that not only do I not have to write in that style, I most definitely do not have to live my life that way, either. And that’s what I did during the pandemic while I was unemployed: I dialed it back. It took a long time and I had to do it in increments, but the more I did it, the more I knew this was the right thing to do. The healthier thing to do, physically and emotionally.
In doing this, I allowed myself to make life choices without the overwhelming feeling of yes, but is this what you really want to do? doubt hanging over my head at every moment. I learned that was the main culprit: self-doubt. Not exactly crippling, but definitely strong enough to make me constantly second-guess myself when it came to life decisions. I’d always trusted myself once I took the plunge in whatever decision I made, but it was that initial yes, but what if that was so fucking hard to get past. And to compensate for that, I’d prove I was right by resonating with the decision: fully, intensely and completely.
I started seeing that this was not only unhealthy, but this most definitely was not how most people dealt with this sort of thing. I was constantly jealous of others who could make life-altering decisions with just a ‘yeah, this is what I want’ without dwelling on the decision for years on end and hyper-focusing on the possible outcomes. Why couldn’t I be that way?
Turns out I can. All I had to do was dial it back.
That was part of the reason I wrote Diwa & Kaffi in the first place: I wanted to see if I could write something calm and low-stakes yet still about life-changing decisions. A story that I felt just as strongly about as my other works, but without that unhealthy intensity. That novel was me proving to myself that I didn’t have to live my life dialed up to eleven every waking moment. It was about trusting myself, even if I didn’t know the outcome. And once I finished it, I knew I’d made the right decision.
It scared the shit out of me, finally knowing that I could change, that I could be this person I needed to be with a much calmer demeanor. But the best part? That self-doubt was nowhere to be seen. Sure, sometimes the are you sure? voice is still there, but it’s not crippling. It’s merely reminding me to be smart about my choices, that’s all. I trust myself a hell of a lot more now. Sometimes life just…is. It doesn’t always have to be a Fully and Completely moment every time. And that’s just fine.
I’m sure MU4 will still be intense, as that’s what that universe is all about. And I think my stories going forward will have a somewhat more realistic take on high-stakes issues and intensity, rather than writing another dialed-to-eleven manuscript. Will it change my style any? Who knows. If it does, it does. And that’s just fine too.
