Self-doubt and ambition
Self-doubt and ambition
On how to hold them both in healthy balance as a writer + readings on how we see the world and tell its stories.
However you found your way here, welcome! I’m Emily, and I write letters about how we seek and tell stories to make sense of a changing world and our place in it.
When I was in my early twenties, I interned at a daily in London and did something—or rather, didn’t do something—I’ve always kind of regretted.
I had read a really well-told longform feature about human rights violations at one of Apple’s contractors by one of the paper’s staff writers, and when he came by the Legal news desk, which I had opted to be assigned to at the time (I had studied law at university), we struck up a brief conversation when I told him how much I liked the piece and shared my own thoughts about it. He seemed to appreciate my perspective and we got around to talking about my internship and the kind of writing I hoped to do in the future. Before he left, he said that I should send him some writing samples, which he would be happy to take a look at. He didn’t say to what end, but I hoped it might mean something I almost didn’t dare imagine—that I would get a byline at the paper sooner rather than later.
But I never did share my writing with him, nor seek him out again—not when I was still at the paper, and not after.
I think I thought that my work wasn’t strong enough yet, that I was still so far from where I wanted to be—no matter that I, being a terrible perfectionist, was holding myself to the standards of the writers I thought to be “the greats”. I think I kept thinking that I would reach out when I felt finally ready, and then of course time went on and on and if I did ever come close to feeling ready, then it also felt like I had already left it too long to pick things up again. Who would remember? It had probably just been an offhand remark on his part. It wouldn’t have changed anything substantially. That was what I told myself.