When Art Is Miracles

let me tell you my writerly miracles/let you tell me yours

A reminder: REASONS FOR LIVING with Esmé Weijun Wang is a newsletter that comes out every other week, and is free, featuring a guest essay, poem, piece of visual art, and journal prompt. These things all hang together in a singular edition. On the days when REASONS FOR LIVING is not sharing those things,  I share a paywalled personal essay. This is for a number of reasons: some of my personal essays are very personal, and I like the idea of a bit of protection; also, it was promised near the beginning of the year that paying subscribers would receive a paywalled personal essay every other week, and I am trying to keep that promise. Paying members also get to participate in my monthly Fireside Chats, which explore some aspect of creativity and life.

If this is the first time you’re encountering my newsletter, I have many un-paywalled essays that are available—including all of the free REASONS FOR LIVING essays—which can give you a sense of my writing. Additionally: if you are in a financial bind and cannot afford the $7/month fee for my paid Substack, please DM me with your email address and I’ll comp you a paid subscription, no questions asked. However, please understand that this Substack provides much of my income. I trust you to decide for yourself what is right for you.

In August I told myself that if I didn’t get into Yaddo for the winter session, I would go to Taiwan. I received the rejection letter in October and right away began to discuss plans to leave.

I arrived this past Monday in my parents’ Guangdu house near Taipei, which is made of pale wood and exudes peace—all of the wide windows look out over the river, where the sunset glows for thirty minutes every evening before sinking into night—and have thus far lived a relatively monkish experience. I wake up, eat breakfast, dive into writing, nap, write some more, lunch, write, nap, dinner. Sometimes the elements of these days are in a different order, but essentially, my schedule is down to the basics, with some interludes for work that makes money (the Academy, my mentorships, freelance work) and occasional movie dates with my mother, who loves movies; we’ve watched Silence and Arrival in the living room since I’ve gotten here.

The great hope is to finish my third book and second novel, Soft Creatures*, by the end of the year so that Riverhead can hopefully publish it in 2026. So far, it’s been five years since I began the book, which is also approximately how long The Border of Paradise took to write and revise. I’ve said many times that this is the book I’ve had the most difficulty writing and the book that I pray will be the best one I’ve yet written. It’s nearly literally given me a nervous breakdown. So many times, I’ve asked myself why the hell I’ve set myself this challenge that feels so impossible; still, it continues to call to be written. I’ve gotten feedback from my editor; I continue to revise it. Slowly, slowly, it’s turning into a manuscript that comes closer and closer to its final version.

Sometimes, sitting in front of my laptop, I happen across a miracle. In the last several drafts, my editor and trusted readers have marked up my use of the phrase “ickle durl” in one character’s first, flirty email to the protagonist. What is this? my editor asked. And it had been so long that I’d forgotten; it was something that I picked up and put in my magpie nest over a decade ago, but I couldn’t remember where it came from.