Back Again, Again

Writing in 2026? I don't know...

I hadn’t written anything for a few years when I found myself almost out of money. Running low on cash is nothing new for me, but now I found myself in Poland without a work permit and with very few options for making a living. Forced to rely on online freelance work to get by, I spent my days tutoring kids in English.

Reluctantly, an idea formed inside my mind. I could start writing again. After all, I’d earned my keep by putting words on the page for so many years. Would it be really so hard to go back, even on a part-time basis?

I’d already burned all my creative energies on the bonfire of commercialism long ago. I couldn’t write a word. But I soon discovered I was still on the books of a copywriting agency, able to pick up assignments at the drop of a hat. To my shame, the prospect of a little money was enough to ignite the fires of writing once again.

For a few months, I spent my evenings doing the most soulless writing work imaginable. Endless articles about cars, perfectly optimized for Google’s benefit. I churned out hundreds and they paid me handsomely, throwing in massive bonuses for work completed en masse. I paid off some debts and took my girlfriend out for a nice dinner. Then the company promptly shut down, leaving me drifting again.

For the second time in my life, I vowed never to write again. I lowered the price of my classes and took a few new students.

A few months later, Warsaw lay in the grip of a cold, determined winter. Snow fell endlessly and the temperatures fell day after day, like a dying bird plummeting from among the clouds. Stuck inside the house with nothing to do and nowhere to go, my girlfriend began to ponder the future.

“Don’t you want to do anything with your life?” she asked me.

I was irritated. “I tutor. I’m helping people.”

“But is that really all there is for you?”

I shrugged. Perhaps I could have argued that tutoring a language was one of the noblest pursuits known to humanity. Unlocking new worlds, building the foundations of communication, and other such high ideals. It sounded good, but somehow I didn’t believe it.

I walked the streets, pondering the idea of writing seriously again. After a while, I boarded a city tram. It’s easy to feel alienated on a tram in the winter. The way it rattles shakes you out of your comfort zone, seems to separate you from something important inside yourself. The half understood snatches of conversation reminded me of the distance between myself and my fellow man. Then there was the tinny voice belting out “następny przystanek…” every few minutes, like a mysterious curse.

It’s almost a custom to feel alienated on a tram. A journey by bus has the air of the mundane and train travel brings the promise of new lands, glorious trips with friends. A tram, rattling by bakeries, hairdressers, and swarms of blank-faced commuters could remind anyone of Sartre in Paris, Camus in Algiers

I couldn’t write again. Not in this place, or this time. I only spoke the basics of the language, had no friends, no roots in this country. Those esteemed French gentlemen might have written from a place on the outside, but I certainly couldn’t.

When I returned, still undecided, my girlfriend appealed to my sense of pride. “You were good at writing!”

No. I don’t think I was.

“But you won a prize for your creative writing! People paid a lot of money for your articles.”

Every now and then, maybe. But it was never enough.

Once upon a time, as a child, I had written a book, a neat little story about a knight fighting a dragon on an island. Later, I wrote a story for a class at school and the teacher called me back after class to ask if I had really written or if I had copied it. Whatever annoyance I had felt at the accusation had been overshadowed by the sheer pride of having caused such a doubt.

As an adult, I discovered that simply emailing an editor with an idea or an article was often enough to get paid. I had a column in a trade magazine that ran for years. I wrote short stories, history articles, sports coverage, everything I could.

But those days were long gone. I had sacrificed my love of writing at the temple of money. In my early twenties, I spent a few years writing anything that could help me pay the rent. I had spent those years writing ad copy, polluting the world with garbage, corrupting my writing for a pittance.

But still, I tried.

As the snow fell ceaselessly, I started writing. A new place brings new ideas, and there was a lot to write about in Poland. I began writing about the things that interested me in Warsaw; a library, a park, a Metro station.

Then, I wrote an article about Wawer, a forested suburb of the city. I sent it to a small magazine and they bought it almost immediately. I was back. And I’d written something real, something that even had some pleasant qualities and educational value.

After the first commission came the second and the third. What had I been waiting for all these years? It was much easier than I remembered. I researched new publications, spending hours crafting submissions and pitches, sending out several pieces of work every day.

But a week went by without any success. Then another two. Nothing. Spring came and my email inbox remained empty, taunting me. Occasionally, a new message arrived and my heart leaped. Then I would sink into despair again, seeing that the interruption was only a marketing email which had slipped past the spam filter.

I scoured Reddit, Facebook, any social media I could find in search of writers’ groups. They painted a grim picture. Even the most seasoned of freelancers were leaving the industry forever, powerless in the face of the AI ocean, ubiquitous funding cuts, a culture where good writing no longer matters.

Writing was dead, it seemed. Inside and outside, there was no place left for beautiful words. I questioned whether I had ever really loved writing. Even pushing aside all thoughts of money and career, I found myself unable to write anything, incapable of putting words on the page. Again, it was time to forget I had ever been a writer.

The weather turned and the snow thawed. I walked in the forests, finally uncovered by their snowy veil. The Polish woods are dense, seemingly endless, packed with boar and a hundred other wild creatures. When I was a teen, this sort of place would have inspired me to write some high fantasy story. Of course, it would have been terrible, derivative and pretentious. But it was a way of trying to communicate, trying to speak to the world.

Now, in my thirties, that mysterious energy had been wrung out of me. I couldn’t bring myself to create worlds or craft characters anymore. But still, as sure as the green shoots of spring would soon be pushing their way out of the soil, something was growing inside me. I wanted to describe this moment in the forest. I wanted to explain something about what it was like to be me, to be a person in this moment. Never mind the money, or the fame, or the pollution of the craft. One way or another, I wanted to write something.

So I went home, turned on my computer, opened a new document. The cursor flashed on the page like a challenge from an old enemy. And in the end, I wrote this an maybe…someone read it.