WOTM: An Interview With @somethings_okay

28 FEBRUARY 2021

The Writer of the Month Project is a revised segment of The Plain Poets that looks into what makes a writer, be it their craft or ideas. At the end of every month, we will be conducting an interview with a selected writer, and we’ll be diving into their muses, their writing history and much more.

For our third Writer of the Month, the community nominated @somethings_okay on Instagram. Upon first glance, her account feels like a massive comfort; imagine the smell of petrichor and a warm cup of tea. Though her account bears no human identity via a name, I can tell that her work exudes distinct healing energy. That - as her profile name says it - “it’s okay”.

It is no wonder that her writing process is an interesting one. It usually starts off with a song, a word, or a line. Those are her three main creative triggers, and the whole story/concept is immediately planted into her head. To preserve the same feel and tone, she prefers completing the whole piece in one go; one sitting. In terms of the format, it’s all about listening to the same song over and over. It’s like watching a flower bloom in a time-lapse, but for her, it’s about how her lines unravel to make the end product. No matter how her piece is structured, it’s natural to her.

On that note, she reveals that she can spend up to eight hours creating (writing her pieces) per day, though the writer’s block is inevitable. When asked about her source of motivation, she claims that it is a discipline that needs to be maintained. Similarly to our previous Writer of the Month, our mysterious writer sees a lot of writing opportunities in her life. “I don’t know, writing is not something I see as separate as me,” she tells me, “I think there’s just so many cool things to talk about and I don’t know how you wouldn’t want to talk about them.”

For her inspirations, most of her pieces are real-life experiences. If not, she rewrites real-life scenarios that have the potential to go differently (think of Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch). As a writer with a distinct online audience, she values honesty and tries to avoid faking anything within her work. In her eyes, the idea of having someone’s work not match their real-life experiences unsettles her a little. As a writer who has had her own fair share of false realities in her poems, it is a refreshing perspective to digest.

What has surprised me, though, is the fact that she has never read a poetry book. Judging by her work, I honestly would’ve thought she was well-read in poetry, but actually, her biggest inspirations come from her friends and the writing community on Instagram. But that doesn’t mean her inspirations stop there. Her location in the world is another factor, and so are the mundane interactions she experiences on the go. In terms of her favourite things to write, the writer tells me that it’s all in the conversations, the human interactions. Or the small things people wouldn’t bother to think twice about. In a way, her craft targets the concept of connection, and its significance in life. She also loves to weave stories about the place she’s lived all her life.

Unfortunately, she cannot place a finger on the specific emotions that come out in her work. Most of the time, she channels her inner English teacher and analyses it from a different point of view. But then again, considering how her work comprises love poems and existential crises, it could be a sense of confusion; yearning, loneliness and hope.

This is my favourite part of the interview - knowing more about their creative backgrounds. The writer confesses that her writing is 7 years in the making, and a constant cycle of connecting random ideas into her phone. At first, they were all listless, out-of-context things from scenarios and fleeting thoughts, but it grew into something more when she found the connecting link between these miscellaneous notes. As of now, her ideas are ice, running away and religion.

Beating writer’s block! Here’s what she has to say:

“In terms of free writing, where there's no rules to follow and it’s just you, I don’t really believe in writer's block. If you have nothing to say, don’t say anything. I do find there are moments where I want to create and it doesn’t feel right, but then I just use a different medium, painting, photography, video, some things just weren’t meant for words and you can’t force it, that’s just how it is. However I do think all writers should accept that their ‘style’ is ever-changing, and when you resist that is when you stop growing. You just have to keep going really. I bet when you have writer’s block if someone told you you can’t write, you would write out of spite, I think about that a lot.”

So to all the writers out there: just get angry and let it rip.

(I mean I do that a lot, and can I say how absolutely cathartic that can be? Highly recommend it)

To conclude the interview, we had to know the story behind her username. It’s simple - there are two parts of the story:

Part One: She always hated how people would always say that everything is going to be okay when it’s not literally okay. To her, the phrase always feels like it was spoken not out of courtesy or comfort, but out of spite. “if everything was okay you wouldn’t be upset,” she says, “and just because things will be fine in the future doesn’t make them fine now. So in that way, it’s almost out of spite.”

Part Two: Even when everything is falling apart, there will always be something; a moment that will reassure you that everything is going to be alright. No matter what it is - be it seeing the moon tonight - you’ll have to find that very something in order to ground yourself back to Earth. You just have to start somewhere, even if it isn’t what you wanted.

Someone said that the works of this account (@somethings_okay) feels like an adventure, and I couldn’t agree more. That is why her works are so good.

Here at The Plain Poets, we aim to identify these unique poets and writers and to put them on a pedestal via a platform everyone can support them. You may check out our Instagram page here.