Thoughts on… Lucent Dreaming [by Jannat Ahmed]

At the end of last year, our writers and funders received an email from me outlining a new publication timeline. It followed a long period of sporadic communication and delays. I referenced my mental ill health, exacerbated by grief and loss. I was grateful for the kind messages in response, all supportive and understanding. At the time, writing things out and communicating them relieved so much of the pressure I was experiencing, so here I am again.

This year has its own personal challenges, and the biggest among them is how to move forward and take care as I go – that’s why I’m writing again, this time more openly. I want to express my thoughts, and see what possibilities arise as I explore. I know I would like to refresh Lucent Dreaming, but there are some things to unstick first.

So, the thing about starting a business, or having any kind of dream you wish to make reality, is knowing what you actually want, and at what cost that comes. If you’ve read The Alchemist, you may remember the scene between the protagonist and the crystal merchant:

‘”[…] If we serve tea in crystal, the shop is going to expand. And then I’ll have to change my way of life.”

“Well, isn’t that good?”

“I’m already used to the way things are. Before you came, I was thinking about how much time I had wasted in the same place […]. It made me very depressed. Now, I can see that it hasn’t been too bad. The shop is exactly the size I always wanted it to be. I don’t want to change anything, because I don’t know how to deal with change. I’m used to the way I am.”‘ (Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist)

Every time I think on this scene I see myself and my own resistance.

It took many years for me to make the decision that we should move from magazines to books. With the magazine, I wanted to platform as many people as possible. I realised that has its limits; so, I decided with books I wanted to reach as many readers as possible. It’s only from within the industry that I can see I’ve entered a bit of a rigged market. But that’s a story for another day. Point being, now I better understand this landscape, where do I go from here?

What I’m contending with now is more personal. My question is how to actually want Lucent to succeed. Up until now, I’ve wanted Lucent to stay small. I’ve wanted it to stay small because Lucent has been a second home for me when my internal life has been chaotic. I’ve found peace in it being personal. As we’ve grown though, I’ve come to resent certain things, like scrutiny and criticism from careless sources, to people expecting publication deals. I’ve resented the politics, big and small. I’ve resented being the site where those politics play out. I resent being so overwhelmed by it all. I’ve resented making myself quiet or hidden to escape those discomforts. But I know the more open and available we are, the more visible I am, the bigger we get, the more that will happen. This is the true cost of the dream.

Even as I’m writing, I notice I also resent the presence of these resentments because I have so much else to be grateful for. These feelings are small in the grand scheme of things. It’s an immense privilege to have been able to achieve any of this the way that I have. Gratitude for dream-achieving is baked in to our very beginnings. At Lucent’s launch in 2018, my introductory speech was all about dreams. This extract is from the transcript:

‘You’ve heard of the phrase one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Right? Well, one person’s life is another person’s dream. You live your life unknowingly living the dreams of countless other people. Being a teacher, working for radio, or the Special Collections department of a library […] Having a family. Going vegan. Going to Scotland – that’s my dream, by the way.* At least one person has to come to this event thinking Wow, she’s living her dream about me, and I think it’s true, but none of it happened all at once. […] Whatever you think of your own life, whatever you think you don’t have, you’re doing things that other people have only ever dreamed of doing. Remember that while you have the energy and supportive people around you to help if things don’t work out. I want you to leave this event knowing you probably already have enough to make it to your next dream.’

Despite the fact this is how I see the world and my place in it, the resentment is present because I didn’t necessarily expect or understand the kinds of problems that would come with being a publicly funded ‘traditional’ book publisher. But like any relationship, we have to accept the bad with the good.

I guess my struggle is one of alignment. My friends tell me that some of those resentments I have are part of success, but not all of them have to be. And that is true. I know, for example, that I’ve made myself small because I’ve been afraid of scrutiny and criticism. (Others who struggle with toxic shame or ADHD might relate to this: criticism can activate some of the most painful parts of us. I did not have the language for this before so I did not know how to make sense of it. Although I now see the shame for what it is, I am still highly likely to obsess over negative remarks which can lead me to spiral.) I know I resent people expecting a publication deal because I don’t have the guts in the moment to say, That’s a bit of an entitled assumption. As an aside here, ego considered, I’d rather work with a publisher who has convictions, who sees and believes in me and the value of my work, rather than one I’m miffed with. As for resenting the politics, we cannot ever really opt out of politics, so that will continue. Like other women/people of colour in the arts, I try to make the best of it, and make the path clearer for those that follow. Politics in my opinion is a structure of priorities; the more certain I am about my own priorities, the less I will fall into resentment being swept up in the politics of others.

I began writing with the intention of figuring out what my next steps should be, and I think, reviewing what I’ve written so far, my next step will be to take time, because one post is not going to make all those future steps clear. I won’t understand my priorities until I pause. So, to that end, I intend, after 3rd October, to take a step back as much as possible until the new year, to not take on anything new. To those who have projects already underway, things will not change. But for myself I will be giving myself what I need: structure and time with the aim to refresh the business and its priorities, and myself and my own priorities, both as our funding changes and our team changes. For those of you who have read this far, thank you. I hope to be back with an update in the new year.

TL;DR: I’m pausing any new projects until the new year to spend some time to recalibrate myself and Lucent Dreaming.