Mira Sethi on the woes of being an author in the ‘Golden Age of TikTok’

Actor and author Mira Sethi is shedding light on the woes of being a writer through an Instagram stories rant — and we couldn’t agree more.

Sethi posted a thread by American novelist Anne Lamott who urged writers to remain in their seats and keep writing until they had a bad first draft. The Bird by Bird author continued that the next step was to “take out the boring parts, the lies and pretensions” and “then write a better second draft.”

Sethi, however, was of a different opinion. She maintained that writing the lies and pretensions was fun because “the lies soothe as you work out your trauma. and the pretensions enable good ideas to take flight in very bad writing”.

Writers know that it’s cathartic when you’re unleashing your traumas on the page (or your laptop) even if it is a bunch of “lies”.

The author then congratulated those writing in the “Golden Age of TikTok”, hinting perhaps at the increase in trashy novels that often commence from social media or fanfiction sites and end up published. Or perhaps she’s talking about the rampant book reviews that have taken over TikTok, where everyone’s a critic. Alternatively, she could genuinely be commending those who continue to write despite social media taking over our lives and hindering people from focusing on their craft.

Despite the number of interpretations we took away from her words, we agree with her on all of them.

Sethi sarcastically added that it was “very exciting when seven strangers read a book it took you four years to write”, and all we want to say to that is we are definitely part of the seven reading her work!

The Very Filmy actor then joked that while many people may not read her work, there were “350,000” people watching her yell on HUM TV, where the show was aired.

If you’re one of the people watching her shows but not reading her books, we would strongly urge you to pick up a book Sethi wrote instead of wasting time doomscrolling on TikTok.