Books
When novelist Rachel Heng threw on the Netflix reality show, she never expected to have an epiphany.
I am not a fashionable person.
As a writer accustomed to solitude, Id valiantly (foolishly?)
Reality TV had always been my outlet for writers block.
I expected catfights, big egos, friendship feuds, heightened drama.
What I didnt expect was to be tearing up in front of my screen after the first challenge.
The winners were Charles and Angelo on first glance, a surprising duo.
Like a drug, his website says, his addiction is beauty.
Okay, stop, you have to focus.
Look at me, Charles repeats over and over.
In a cutaway later, Angelo explains himself: I am from a very tiny village.
Life is very simple.
There is not a lot of rush.
(That Angelo was impossibly cheerful and exuded a childlike innocence made it more infuriating rather than less.)
I immediately sufferedflashbacks from terrible high school projects.
Writing my second novel in graduate school, I continued to impose structure and word count goals on myself.
I believed in Charles approach to creating: butt in chair, get it done.
I wasnt precious about creativity or muses, didnt believe in flow.
I had little patience for the Angelos of the world, charming and free as they may be.
The wing, the architecture, we got our concept, Charles shouts.
Now, the two are united in purpose.
In the end, it all comes together, and Charles and Angelo come out on top.
Only stepping away, allowing myself time to rest, play to watch reality TV about fashion designers!
brought the spark back.
Limited by technical prowess, his vision lacks the room to not only manifest, but also develop.
Im just feeling very blessed to be in this competition at all, he says when he is eliminated.
(I feel happy, Angelo says when he is eliminated one episode earlier.
Its a genuine sentiment that is repeated over and over, as each contestant is eliminated.
It was this joy that made me binge watch the entire season in a day and a half.
How wonderful, how mind-expanding it is to find oneself persuaded by the sheer joy of another.
When I finished watching the season, the rest of my quarantine still stretched out ahead of me.
My novel draft was still very much unwritten.
But something inside me had eased.
Rachel Hengs latest novel,The Great Reclamation, hits bookstores on March 28 and is available for pre-order.
