Write out the pretension and the lies: Mira Sethi

Actor-writer dishes her take on how to write fiction

Want to write a book, but have no idea where the begin? Or, if you have begun, are you grappling with the fear of where to take it from here? Now that we are well and truly in the age of BookTok (and shorter attention spans), actor and writer Mira Sethi has the solution for you: just write. And ditch all worries about sounding pretentious.

Taking to her IG Stories on Wednesday, Mira laid the base for her argument by sharing another post by author Anne Lamott. Urging writers to stop procrastinating, Lamott's post read, "Stop not writing. Keep your butt in the chair. Write really bad small sections of the whole – passages, moments, episodes, memories – till you have an incredibly s*** first draft."

Lamott's advice continued, "Then take out the boring parts, the lies and pretensions. Then write a better second draft."

Mira may agree with the advice to stay in that chair and keep writing, but she takes it a step further by advocating for the "lies and pretensions" that Lamott implores you to get rid of. Pasting her own comment above a screenshot of Lamott's post and playing devil's advocate, Mira wrote, "But it's so much fun to write the lies and pretensions. The lies soothe as you work out your trauma, and the pretensions enable good ideas to take flight in very bad writing."

Making her views explicitly clear about the erosion of modern attention spans, Mira added, "Anyway, MashaAllah and Alhamdulillah to those writing in the Golden Age of TikTok."

On a roll with her tongue-in-cheek observations, Mira pasted yet another droll comment about declining readership on top of her own views on writing lies and pretensions. "Yes, it's very exciting when seven strangers read a book it took you four years to write."

As the final cherry on top, to show that literary works fall by the wayside in the face of easy-on-the-brain television, Mira wrote, "Meanwhile, those watching me yell [on TV]: 350,000."

Mira's TV fans may far outnumber her book fans, but that did not stop the actor from chasing her dream of becoming a writer. Mira's debut collection of short stories titled Are You Enjoying? was published by Vintage Books in 2021. The literary collection received critical acclaim in publishing circles and was included in Vogue's 2021 'Best Books to Read' list.

On the acting front, the 350,000 TV fans Mira alludes to will have last seen the Chukpe Chukpe actor in Very Filmy (2024) and Kuch Ankahi (2023).