Friday, September 27, 2013

Miserable failure? Or what?

I just read a blog post, located here, written by Dan Blank.

Now, here comes my personal version of full disclosure.  Someone posted that link to the #amwriting hashtag on Twitter.  I don't know who Dan Blank is (should I? Is he a Big Name?).  I've never looked at that blog before.  But his title caught my attention, because it reads, "You, Dear Writer, Are Going to Fail Miserably."

My first reaction to this title was mild affront.  Dude, I've never even heard of you, and you're just going to blanket tell me how I'm going to fail miserably?  But I clicked the link anyway, because I thought, Perhaps this will be advice on how not to fail miserably; I should give it a shot.

I'm glad that I did.

In his blog post, Dan discusses what an unnamed "we" are going to do to the writer.  "We," he says, are going to make fun of you, take potshots at you, leave you in miserable loneliness, dig out all of the flaws in your story, and ignore you.  Dan writes,
Dear author, we are not going to make this easy for you. Which is why so many authors stop. They stop writing. They give up. Too soon.
Sometimes moments before success and validation; other times, years before.
We win. Game over.
And that is a very interesting idea.  He finishes out his post by asking two important questions: Who is "We," and what are you going to do about it?

So let's address this.

Who is "We"?

Some commenters said that they thought "We" was readers.  Others mentioned critics - not professional critics, but the ones in your life who tell you that writing is a pipe dream and you should be perfectly happy with your job down the factory or in a shop or wherever it is that you work when you're not bleeding on your manuscript.  Still others mentioned agents, reviewers, editors, publishers, and other gatekeepers of the "professional publishing" world.

And several others suggested that "we" is actually ourselves, our own crippling self-doubts and worries and fears that keep us from reaching out, that keep us from brushing off rejections and querying again, that keep us in frantic-editing mode because it has to be perfect before we can move on, that stop us doing whatever it is that we need to do to put our words out there in front of an audience.

I think the answer to that question is pretty much "all of the above."  Because the problem as presented in Dan's post is not just that critics will dislike you, agents ignore you, and publishers reject you.  The problem is not that readers will not find or appreciate you, that editors will slash and burn your perfect and beautiful manuscript, or that the critics in your life will (knowingly or unknowingly) try to crush your dreams.

The problem is that we let it happen.  The problem occurs when you listen to an un-constructive criticism and take it to heart.  The problem is when you give up after one or two (or ten) agents ignore you or publishers reject you.  The problem happens when you decide that your dad is probably right, that being a writer is a pipe dream, and that you should be perfectly happy with an eight-to-five office job where you have to wear khakis and a polo shirt and smile at people you hate and carry your lunch in a Tupperware container (and half the time, someone steals the good part), and every day that you go there, you feel a little more of your soul dying inside of you.

Okay, I may have been projecting a little bit on that last line.  But my point still stands - as does Dan's.

The problem occurs when you allow one of the many stumbling blocks on the authorial path to become a wall that prevents you from passing further along.  The problem occurs when you give up.

So what are you going to do about it?


The only way to fail is to stop trying.

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