Meeting writing triumphs and disasters just the same

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same . . . "

--an excerpt from "If" by Rudyard Kipling



The writing life has many ups and downs.



 

The writing life is often a string of contradictions: positives/negatives, acceptances/rejections, "I like your work"/"I hate your work." You get a story published or win honorable mention in a contest. The same week another piece gets roundly rejected or formulaically dismissed.

At present the only entity with more ups and downs than a writer's career is the stock market.

What was that lyric Mary Chapin Carpenter used to sing: "Sometimes you're the windshield. Sometimes you're the bug."

Writing is subjective (though it is curious to me how many people think something is good only when others like it, too--but then the same claim has been made about opera singers. People only recognize the quality of the performance when they recognize the name).

For all their expertise, ribbon dancers are
judged subjectively, too.

Writing to publish is a lot like many other art forms from the visual arts to dog shows to rhythmic gymnastics (those ribbon dancers in the Summer Olympics?) and is unlike racing and lots of other sports contests. Writers' work is subject to expert assessment, including mechanical standards that must be met. Assuming you've demonstrated a modicum of competency, your work will advance or fail based on someone's subjective opinion.

When writers are rejected, because writing is such an extension of oneself, often we take it hard--too hard. I know I have. But I keep trying, keep getting back on that horse. Because there's no way I can get a book published if I don't get back on that horse--no matter how many saddle sores I've accumulated.

It really distresses me when writer friends/acquaintances have taken rejections overly hard, threatening to  tear up a manuscript, tell a gatekeeper like an editor or agent something that might compromise any future acceptances, or give up writing all together. I can see it so clearly that they are over-reacting to one person's subjective opinion (much less clearly when it's me.)

If writing means that much to them, I've often asked myself, how can they consider giving it up so easily? Or perhaps writing doesn't mean that much. Is getting published more meaningful? Should getting published always be the overarching goal to any writing?

I believe the desire to have your work published needs to be commensurate with your desire to write. Writers who say they are only interested in writing for themselves have always struck me as disingenuous.

So, if you're like me, you want to be a published novelist, and sometimes you fall into a black hole--like if someone else gets published before you but you've been at it longer? When mired in self-destructive cycles, writers should stay far away from their work. Let the bad feelings sink in. Feel the pain, so you can let it go, but don't go after your manuscript. Give it a day, a week, a month or six months. I promise you, you'll feel differently. I've given myself a restraining order from my latest manuscript. Otherwise, I'm sure I'd kill it because it hasn't gotten picked up yet, and I can't yet revise it objectively. 

Just so you know, I'm not suggesting you stuff your feelings. We're allowed to get down on ourselves--it's only natural. Most of us do at some point.

But give yourself permission to get back up. And fix your eyes on the prize, and keep your head out of the clouds. Believe in yourself but don't get carried away with yourself.

On fewer occasions, I suppose because many of my writing friends aren't published, they are tempted to let themselves become complacent with that occasional endorsement.

Writers striving to be published have to learn to weather the bad and the good. Some of you might be thinking, did you just say, "Weather the good"? What's to weather when things are good, you may be thinking. However, if old Rudyard Kipling has any cred, he contends that triumph and disaster are both impostors.

So, what happens to the person who "meets with triumph and disaster just the same"?

A product of his day, Rudyard Kipling says, "You'll be a man, my son." With apologies to Mr. Kipling, we can consider that his use of the word "man" applies to "women," too, that he was merely using a gender convention of his time.

I'll go a step further in suggesting Kipling's couplet applies to all the writers among us--if we "have ears to hear."