My new friend on She Writes, Emily Lackey, wrote a
grippingly honest blog post about her struggles with rejection and how it was
affecting her ability to write.
Many writers responded with much wisdom. This has
inspired me to post again on my blog, after, oh, okay, months. I'm putting
together what I said to Emily, who I compliment for her bravery in putting her
fears out there. I told her about my friend, the painter from Marin, who got an
assignment from her teacher at art school to go to the galleries around them
and come back with ten rejections.
My friend came back to class
thrilled: the first four galleries she asked all wanted to show her work.
The teacher sent her out again. She hadn't done
the assignment. She had to keep going until she got those ten rejections.
Getting them, getting used to rejections, was part of her job. My friend is a
terrific painter. It took her awhile to find ten galleries who would not show
her work. Thus, she learned that rejection is just a part of her job.
Of course, the publishing world today is far
tougher than being a painter in Marin County. And life is more complicated than
a quick story on a blog. There may be people in our lives who intentionally or unintentionally
undermine us. For those we are stuck with, I suggest we develop mental
translators that turn their words into: "I'm worried I will lose you if
you become successful and I lose control over you." For those we are not,
this might be time for a good house-cleaning. And to those who undermine yet
are no longer with us, except for the versions we carry in our own heads,
I recommend we say, with love, "Hello, how nice to see you again,
Mom/Ex-husband/ex-best friend. Lovely to have this mental visit. Okay, bye
now."
Another wise author, Debra Borchert, also
from SheWrites, responded to Emily's cry of pain by reminding us all that
rejection hurts. She says we should go ahead and feel that pain, instead of
rushing past it. I fully agree. I do my best to teach my kids (and myself) that
disappointment is a fact of life and should be honored with our sadness and
anger. Life hurts. When my kid loses a helium balloon at the park, I worry
about the birds, and hold my child while they cry, and say no thank you to the
well-meaning folk who want to give them another to make up for the loss. I
believe that the knowledge that we should let our selves feel that is terribly
liberating. Before I was cast in my most important role as an actor, I heard
those around me try to tell themselves that they didn't want to care to much in
case they didn't get the part. I told myself that I was going to go to bed
for a week if I lost this part, but by God, I was going to really want it.
Really want it, like gut level, got to have this, want it. (And the experience
itself was one of those disasters that caused everyone involved years of pain.
But that's a different story.)
There's another thing for me to remember. I write
because if I don't, I get nutty. My family can tell when I'm not doing daily
writing work. So can I. I said in response to Emily's post that I don't write
because I crave success, and that's partly true. I do want success. I want the
financial freedom to travel for the research I need to do for the next novel. I
want my work to create catharsis that opens minds and informs. Most of all, I
am chomping at the bit to take what I have learned and become a voice for
empathy and insight into the world.
But the truth is, I write because I have to. I
said that to my husband on our very first date, that I might never be
financially successful, but I would always be a writer. Look, it's like
this: two days ago, I taught my littlest an old Viola Spolin theater game. You
immerse yourself in an animal of someone else's choice. You put yourself into
that animal's body and persona, their essence. Gradually, you pull the animal
back to a person who is doing an activity, also given by an outsider. My kid
stunned me with the marvelous giraffe lady she created, the slow motions, the
lanky gait, blinky eyes, the mouth chewing sideways as she spoke.
We create, we humans, because we must. It's part
of our genetic makeup. The market place, all the rest of it, that's just a kind
of illusion layered over the creativity. Yes, it's important, I suppose, to
share our work, to bring it back from the hunt and do the animal dance around
our communal fire-pit. The community, too, needs that shared animal dance,
doesn't it? They need our stories to translate the dark around us. We all need
to laugh at what frightens us most, to find ways to handle our envy of those
who have what we long for, to learn how to survive the rush of love and manage
the keening harshness of loss. Those of us who are no longer tribal might not
get to actually sit around a communal fire-pit. That's what movies and theater
and novels and short stories and music and painting are all about. I think
that's important to remember, too. Our work does serve a purpose.
Even without that, though, I would write. I write
because I have to. It's how I make sense of the world and has been since my
first journal when I was eight. I write, because, like a miniature God, I need
to recreate the world around me to better understand it.
