The Penitent Man
Someone I adore wrote to me recently about the fear of sharing his work. It holds us back sometimes, the fear of putting our stuff out there. Rejection is a sure thing on the way to an agent or a sale. Once we're published, it's reviews--good and bad. Criticism.Sometimes we delete whole works with the press of a button. I ripped up many a short story. I shred the sheets of looseleaf (ahh, those days before computers), tears in my eyes. I suck. I really do. I berated myself mercilessly.
We tell ourselves that. I know, for me, I have published many books . . . but there's always the book that's a reach, that I am not sure I am writer enough to pull off. I'm not smart enough, talented enough. I don't have enough coffee!!!!
I told my friend, we need to be like Indiana Jones. My favorite scene in all the movies was the one where Indiana took the leap of faith.
The penitent man will pass.
That's what he whispered. Hand on his heart. Short of breath. Heart racing. Put his foot out over that chasm. And there the bridge appeared.
In my real life, I like to think I am a penitent woman. Too many coincidences have occurred in my life that I take as a sign of the divine. I am blessed a thousandfold. I pray--unceasingly most days. My candles flicker for friends in pain or struggling. For ME when I am struggling. They flicker in a sign of solidarity. Of faith. Of compassion. I pray for Tibet. For peace. For my children.
As writers, the penitent also pass. We have faith in our work. We have faith in the friend who offers to read our work and help us. That we are entrusting our work to someone who cares. Someone who wants us to succeed, not bring us down.
Take a leap today. With me. Put your stuff out there. Write a query. Share a chapter with someone you trust.
The penitent will pass. A chalice awaits.
Thoughts?
And to my friend . . . you know who you are. Have faith.
Labels: faith, the art of critiques
posted by Erica Orloff at 7:35 PM
42 Comments:
New Indiana Jones movie comes out May 22!
I love this, Erica, but I think writers--or any other entertainers willing to stand "naked" before the world--have to be ready for, and expect, the Simon Cowells out there to take their uber-critical shots. A thick skin is essential, I think, because there are always going to be people who trash your work, even if (and often especially if) you're #1 on the NYT bestseller list.
Of course.
That's where your supportive and loving friends and writing pals come in.
I LOVE this post. Really, truly, love it.
And it makes me want to watch Indiana again!
Whenever the evil judger- she of no faith- steps in, I look at this- taped to my computer, courtesy of the Tao:
Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.
Nice, Alyson.
Alyson:
What a wonderful reminder. Thank you for sharing it.
E
I got lucky when I sent my very first query to an agent. She replied with a personal letter telling me my writing wasn't good enough.
That was a dark day for me, but thanks to the experience I haven't had a dark day since (once in a while clouds block the sun, but they soon drift away).
A kick in your friend's booty to get his stuff out there!! :-)
I'm facing something similar, but am trying to not let it overtake me. I've written a short story which I really like (and have gotten great feedback on it), so I just sent it out last week to two places. I didn't want to get rejections for a darned short story on top of my first ms, so I held onto it.
But now it's out there. A little....
:-)
Hi Stephen:
Sometimes, getting that first big rejection out of the way is actually . . . curing.
E
Hi Christine:
Sometimes I think it is a mixed bag as to the WHY of being afraid or hesitant. It's not necessairly rejection, but letting go of it . . . or maybe our own disappointment that what's on paper wasn't how we envisioned it. I think it's actually really complex . . . . which is why we have to eventually just take that leap of faith.
I also think doing what you're doing is SO important. Put it out there--but be working on the next thing, and the next, until there's this flurry of stuff out there and we're not fixated on that ONE submission.
E
Actually, "Only the penitent man will pass," was the first clue, and the penitent man kneels (lest he get his head cut off). "Only if you leap from the lion's head" is the leap of faith, but hey, great post anyway. (And yeah, I'm a huge Indy fan).
I have run into people from time to time that apparently don't send their stuff out for fear of rejection. And you're right. No matter how successful you are, someone will reject you. I just popped onto Amazon yesterday and happened across the Publishers Weekly review of bestselling author David Morrell's "Scavenger," and all I can say is, "Ouch."
In my career I've often been surprised by how successful I've been, and how many doors have been opened, by taking a chance and taking on a project that at some level I thought I couldn't do.
Faith can be a big deal for a writer.
Dear Erica,
Thanks...I needed this today. To write honestly and well it is so important to stay vulnerable -- and it is hard to do that if you are flinching to dodge the punch of rejection, or criticism.
Wishing your friend all the best!
MicheleL
Your friend is lucky to have you cheering him on!
Hi Mark:
Well, mixing my movie analogies . . . what can I say? LOL!
E
Michele:
That's really true. When you're second-guessing each word . . . tough to be honest. Which makes some memoirists even more courageous, I think. (Note, I said SOME! . . . NOT Frey.)
E
Hi Amy:
Well, I'm lucky he is my friend.
:-)
E
I have always admired artists for many things. For the ability to create works of beauty; for the ability to challenge our preconceptions; for the ability to see the world in ways that so many people miss.
But what I most admire is how they put themselves on the line, how they open their work and lives up to criticism, how they endure the endless barbs and cuts with nary a whimper, and then head to bed with such weight and sadness.
And the very next day, they get up, shrug their shoulders and do it all over again.
In the 1990s, I interviewed Ken Dryden, one of my heroes. He was a professional hockey player - a goalie with the Montreal Canadiens - who was in the Hockey Hall of Fame, had won six Stanley Cups, numerous personal trophies, and then managed to retire before age and physical pain had diminished his skills.
But he was also a lawyer, an accomplished writer, and a social activist (who is now a Canadian member of Parliament). I was talking to him about his latest book, and asked him which was more nerve wracking... To have someone like Dennis Hull, who had a 95-mpg slap shot, winding up just 30 feet from the goal, ready to unleash (Hull almost took his head off once)... Or the very first day that his book is released, and the media gauntlet begins.
He said it was no contest. In hockey, he wasn't scared by the threat of injury, and if he let in a soft goal in, he invariably had another chance to make a spectacular save just three minutes later. And no one ever thought they could do a better job than he could... They knew he had hockey skills they didn't possess, and that he did a dangerous job that they really didn't want to do, day in and day out.
But as an author... The pressure is enormous. Your mistakes are there in print, for all eternity. Many people who read your book don't think it requires any particular skill, and most think they could do a much better job. The critics are often unkind, and sometimes when they savage your work, it's so intense and personal.
I'll skip movie analogies and take song lyrics for $100.00, Erica: "The first cut is the deepest."
Sending that first thing out there made me physically ill for a week, but you know what? It came back rejected and I didn't die. Didn't even need hospitalized. (okay, so I needed a bit of margarita medication)
I think many writers are harder on themselves than anyone else would be. When you reach that forest for the trees place, often a fresh set of eyes can send you blazing along a new trail in no time.
I bet your friend has strengths he doesn't even realize because he's so focused on what he perceives as his weaknesses.
I now have a pudgy little file of about 20 rejections right here on the desk next to me. Its a badge of honor. It means I'm workin' it!
Wow, Samrt . . .
That's it exactly. Truly. Everyone's a critic. Everyone thinks, "One day, I'll sit down and write this book that's been stewing in my brain." I RARELY meet ANYONE who says, "I admire your ability to write. I can't . . . not my thing." Instead, nearly everyone says, "I think about writing a book often. Especially when I read the crap that gets published." But to actually DO it? To write 300 or 400 pages, tie up all the plot, have interesting characters, and all that.
Not so easy.
There are days I wonder why I do it.
E
Lainey:
Name that tune! Written by Cat Stevens. Most famous by Sheryl Crow. :-)
And yes . . . as Gloria Gaynor says, "I will survive."
E
I love this post, Erica! And you always seem to have perfect timing. Thank you. :-)
I'm taking that leap today.
::Breathe in. Breathe out.::
Streetcar: great comment. Visit more often, please.
Canadians are people too.
Michele:
Glad to oblige. :-)
E
Smart:
Yes, what Stephen said.
:-)
E
Lordy, what a great post. My editor just last night said she wants us to submit a book to a reviewer ... ugh! I've been reviewed before, but I didn't know about it. That was nice.
Then I'm in the middle of the book-I'm-afraid-to-write, even though I have no time to write for another week. And then there's the one that's playing now that I'm afraid sucks, LOL.
Yeah, fear is always there. I tell myself "never look back," and I try to put the fear behind me, where it will push me forward. If you stare at it in front of you, you'll become a deer immobilized in headlights.
It's not so bad when I'm writing. It's really bad when I think about my writing, LOL.
And Alyson, that was lovely. I loved that! Only one thing, if I didn't need the money, I don't know if I would have put anything out there! So it has its uses.
Spy:
That's right. It's like a horror movie scene. Never look back!
:-)
E
Great post, Erica. And loved the poem Alyson posted.
I IM'd with a writer friend about an hour ago about my wip, so that's a form of stepping out there. Years ago, I took a yoga class, and the teacher told us if we fear something to ask, "What's the worse thing that can happen?" Usually, the worst that can happen is rejection. I don't like it, but I can live with it. I can't reach the chalice if my stories stay under my bed.
Hi Edie:
Definitely.
We will get through whatever it is. We always do.
E
Fabulous post, as always, Erica. and I love Alyson's quote.
Can't wait for the new Indiana Jones to come out.
I have some great critique partners yet even so, everytime I send something new to them I worry about their reaction..... because I am hopeless at judging the quality of my own work!! Actually, I think most people are. I've known students in tears because they thought their work was so bad (and scored an A) and others who think they've done an amazing job (and failed).
It's important to remember that your work is a part of you, but it isn't who you are. Rejection of your work isn't a rejection of you as a person. We have to keep it all in perspective, otherwise we won't keep trying. This is a good argument for having a well-rounded life - so the little things don't bury us.
Amazing. Insightful. Brilliant. Exactly what I didn't want to hear... but exactly what I needed to hear.
I hesitate to send my words out... I'm afraid to hear that I can't write and that I should just give up.
Of course, with that attitude, I just keep myself from writing and I and up in the same place - not writing.
I am the penitent man and I will leap from the lions head... or as Bill Shakespeare wrote:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
I have nothing to lose and since I cannot see what is wrong, not working and missing in my writing - it comes to nothing if I do not ask for help.
Wow, Erica, fantastic post and amazing comments - like many said, at just the time I needed to read it - synchronicity abounds it seems.
For me, the first rejection was expected... the first novel was atrocious, so the fact that I even had requests for pages was a point of pride for me - I've said before, I learn things the hard way sometimes.
So the first didn't bother me, but as I keep going, at a certain point you do start thinking, oy, maybe I just suck at this...
I've hit that a few times in the past few weeks, it only lasts until I get excited about the next sentence, so as long as I don't sit on my email waiting for responses to queries that may be weeks out, I'm sort of okay... ever learning, hopefully getting closer.
For now, I'll just savor the journey - but that doesn't make the goal any less present in my thoughts.
Sara:I have to say, I've always had a decent internal barometer--maybe from my years of editing. If something is "off" I tend to know it, even if I am not sure what it is yet.
E
anti-wife:
Good point. I think of actors . . . or artists . . . anyone who puts "themselves" out there. It can feel like a PERSONAL rejection instead of an opinion.
E
ewoh:
Anyone who would tell someone "just give up" has no humanity. We are ALL learners.
E
Hi Merry:
That's the thing . . . you make a great point. Those people who say, "I'm going to sit down and write a book"--who haven't really done it? Most of them invest in the entire dream, i.e., that the first time they try their hand at writing a book, it will sell and be a hueg hit. There's a STEEP learning curve to writing. A lot of people don't realize that, and then get discouraged.
E
I think I needed this today more then you will ever know.
Thanks.
Aimless:
Then that makes me feel really great about today's post. Thanks!
E
Great post as usual.
I made this comment on another blog to a writer whose work had just been rejected...with a wee bit of borrowing.
"Tis better to have submitted and been rejected, than never to have submitted at all."
If you've submitted and been rejected, then you are more of a writer than one who never takes that leap.
Great post and comment trail. Need a thick skin? Yep. My first rejection came when I was 16. It was a detailed letter and I took it badly. Didn't really do much writing and definitely didn't send anything out for a very long time.
Now? I love getting a detailed rejection letter. And have gotten some good ones that helped.
But the biggest issue I have is having faith - in myself. I feel like I have to go back to a movie I never watched. If you write it, they will read.
JLK;
Hmm? Where did you borrow that from? It sounds so familiar. LOL!
And yes . . . There is a certain grace hard-won by putting your stuff out there. When I first started writing, I only submitted poetry, which was SO personal. But I would just stick it in the envelope and tnen try to put it from my mind.
E
Sarah:
I wrote a novel at age 22. Sent three queries. Got a request for the full from Ruth Cavin at St. Martin's. She rejected it, but it was detailed and lovely and not crushing (my book wasn't enough of a mystery--rather, more of a psychological thriller, for her list). I didn't send the novel out again, but I wasn't crushed. My next novel--8 years later--sold.
Anyway, I can't say WHY I wasn't crushed. I think I was satisfied with the idea that someone READ it. But I think I also wanted to spend time writing short stories . . . before I attempted the novel as an art form again. I had poetry and short stories published. And then tried my hand at the novel. I had experienced a lot of hardship in the intervening years (mostly because of my illness--Crohn's disease--and a horrid divorce). I found my next novel . . . I had weathered enough that I knew what I wanted to say.
E
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