In her comment on the post below, Gayleen asked Rilla and I why we are afraid of the weekend to come. She made the excellent points that writing speed was no measure of one's quality as a writer, and further that if we didn't like what we came up with we didn't have to send it in.
I felt the need to respond.
You ask us why we fear the challenges of the forthcoming weekend. I answer that we fear them because we fear ourselves. This contest is the chance to set a goal, a very challenging goal, and to either succeed in attaining it, or fail. To fail at a goal one sets for oneself is disappointing and worse. It shames you. It tells you that you are less than you thought you were.
In this world we are routinely judged by others. Our goals are often set by others. We are judged on criteria we cannot control. This judgment can be hard enough to bear, but we can abide because we know that the criteria are not those we chose. We can't be all things to all people. We can only do our best to grow.
In this instance, we have looked at the challenge and we have said, "I believe I can do that." It will be difficult, and it may even be unpleasant, but we believe we have the potential to do it. Failure means that we misjudged ourselves, and that is painful.
I am aware that I may fail but, for my part, the attempt matters. it is one more in a series of attempts to motivate myself, to shrug off lethargy and self doubt and just DO the ACT. To quote S.M. Stirling, “Talent is cheap, inspiration fairly common. The discipline and persistence necessary to make something of them, much less so.” I am a good writer. I'm also a lazy writer and, to succeed, that needs to change.
This is why I set these challenges for myself, why I will keep at them for the coming year, and how I hope to change. Competition, even with myself, motivates. As does failure.
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3 comments:
I think it'll just tell you that you are different than you thought you were, if you don't get the book done.
I mean, it's not as if you've been training for this for ten years and now it's make or break. This is more of an investigation into how fast you can write under a deadline and whether you enjoy writing that way. You're not so much seeing if you can do this as seeing what you can do. And it's not a vital skill, so it's no big if it's not in your skill set.
That said, I'm not equipped to understand being afraid of private failure, because I always feel like a failure in nearly all regards. That's baseline for me.
I'm in line at Subway and thinking, "the woman in line ahead of me is way thinner than I will ever be." I'm walking back to my desk and I pass someone with a bike helmet and I think, "I'm not biking these days and I should be. I'm bad." I read another chapter in the Story of Forgetting and I think, "This is a brilliant book, and the author is ten years younger than I am. I am a loser." I practice songs for the new album and think, "I'm not a disciplined musician. I haven't worked hard enough at theory and arrangement." I look at my coworkers and think, "I don't work hard enough to build my career"... and then, minutes later, I see an artist going into the gallery across the street and think, "I'm too career-focused and not a real artist."
That's my brain, all the time. I see a muffin and think, "I eat to many muffins" or "I can't bake." Nothing is neutral. It's all something I've done wrong.
I look at every human being and see something they are or can do that I am not or can't do, and then I've failed in yet another way. So I'm quite comfortable with failure and shame.
It's when public ridicule and scorn and disappointment are thrown into the mix that my stomach starts to eat itself, because that means someone else is going to be taking a shit on my head and I already have my own shit to deal with. Eventually it'll be too much shit, and what then?
Which is why I would have zero anxiety about doing the three day novel at home, but was pretty worked up about doing it (and challenges) in public.
G-
I get where you're coming from and, as you know, am glad you're working on shame feelings.
For me, I have gotten to the point where I don't compare myself to other people in any serious way. Which is to say, I don't feel the strong need to live up to the expectations of strangers.
People I know, love, and respect, on the other hand, their opinion matters to me. I don't like to disappoint them. I also don't like to disappoint me.
So, I have some esteem riding on this contest. For better or worse.
... aaaaand obviously I meant "I eat too many muffins," not, "to many." And me a supposed writer.
Also, I don't mean to say I'm a visual artist at all by saying I think about how I'm not a real artist when I see someone at the gallery. I mean writer and musician.
G-
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