Is Writing a Team Sport?
- At October 14, 2014
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
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Most writers are not also known as jocks. They’re not the kind of people you picture shooting hoops, throwing the touchdown pass, kicking a goal. The stereotype of a writer, forgive me: is bookish, introverted, who doesn’t understand the dynamics of cheerleading other players, or being the supporting player in a larger group. And that same introverted, bookish young writer dreams of being the star all the time: alone at his laptop, “creating,” or in front of an audience, accepting a prize or performing work to a rapt crowd. They don’t necessarily dream of the hard work it takes to make those things happen – a lot of which revolves around acting as a supportive team member. So is writing a team sport, or an individual sport?
For instance, what will your connection to your poetry community be if you never show up to anyone else’s reading, but complain when no one shows up to yours? If you ask for reviews from friends, but never write any yourself? (And I’m including Goodreads and Amazon in that – not everyone loves writing long-form critical reviews, but everyone can write a nice Amazon review.) What happens if you go to a writing group where you listen attentively to everyone’s comments on your piece, but never offer any feedback yourself? If you act as an editor, or a publisher, for a literary magazine or poetry series, yes, it will take time and energy, but what will that add to your understanding of rejections, suggested edits, or book promotion?
There’s also the trouble of group dynamics – again, a stereotype of writers is that they’re touchy, sensitive, crying over a rejection or a bad reading, unable to stand a single negative comment at a conference workshop. If you have a group of people who consider themselves sensitive, or stars, how do you interact with each other in a helpful, non-painful way? I mean, if you’ve been to AWP, you know what I’m talking about: people pushing their books without listening to anyone else, waiting to talk to people they deem “more important” while ignoring those “less important.” Everyone can’t be the star all the time, everyone can’t be “the sensitive one” in a room of 10,000. That will lead to a lot of crying at the bar.
If you think of yourself, sorry for the basketball metaphor, as someone who not only makes the layups themselves, but also stars in “assists” – that is, passes to people who score the points – then I think you’ll be happier and more successful in the long-haul work of being a writer. (I know it might be a surprise for those of you who know me now, but I used to play three sports – soccer, basketball, and track – and was even offered a couple of college basketball scholarships. Yes, even though I’m five four – I was a point guard, it’s a little bit of a support role rather than a forward/star kind of role.) Back then, before the onset of most of my autoimmune issues, my body was more cooperative, but even more than any physical thing, or learning sports skills and learning how to win and lose, these sports taught me that I don’t have to always be the person in the spotlight, and helping the team to a win sometimes means a little bit of sacrifice individually.
So, yes, we have to spend a certain amount of time locked up alone with our notebooks/laptops/typewriters, but we also have to go into the world and find fellowship, encouragement, find your audiences and like-minded friends, find people we can be cheerleaders for, find people we can mentor and be mentored by, find opportunities to pitch in to something larger than ourselves.
I’ve thought of a lot of dream jobs: running a bookshop, teaching part-time at a low-res MFA program, being a publisher, working in PR for writers, running a writer’s conference or retreat (if I ever come into unexpected money, a lot of these things are possible!) I’ve realized that I actually thrive more when I’m slightly more social, when I open my arms to more people. There’s also balance necessary there – you don’t want to be a pushover, or encourage people who take advantage of you or are bullies or otherwise toxic – and it seems to me most women writers are often so nice it’s at the expense of their own writing careers. Being a good team player also means standing your ground and taking the shot sometimes.
I’m working at finding my own balance right now. What do you think of the team sports metaphor? Apt? Or not?
Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and SFPA’s Elgin Award, Field Guide to the End of the World. Her latest, Flare, Corona from BOA Editions, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She’s also the author of PR for Poets, a Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, and JAMA.
Lana Ayers
Jeannine, you are on point. Writing is a team effort. We need to support one another, and not only that, we need cheers. It is a terribly lonely business, but we can help one another improve craft, get the word out, and celebrate successes.
And by the way, I dream of co-owning a bookstore with other writers.
Rebecca Loudon
If you are a beginning writer (no matter your age) an artistic community will save you heartache give you fortitude and help you see the larger world. But I think as you advance in your writing “career” that same community can also keep you trapped in a cycle where you write the same poems being praised by the same community who are also writing the same poems. After a while it’s time to fly solo.
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David D. Horowitz
Hi, Jeannine. I like your post; it raises important questions. There is no one formula for writers. I think most work best as individuals writing for their own satisfaction as explorers in ideas and language. That said, collectively written pieces can certainly be good, especially when one of the writers has keen editing skills. Now, one fundamental problem with the sports metaphor is the notion of victory, a primary goal of most any sport. There’s nothing inherently wrong with writing for awards, praise, and fame–but does that produce the best writing? Does that attract the best people to practice the finest craft? I’m an old-fashioned idealist in that I feel writing for truth, beauty, and goodness pushes people to risk, dig and dig and dig, refine, and ultimately reach genuine excellence. Craving adoring audiences filling auditoriums and huge sales numbers and continual media attention, while not necessarily bad, can lead to sensationalism and calculating repetition, not that reach for ultimate excellence. One other point: marketing and promotion, unlike writing, tend indeed to be best done as a team. Help each other: spread the news about readings, buy friends’ books and journals, offer to help edit rough drafts, write back-cover blurbs, share media savvy, interview friends for one’s blog or radio program, tour together and share one’s audience and gain that of another. One team-spirit caveat: don’t resent and blame other writers. Sometimes a friend cannot attend an event or has bought too many books already in a given month or needs a break from readings or just cannot in good faith support a particular writer’s work. That’s okay! Mutually supportive self-starters—hooray! Finger-pointers and blamers accusing others of not being supportive, without appreciating others’ limits?—not so good.
Hooray, Jeannine, for sharing such a provocative, honest post! Indeed, we have a community of writers. Just what it means to be a good citizen and neighbor in that community is not always clear, but your discussion-starter is a big help.