Secret to Writing Success #43: Don’t Get in Your Own Way

I’ve been talking about success as a writer lately, and today I want to talk about what can sometimes be your biggest tripping point on the path to success – yourself.
I’ve been teaching and mentoring writers for a few years now and have recently been alarmed by an increase, especially in women writers, of a certain crisis in confidence, a kind of self-sabotage, that causes them to be the biggest obstacle in their paths to writing success. I don’t want to give away any secrets, but let’s look at some things female writers have said and done lately that made me just want to get up and shout: Don’t be the thing that keeps you from succeeding!
–A young student confessed after a reading that she was in tears every night after her old-white-dude adviser at her MFA program (which shall not be named, but it wasn’t Pacific U) said some mean things in his critiques, and that therefore, she didn’t want to write anymore. (Full disclosure: my MFA advisers were so kind this literally never happened to me. I think maybe one of them criticized my use of commas, which was probably well-deserved, but they were all to a person so supportive and encouraging that, much like this example girl writer might think if her adviser was encouraging instead of critical, I feared they were lying to me. That’s right, when they criticize you, you cry, but when they praise you, you worry they’re lying. Sigh. Because I also lacked confidence in my own writing for many years. Well, I still sort of do, but I just grit my teeth and get on with it now.) Um, your adviser is there to help you, he is not a father figure you need to impress. Really. Take the comments that help you and ignore the rest. This goes for mean people in writing groups, workshops, and editors, too.
–A woman writes a terrific book that gets published with a really good press, but is afraid to do anything to promote it, not wanting to appear too self-promoting or selfish or proud or whatever. Therefore, no one hears about her terrific book, while dozens of mediocre books are lauded far and wide. This is part of what motivates me to write book reviews, but really, if you have a great book, you have to do the work to get it some attention.
This is also a self-prescription. Go ahead, what are you afraid of, a little success?
–A publisher asks for someone’s book manuscript, which almost NEVER HAPPENS, and that person doesn’t send it because they’re worried “it’s not good enough…” For years. That’s not your decision, it’s the publisher’s. Books that do not get sent out are impossible to publish. If a publisher asks for your work, send the work without any questioning.
–Bright young writers who feel that their work, which has been praised by workshop leaders and friends alike, isn’t good enough to send out to publish, so they never send it. So it never gets published.
–Or, bright young writers send out a few individual poems, but don’t feel like their work deserves/is good enough/is well-organized enough fo a chapbook or full-length collection, so they never spend the time crafting a chapbook or full-length collection. It’s really hard to get a chapbook or book published if you never put one together. Plus, putting one together is an eye-opening journey into your own psyche – what are you protecting yourself from? Put the book together! Then send it out!
–Bright young writer gets a really specific and mean-spirited rejection, and stops writing because of it. Bright young writer gets mean workshop criticism, and stops writing because of it. Bright young writer thinks, what’ the point of publishing anyway, nobody reads poetry, what’s the point? And stops writing because of it. Writers who stop writing? Don’t magically find success. Writers who keep writing no matter what? Yes, you guessed it.

I hate to say this, but very few of the young men (literally, maybe only one or two) I’ve worked with have struggled with any of the above, regardless of the quality of their writing. Therefore, those guys have several books and a tenure-track teaching job now. Just think of that, ladies, and let it motivate you to not stand in the way of your own writing. Send it out, be proud, take the time to work on it and make it the best it can be but then for God’s sake send it out and when it gets published then promote it without feeling ashamed. Because I guarantee you the boys aren’t worrying about whether they seem selfish or whether some publisher will send them a mean note – they are sending out their work and thinking it is the best thing since the invention of the atom bomb. And guess what? That will make them successful a lot faster than if they were sitting fretting in their rooms about whether their work was even worth writing or not, or whether some group of writers or their teachers like them, or if their work deserves attention. So I prescribe a kind of exercise in reckless courage – write a poem you think everyone will hate and then send it out to the best journal you can think of. Write the book inside you, even if it scares you. The worst thing that might happen to you is not that bad, and the best is that you create some art that might even get noticed.

PS Please do not let this post be one more thing that makes you feel bad about yourself, either.