Crash Course

by Robin Black

  Reader, I liberated him. I freed him from the cage of perfection in which I held him trapped. I was so neurotically addicted to seeing myself as the screw-up that I had forgotten to see him clearly at all, to notice how rapidly he, too, despised himself for making a mistake. I’d forgotten to understand that he has his own struggles, of a different nature from mine, but no less real, and no less deserving of a helping hand now and then.

  It isn’t easy to alter a long-term marital dynamic, even after a quickie epiphany, but over time I have gradually stopped forcing him into the role of paragon and started accepting his help, far, far more graciously than I ever did before. I now encourage him to enjoy his competency and the satisfaction of bolstering me where I am undeniably weak. And, perhaps most importantly, I have started reciprocating more, discovering ways in which I might help him—even remaining silent when he says that he “meant to do that,” to smack the one car into the other, because he knew it was exactly what our marriage needed at the time.

  “I really appreciate this,” I said, when he set off on the long drive for my wallet. “It’s incredibly nice of you.”

  “No biggie,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Drive carefully,” I said—biting back the suggestion that he watch out for parked cars.

  A Life of Profound Uncertainty

  I would never ask anyone to pity the poor writer her plight. No one has to be a writer. Even those people who claim that if they couldn’t write they would shrivel, raisin style, because their need to express themselves is so blah, blah, blah—even they don’t have to be writers. They choose to be writers. They get to be writers.

  Still. While writers don’t deserve the sort of sympathy appropriately reserved for people whose difficulties are not by-products of a privilege granted them, it’s true that being a writer can be a psychically uncomfortable life. “No Whining” makes a fine motto, but there’s value nonetheless to understanding why this pursuit feels so difficult at times, why the writer’s existence can be so isolating, and even so frightening; and there’s value to exploring whether it’s possible to restructure one’s perspective to make it less so.

  “A life of profound uncertainty.” That’s the phrase I use when questioning aspirants about whether they really want to take this on. And this is what I mean: On any given day, I don’t know if I will be able to write, I don’t know if I will like what I produce, I don’t know whether if I like it by evening, I will like it the next day or discover a hard drive full of dreck, I don’t know if anyone else will like it, I don’t know if the work will achieve whatever practical goal I have set (publication, for example), I don’t know whether, if published, it will find readers for whom it “succeeds,” I don’t know if any of that will lead to any financial remuneration, I don’t know if I will be publicly insulted or lauded for the work I have done, or ignored. I don’t know what impact the introduction of other readers, including critics, will have on my own feelings about my work or about my ability to do it, which brings us full cycle to the fact that on any given day I don’t know if I will be able to write.

  It can be pretty destabilizing, all that not knowing. Pretty damned uncomfortable, too.

  I’ve thought a lot about this in the past few years. Like others before me, I‘ve learned that publication, while welcome, does not introduce any greater level of psychic certainty into the equation. It seems to be close to universally true that after publication the degree of one’s insecurity about all things writing-related remains about the same, though the subject matter of the anxieties may be changed. Instead of worrying over getting a story published, you can worry about getting a bad review, or about not appearing on a prestigious list—but you are still worrying.

  I have friends whose careers seem like the absolute dream outcome for anyone—and they too are fragile about these not knowings. A solitary star on Goodreads can ruin the day of a writer who has won international awards. An unstarred Publishers Weekly review can ruin a week. A week of feeling uninspired erases years of productivity, leaving the latest critically acclaimed phenom doubting that he’ll ever write again.

  I’m hardly the first person to describe this condition, the enduring fragility of highly successful writers. There are plenty of articles about this subject online, and I often see comments, below, that hurl insults at these people, these enviable yet anxious beings. They should get over themselves; they must be terribly conceited if they want universal approval; they need to be tougher; they are ingrates, considering all they have; they should make it be about the writing and stop worrying about success; their priorities are fucked up. But those insults fail to take into account how common this fragility is. It isn’t an idiosyncratic response that a few narcissistic authors have. It’s far closer to being the norm.

  Like water seeking low ground, we writers seek uncertainty even in situations where it might make more sense—not to mention, be more comfortable—to latch onto the reassuring knowledge we have gained. And though writers tend to bemoan this fact—Why does nothing ever make me feel secure in this pursuit? Grrrrr.—I’m beginning to wonder if uncertainty isn’t actually something for which to be grateful.

  I’m not suggesting that writers need to be emotionally unstable in order to write, I have never bought into the notion that psychological struggles make for better art. But perhaps for many writers there is an instinctive recoil from a comfortable state of satisfaction—since it’s very likely that a sensation of dissatisfaction led to this work. Perpetual uncertainty may be a way of protecting creative restlessness, of guarding against a complacency that threatens creativity.

  My own earliest impulses to write grew directly out of a strange interplay between intuition and confusion, with a large dose of ignorance thrown in. For me, writing has always been about trying to make sense of things that I don’t understand, and not about certainty of any kind. It has always sprung from a sense of curiosity, precisely from a condition of not knowing. My creativity isn’t rooted in confidence. It grows from many things, no doubt, but chief among them is a deep, rebellious, and indeed almost hostile stance toward complacency—about anything. It feels like the enemy. And certainty? It closes doors. Ends discussions. Shuts other people out.

  Perhaps the real question for those who consider making this pursuit central to their lives is not “Are you ready for a life of profound uncertainty?” but “Are you uncertain enough to take on a life of creative work?”—a question to which the only acceptable answer may be: “I don’t know.”

  On Not Reading

  For about fifteen years I barely read a single book. I started life as one of those book-obsessed children, devouring pages, chapters, tomes, series, entire library sections of books. I read voraciously through high school, through college, through…well, that was about it. I graduated college at twenty-four, had my first child when I was twenty-five, my second three years later, my third at thirty-three and I had two pregnancy losses as well. Five pregnancies in ten years. Three little kids. One failed marriage along the way. Two and a half years of law school. A new husband. A child with special needs. A mother twice hit with life-threatening illness. A dying father. And nary an open book in sight—beyond cookbooks and those legal casebooks I tried and tried to read, but surely not because I wanted to. From 1987 or so to 2001, more or less, I left fiction behind.

  And maybe not only because I was so busy during those years. In college I had wanted to be a writer, and had thought I would be one, but I soon chickened out of even making the attempt. Looking back, I suspect that reading fiction became too painful for me, too much of a reminder of what I’d been unable to do. I didn’t abandon the joy of reading fiction because I had a houseful of children. It is closer to true that I had a houseful of children at least in part because I’d abandoned my other ambitions, chief among them writing books.

  In 2003, having reignited that dream, I found myself flooded with embarrassment at an early meeting with my first advisor in the Warren Wilson MFA
Program. Part of our task was to draw up a reading list for the semester. He asked me whom I had read. “Well, Virginia Woolf of course. Edith Wharton. George Eliot. Some Borges, in college. Henry James, Flannery O’Connor…” He put his pencil down. “What about contemporary writers?” I bit my lip. Then I remembered something. “A friend of mine gave me a book by someone called Lorrie Moore. Short stories. And I’ve read a story also by someone called Alice Munro. And…And a novel by someone called Francine Prose…”

  I rattled off another few “someone calleds”—a list that was, among other things, notable for its lack of diversity. And then he rattled off about two dozen names, each followed by a head shake from me. “Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope…” Not only had I not read them, I had never heard of most of them. When I had, I would shout like some kind of game show contestant, “Yes! Yes! I know that one!”

  “So,” he said, not a trace of judgment in his voice. “It looks like you have some catching up to do.”

  The truth is, all these years later, I still have a lot of catching up to do. For a woman in my profession, I am woefully poorly read. It has been impossible, while raising three kids and launching a brand new career, to make up for nearly fifteen years of unexercised literacy. And strangely enough, because this mid-life attempt to have a writing career has led to book publication, I now have even less time for reading the masterworks of those missing years. Many weeks all I read are student stories, books I might blurb, contest entries, manuscripts by friends who need feedback, and also new books out by writers I know—or new books by writers I admire. I read a lot, but ask me about any famous, critically-acclaimed book written in the late eighties or the nineties, and the odds are overwhelmingly good that I haven’t read it.

  I have long been ashamed of this fact. I try not to be, but so far no success. And there are outside influences that make it hard. Any number of very vocal reading devotees, prominent in my corner of social media, seem to look down on those who don’t read much; or haven’t read much lately; or have had to set that pleasure aside for other demands—or even for other pleasures more suited to that period of their lives. It is hard to still carry the deficits of a non-reader and not feel the sting of that scorn.

  I’m hardly an advocate for illiteracy. I want everyone to read and read a lot. I want everyone to find the exquisite pleasure I experienced just this morning, snow outside, a fire lit, a transporting novel on my lap. But I also want people to consider not saying things like, “I don’t understand people who don’t read”—in tones that suggest this is a failing of some kind, as if their own reading renders them somehow superior—as opposed to privileged. Because although, yes, sometimes not reading is a sign of an incurious nature or a lazy imagination, it can also be a sign of a too stressful life. Or of emotional pain. Or a learning disability. Or economic realities. Or of many, many other things, none of which indicate flaws in character.

  Though maybe in my case it was a character flaw that averted my gaze from the written word. Maybe I was cowardly in keeping my distance from a world that made me regret my path. Maybe I let my envy rule the day, and opted for self-protection over full engagement. Maybe my excuses still ring a little hollow to me because there was an element of choice involved.

  A friend wrote me recently that it is good to have the pressure of unfinished business in one’s life. Yes, I suppose that it is—and for me, some of that pressure takes the form of too many spines uncracked, pages unread, characters unmet, stories unknown—and of a shame that may well stay with me all my days, deserved or not.

  Rejection, Summer Conference Style

  Every summer, a few people I know will mention that they’ll be departing soon for the Sewanee Writers Conference. I hear that it’s amazing. I believe that it must be. For many years, I have observed the literary friendships it has inspired, the joys of insights gained, the happily drunken memories shared.

  I applied there myself, in the early 2000s, twice. This was before I had any publications, and I was applying as a paying customer, not requesting anything other than admission, for which I would have been thrilled to cough up a healthy sum. Both years, however, I was placed on a waitlist from which I was then never plucked.

  Fair enough. They either didn’t much like my work, or didn’t like my application essay—as I recall, there was one—or didn’t cotton to my recommenders, if those were required, none of whom would have been well-known writers, since I knew none at the time. Any of that is reasonable. Rejection is part of the game. Or rather, rejection is part of the profession—a profession that can feel like a game.

  But here is the dumbass part: I have never applied to another writing conference since. I have never applied as a paying customer, and I have made excuses not to apply even when nominated for a fellowship. “It’s not a good summer to leave the family,” I have said. Or, “I should spend any time I’m away working on my book.”

  Those excuses were, if not flat-out lies, at least hemi-demi-semi lies. I could have gotten around any of the above had I set my mind to the task. But I was afraid to apply. Even though I have long had a horrible case of Conference Envy. (Those friendships forged! Those insights gained! The parties! The fun!) But no. I have never even tried.

  The easy explanation is that, having been demolished by those earlier rejections, I suffer from a minor, comedic version of PTSD. Oh, did I not mention that I was demolished? The weeping that ensued? The resultant certainty that no ambition I held dear would be fulfilled? The self-loathing? The even longer than usual suffering of my long-suffering husband who withstood the onslaught of my misery with stoic, unconditional love? Even when I yelled at him for trying to reassure me. (Hint to partners of writers who are in self-hating devastation mode: Don’t try to reassure them. Just weather the storm and maybe bake brownies or restock the liquor cabinet, depending on the vice of choice. Or step away and save yourself.)

  Meanwhile, in the ensuing years, while avoiding ever letting a conference reject me again (“As God is my witness…I will never…”) I have, of course, put myself up for and received all manner of other rejections. Stories are sent back with perfunctory comments scrawled. Essays are turned down, without a word. Editors are “underwhelmed” by a book. Prizes are allocated elsewhere; grant applications, refused. All in the course of a day’s work, or perhaps a life’s work. You put yourself out there, you take your lumps. You do it again. You do it. I do it. Again and again and again.

  Except when it comes to conferences. No way, no how. Not me.

  So why the difference? I think there’s an obvious answer—and then, I think there may be another answer, too. The first, the most logical, is that those tolerable if unpleasant rejections listed above are very clearly rejections of my work. They mean that I won’t see a piece of mine in print, or won’t have the pleasure of reading my name on a list, or won’t receive money of which I believe I’d make good use.

  But they do not mean that people don’t want to spend ten days with me. They aren’t rejections of my company, not rejections likely to reverberate with memories of social exclusion, with lifelong fears of being disliked. Being the weird kid at school who wasn’t invited to the cool kid birthday parties. And, though the Sewanee rejections were no doubt also rejections of my work, at the time they felt like rejections of me.

  We’re having a gathering, and we don’t want you there.

  Ouch.

  So I have preemptively exiled myself, perhaps to real loss. As the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And of course this leads to a lesson, a simple lesson for one and for all: Don’t let yourself take any rejection so personally that it limits your attempts to participate fully in your profession. Just don’t.

  Makes sense to me.

  And I could stop here, I know, and call this a thoroughly digested experience. But, as I said, there is a second possible way to view this avoidance of mine: Perhaps I exercised a kind of twisted, inadvertent wisdom by scapegoating those Sewanee rejections, casti
ng them as just beyond the limit of what I could tolerate.

  Suppose I had never applied to Sewanee. Suppose my only experiences of rejection were of the kind I describe above, the ones that, while painful, don’t have the same devastating impact on me. Would I really have gone through this career setting no limits on my ability to make myself vulnerable? Would there truly have been no category of intolerable rejection from which I needed to protect myself, no pain so bad that I would refuse to endure it again?

  I wonder. It’s entirely plausible that I designated a variety of vulnerability as intolerable—in order to tolerate any vulnerability at all. And summer conferences. I mean, yes, they sound pretty damn good from where I’m sitting, never having been to one. But they aren’t necessary to a career. They aren’t in the same category as submitting to magazines, querying agents. They aren’t the defining risks of a writer’s career without which there is no career. So perhaps I was smart to corral so much of my anxiety, telling myself that no matter what happened, whatever other rejections I faced, I would never have to go through that again.

  I surely needed coping mechanisms. Stepping into the world with what felt to me like the outpourings of my most private secret self was unimaginably difficult. I had kept myself more or less limited to a life inside my home for two decades, for many reasons—including a shattering anxiety about rejections of all sorts, a certainty that I would fail at anything I tried, and a conviction that failing would then push me right back home.

  But somehow, though I have had my share of failures along the way, I have withstood them and pushed on, often to my own surprise.

  Regret is a funny thing. On one level, I do regret the many summers when I have stayed out of the competition, and therefore, maybe, also out of an important aspect of “the game.” But the problem with that particular regret is that while playing it safe in that way, I managed to emerge from the tiny private world in which I kept myself. I managed to put together a career as a writer. I weathered a lot of disappointment without being demolished, or retreating from the larger goal. And so I wonder if this small, arguably symbolic act of self-protection wasn’t a necessary concession to the anxious, fearful part of myself.