On Doubt and Being Published
A great letter from Story Club on doubting a vocation in writing and my personal take on whether it is important to be published
My friends, let’s talk about doubt. (And when I say friends I may be thinking of a couple of you in particular.)
You may get tired of me mentioning George Saunders but he really does have one of the best writing Substacks out there. You should read all of this letter he wrote to a reader who wanted to persuade his friend to keep writing.
The answer is a bit nuanced, but here's a little bit of his wisdom,
First, let me say that it's not necessary that everyone keep writing or be a writer; whatever wonderful qualities - of feeling, of expression, of awareness - a person has, these will find a home that is not writing, if, in fact, that person stops writing.
However, the friend could just be stuck in a moment where writing and publishing is just hard. In that case, George had this excellent practical advice to give,
I found it useful, when I was in those pre-publication, low-available-time phase, to think: 1) productivity is not necessarily in a linear relationship with time spent. (The stress of a busy life will sometimes take you right to some kind of truth and urgency in your work that might be accomplished in, even, ten quick minutes of writing.) So, shortage of time doesn’t necessarily mean impossibility of progress. 2) Even if you're not actively writing because you are too busy, you are still a writer, because of the way you regard the world - with curiosity and interest and some sort of love. No need, then, to declare that one is or is not a writer. You just are, because of how you think.
Above all, I think a sense of humor about the resistance you’re encountering is important (whether that resistance is coming from the work itself or the insistent, indifferent world); kind of like, “Huh, so this obstruction is happening now. Interesting, Well, nothing lasts forever, including obstructions. I guess this obstruction is going to be part of my, uh, journey - part of what I hope will someday be a happy, even triumphal, story of a victory of sorts (and this is true even if that victory includes deciding not to be a writer.”
Being published is often the most obvious sign that one is doing good work. It is hard to keep plugging away, even if our writer friends keep saying we are awesome. They are our friends after all.
Over the next few Substack posts I am going to spend some time writing to members of my Writing Accountability Group (or WAG, which I will talk about separately) about finding balance, managing time, handling doubt and discouragement, and finding friends and mentors. I have a number of videos, books, and printable tools that may be helpful (they were to me, at least).
Personally speaking, I was calling myself a poet when I started writing poetry. I may be a unicorn for thinking this, but I never really thought of publishing as a prerequisite to being a writer of any sort. If I write I am a writer. Full stop. Maybe this is stupid, but then again, I never claimed to be smart.
However, I recently sent a poem out for the first time in years. And it looks like it will be published. Why start sending out my work if I didn’t feel like I needed to be published before?
What I am going to tell you is probably the wrong reason why anyone should do anything, but I will tell you anyway because I think it is worth it to share something about the human condition.
Not long ago my middle school aged daughter had to write an essay about someone she admired. She told me she wrote about me because she sees me get up in the early morning hours of the day to write poetry. I do this every day. Even when I am sick or tired. I work very hard, and this is what she sees.
When my daughter told me this I was touched at first, but then a horrible feeling sunk in. I want her to be proud of what I do. I want all my children to know that all this hard work—all these hours when I could be doing something else, something easier—amounts to something. But I just didn’t think I was any good. Sure mom is a poet, but she’s a bad poet who isn’t good enough to be seen by the world.
I saw getting something published as a way to get instant validation. I just needed to do this at least once. But getting back to George Saunders, you can’t bat a thousand every time you send your work out. There will be lots of discouragement, even for the most talented writers. So then, what do you do?
If you stop loving writing, then stop. But those of us who have been married a long time will know that love is work. Love is a choice. Love is an act of devotion.
Do what you love.
Because love calls us to the things of this world.
Let all you do be done with love.
Writing won’t always love you back. But true love is unconditional.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Even if you aren’t published.
Yet.
An editor friend of mine says the world is divided into two groups: writers and people who write. His theory about this is kind of complicated, but I think: for some people, writing is their way of being in the world, and it's not entirely private, any more than just *being* is entirely private. Writing is a reaching out---they want to be writing *to* someone, not just talking to themselves. I think that's what's behind the impulse to publish (especially once you're disabused of the notion that you're going to get rich and famous that way). It is about some kind of human give-and-take of experience. This isn't necessarily my friend's demarcation line between being a writer vs. being a person who writes, but it is mine---this is my way of being in the world, and I don't want to be in the world, my full whole imaginative self, alone.
And yeah, also, being published is a validation that what you do is real. Artists want people to see their art, because that's what it's *for.* Writing is meant to be read. The very act of writing presumes a reader, and beyond a certain extent, it's not satisfying if the reader is always just yourself. And yes, I think that you reach that point where either it's totally satisfying just to do your private writing, or it's not satisfying. And I think the reasons for it to be not wholly satisfying are valid --- if this is your way of being in the world, then you want it to be in the world, not just in the drawer of your nightstand.