elizabethlevett

For creatives, on the act of putting your work out to a larger audience…

I’ll begin with a question. What would it look like for you to put a great deal of effort into something on a regular basis and hear someone say that you aren’t really a practitioner of this particular endeavor? Like say, for instance that you are a veterinarian. You meet someone at a cocktail party. You tell them about your job. The person says to you, “Oh, but you’re not real doctor though, right?” You’d feel insulted, belittled.  You’d be perfectly justified in feeling that way. And yet, a person can spend several hours each week, year after year, writing and then say to an acquaintance, “I’m not really a writer.” Unfortunately, this is because, if you tell someone you’re a writer, they will immediately ask you, “Have you been published?” (Which translates to, “Do you make money writing?”) And I sincerely wish that any person who practices the craft of writing on a regular basis would give themselves permission to say with confidence, “No, but I’ve gotten plenty of rejection letters!” and walk away spearing the olive in their cocktail with a warrior’s vigor. And so, dear reader/writer, I offer this suggestion, let’s try to buoy each other up, to somehow acknowledge for each other that the acts of writing, revising, editing, and submitting are enough to prove your legitimacy. (I need to say this at least as much as you may need to hear it.) And that, while publishing can be a wonderful form of validation, it’s also complicated and challenging, and sometimes just out of reach. But it’s worth a shot once in a while.

 Anyone who writes struggles with figuring out how and when, and even whether to put their work out there. Submitting our writing feels like sending a young child to school alone, through the woods, across the railroad tracks, into the subway, across an ocean, and down a busy urban street. Who knows what will happen to your little one? How long it will take before you know? It’s scary and it’s tedious. And so inevitably the big question looms: Why bother? Is it just ego that makes us want to publish? Is it just status? I don’t think so.

Remember when you were young and you’d get together with your friends to listen to music? In my day we’d play whatever album had just come out (or an amazing old chestnut we’d just found). The shared experience of a song and what it could mean to us was everything and a mixtape, an actual cassette one of your friends had made for you, packed with killer tunes they chose just for you, meant something very special. You had connected. And sometimes, as in my case, you started trying to write songs that would open up for people that same deep well of understanding. That’s the way it is with writing. You read a great book, you recommend it to your group, you talk about the writer’s craft, the way they draw characters, the way they use language, all of it. And if you’re someone who writes, reading a great story or a powerful poem makes you want to get to work trying to write something at least half that good, that honest and beautiful. 

And so, you’re inspired. You carve out the time, maybe early in the morning, and start scratching away at a memory or an impression — a story. Maybe you wake up at night, and you jump out of bed with what might be a flash of brilliance and jot it down so you can sleep. Only then, in the cold light of morning, you can’t quite figure out what happened. Somehow the previous night’s bolt of genius is this morning’s mundane, pedestrian line with less than a snowball’s chance in Phoenix of going anywhere. Still, you file it away and promise yourself you’ll get back to it. And at some point, when the planets align, conditions seem perfect, and all is more or less under control, you settle in at your sunny desk and it all flows out just as you hoped it would. Actually, no, that never happens. What happens is that you plug away at it. You read it, you revise it, and then you read it again. If you’re lucky, you have a friend you can read it to who will tell you kindly and honestly what’s working. Then you fix it up even more and finally share it with a few more friends — sort of fling it at the wall like so much spaghetti and see if it sticks. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. You post it on your blog or share it in some other way to a slightly larger audience. If enough of your posse thinks it’s worthwhile, that it’s resonant and clever, you decide to take it one more step. You decide to try publishing. You search around for what seems like the perfect venue. You compose your cover letter and your bio, saying just enough to make a good impression without saying too much. You try to sound brilliant, but incredibly humble. You try to sound worthy. You probably pay a reading fee. You may have to join a submission service or download an app. There will be guidelines you’ll follow meticulously. And you may receive a reply, anywhere from several weeks to several months later. They aren’t taking submissions at this time. Your piece just isn’t right for their audience. Or else, and most likely, they have received numerous submissions and yours didn’t make the cut.

Here’s the thing. It is discouraging. But it’s also a necessary rite of passage. Like the old Parable of the Sower, you simply have to keep trying. Plant your seeds, let them germinate, nourish them, let them grow, and see what happens. And remember the part about connection, about the importance of creating what you’re moved to create and, in turn, allow yourself to be moved by the work of others. If you haven’t been published, or haven’t been lately, it doesn’t mean you aren’t writing, and it doesn’t have to mean you aren’t writing well. Let someone else decide if it’s important to them — don’t let anyone decide for you. The main thing is to keep creating. And remember what writing does for you, not just the sharing of it, but also the process of it, the empowerment and release it gives you. Other writers are feeling that too when they write. That means, if publishers are having to weed through tons of submissions, then lots of people are finding their own power as writers and that’s a very good thing.

Just like making a mixtape for an old friend, sharing your work is a labor of love. And if something you’ve written sounds good to you and a handful of folks you trust, either let that be enough or send something out now and then. Try not to let an occasional rejection dispirit you or cause you to question your validity. Keep planting the seeds. Keep going.