Dealing with fears – the myth of the curve
Vanessa asked about the insidious voice, a personality that emerges from the ‘inner editor’ and tells us that we’ll never write something so good again, that we fluked our last success and really, deep down, we know we’re not good enough to sustain our publication record.
This is what I call the myth of the curve. We believe in it because in all areas we are presented with the curve, not just as a potential achievement but as an actual fact. Tiger Woods, Mozart, Rubens, Immanual Kant, Einstein, Dave Eggers … all found their curve and ride it, onwards and upwards, ever progressing, ever improving – don’t they?
No. They don’t.
Woods does lose. Mozart wrote some clunkers. Rubens had bad days and bad paintings. Einstein was sometimes (whisper it) wrong.
We don’t write against a graph, rather we write like a kid skimming stones. Sometimes those stones jump perfectly and achieve the other bank. More often they skip once or twice and then sink. By continuing to practice, we can aim to get more stones across the stream than when we started – and that’s what we judge ourselves on. We get better at picking the right stones, judging the wind, reading the current, and so we think one day we’ll get every stone over. But we won’t – we never can. Not because we’re not good enough, but because there are too many variables out of our control.
But with notable public successes, in all fields we hear only about what reaches the other bank. We never learn of the twenty stones that sank … like stones. So what should we do?
Forget the curve and enjoy the riverbank. Remember that posterity will judge differently and we won’t be around to see if we make it or not. Admire the stones, listen to the water, and take a moment to remember that any talent at all, no matter its extent, is to be cherished, not castigated if it doesn’t ‘deliver’ on our dreams.
Some stones aren’t good for throwing. Some stories – our beloved babies – never make publication. Pretty stones make good doorstops or pocket charms, good stories make us remember that while they may not get published, they have their own intrinsic worth to us as their creator.
Really it comes down to ignoring outcome most of the time, and focusing on process as the purpose of our craft. When outcome and process join to make publication, we can celebrate, but when they don’t, if we’ve taken pleasure in process, we’re more able to move away from the critical voice, pick up a new stone, heft it in our hands, and just watch its trajectory, without investing too much in where it lands.
10 Comments
Quillers
20th March 2007This is great advice, Kay. I’ve put a link to it from my blog as I think it’s something all writers should read and pay heed to.
Vanessa G
20th March 2007Thank you for such a great answer, Kay.
Am also linking.
v
TitaniaWrites
20th March 2007Thank you Kay, I especially love
When outcome and process join to make publication, we can celebrate…
So true, it’s just hard to focus on the process and not the publication.
Kay Sexton
20th March 2007Wow, this seems to have struck a nerve, or maybe a chord (a Mozartian chord?) with other writers!
Sara
21st March 2007That is another excellent post. Thank you. I feel, like Vanessa, that successful previous stories may be it, as good as I get. That inner voice can be pretty loud at times. You are right though, it should be about the compulsion to create, and where that leads, let it be.
Your advice is wonderful. Do you currently run a creative writing class at all?
LMD
21st March 2007Excellent, Kay. Very worthwhile to keep the analogy of the stone-skipping in mind. It’s in the heft, the eyeing of the surface of the river, and the decision to throw the stone that the pleasure comes. When it skips, it’s a celebration, but when it doesn’t, it’s not truly a defeat. We select the next stone, and toss again.
Thank you!
Tribeless
21st March 2007I must stop writing on square, chunky stones 🙂
Kay Sexton
21st March 2007Thanks Sara and McKenna. Sara, I’m planning a course for Brighton in the next couple of months. I’ve taught it twice before, it’s called Writing Fiction to Get Published and all I need is to find a non-smoking evening venue to get started …
Sara
22nd March 2007Oooh!
Could you let me know when you have more details please?
Kay Sexton
22nd March 2007Sara – why don’t you email me? I’m on kay(at)charybdis(dot)freeserve(dot)co(dot)uk – it would be nice to talk to you anyway!