Wednesday Writing Tip: Confidence Tricks

I was talking to a writer friend a few weeks ago about the PhD. Sometimes it feels like having the degree is a millstone around my neck. I often keep it out of conversations for fear of intimidating people around me (I do that plenty without the help of the PhD tag). I have a friend who delights in spreading the news of my PhD around when he introduces me, since he takes pleasure in seeing the reaction. But I have to live with it, and as I have learned since being a teen, it doesn't exactly endear you to people to be thought of as smart.

But my friend insisted that having a degree opened doors for me. She said that at least I would always have something to fall back on, if the writing gig didn't work. I could teach at a university or translate or something. The likelihood of that seems very small to me. If I decided I wanted a job, I would probably be more likely to become a personal trainer than a professor type. I like teaching, but it doesn't pay that well and there is a lot of hassle involved, as I know, since I did it for four years.

But as the conversation turned around to her worries about her writing career, I realized something. What the PhD had actually given me was the ability to blow off academia, critics, and awards in a way that I think most writers can't. The fear of not writing the "great American novel" is just not something that afflicts me. I made a conscious choice to write commercial fiction. I like the mix that I've chosen to write in, between literary and fun, and I don't feel any need to show homage to great writers I don't actually think are great.

I've seen how politically and personally motivated literary assessments are from the inside. Academics just don't impress me. I'm not saying they're worthless. I think they teach an interesting way to look at literature more closely. But they're just one opinion, that's all. There are plenty of writers who have continued to be popular centuries later and the academics are simply standing with their mouths open, unable to explain this.

For example, Louisa May Alcott. Jane Austen at least played with language, though literary critics are annoyed with her attendance on the "small" things of life. Actually, this is my feminism coming out, but many popular writers are women. That "damned mob of scribbling women," who annoyed Nathaniel Hawthorne so much. Because they were making money and he wasn't, and he "knew" he was a better writer than they were.

Well, I am happy to be part of that mob of scribbling women. I think a certain kind of confidence about writing and choosing your material consciously is a good thing for a writer. Yeah, we are a neurotic bunch. We can make up fears where no one has ever even thought of making up a fear before. I don't know if anything I write is going to last the test of time. I don't think anyone can know that in advance, though I'm sure there are plenty of academics who believe they can. It's just that you have to close your eyes to that and jump.

An analogy:

In triathlon, the swim is usually done in open water. Sometimes a fresh water lake, sometimes an ocean. There are sometimes reports of jelly fish stings or even shark sightings, more often of some intestinal disease caught in a lake. Every time I get in the water, I am panicked by the thought of the creatures, microscopic or not, who are swimming in there along with me. Blessedly, the water is usually so opaque that I can't see anything in it. But sometimes I feel things, real or not. I pretend in these situations that my wetsuit is armor to protect me again creature touch. Or when I am swimming without a wetsuit, I just tell myself some other lie. Like the creatures are in the cold parts of the lake. Or on vacation. Anything to get it done.

While biking, I can make myself unable to go on if I think about the people who have died on tricky bike descents on the Tour de France or even friends of mine who've had accidents in races while policemen were at the stop light directing traffic. Or people who die in training rides, one of them on the road I ride on often, leaving behind a 6 month old baby. I could go crazy and stop racing because of any of these things.

Yes, it is true that I often choose to do my rides indoors precisely because of the mental energy it takes to turn off the fear. But when I race, I put it out of my mind. I've learned the trick and I don't think it's that different from the trick of putting the critics and the fear of writing "the right thing." Writing is just what you do. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. There's no point in going crazy about that. Everyone is going to write some stinkers and everyone can write well. No one can predict it, just like no one can predict exactly when you'll have your best day in a race. You do what you can, then you close your eyes and let the rest go.