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6. Rethink
Is it really rejection if you don’t want it?
“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after,” said Henry David Thoreau, whose mom did his adult laundry for him at Walden Pond.
Last week I admitted I’d wanted to be famous. Did I want to be famous? I’d thought so, because that’s what everyone was after.
But no.
I mentally drafted my Oscar acceptance speech for Best Adapted Screenplay before I wrote my book, and that ~derailed~ me. Wanting to be famous got in the way of writing a word. And did I even want to win an award that Beyoncé did not win?
An award must be nice, but if I won one, then I’d want to win another and another and another, and I wouldn’t be able to think of anything else but awards.
Awards are not for me, but a few times I’ve gotten 10% famous. The side effects were gross. All I could do was refresh my browser tabs to check on my fame that kept going away. I was fishing for this sanity-eating fish?
10% of fame and the preoccupation with it was way more distracting and devitalizing and deranging than rejection, and it decomposed into absurdity with 10% of perspective.
Cis-male author and alcoholic F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a funny personal essay about his early success:
“One gradually developed a protective hardness against both praise and blame. Too often people liked your things for the wrong reasons or people liked them whose dislike would be a compliment. No decent career was ever founded on a public and one learned to go ahead without precedents and without fear.”
If we take praise and blame off the table, then what are you after? Is it:
Connection?
Revenge?
To burn the white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy to the motherfucking ground? To not go quietly into the night? [Now I’m quoting the film Independence Day.] To not vanish without a fight? To live on? To survive? To celebrate Independence Day?
To say something that hasn’t been said?
To have an uninterrupted conversation with society/anyone who wants to listen?
To spend your time on Earth doing something you enjoy?
To get someone to fall in love with you without leaving your apartment?
To make your exes cross the threshold of revelation and see that they could have loved you like someone who writes like you should be loved? And then you can reject their love?
To make your enemies rue the day?
Immortality?
Still this?
47 years ago in 2010 I was supposed to meet my online friend/mentor/rabbi
in person at an event, but I slept until 4pm and missed it. I wrote her a long emotional email about why I wasn’t there (depression) and said, “I’m melting under the pressure of the success I’m supposed to have but may not actually get because I may not actually have whatever is behind potential.” lol I was 26 years old and had experienced some early success F. Scott wrote about.I opted to fail by not trying, because trying was both hard and embarrassing.
Cheryl replied, “Success is a pile of shit somebody stacked up real high. It means nothing. Think of all the successful assholes there are. You aspire to that? Please forget about success. True success is a byproduct of a beautiful heart and honest work. You already have a beautiful heart. You know how to work honestly. Trust yourself.”
“Your heart is hot.” —Cheryl Stayed
We continued the success conversation in an interview published in Creative Nonfiction in 2013:
STRAYED: My definition of success has been developed over many years full of both successes and failures. My trajectory has not been failure, failure, failure, then success. The successes have been there all along, and all along, there’s also been a steady stream of rejections and disappointments. I imagine this will always be the case. It’s the writer’s life. It’s true that Wild’s reception, in particular, has been rather breathtaking, but it hasn’t made me measure success differently. I keep faith with the work. Wild would be the book that it is regardless of how many people read it. I’m very sure about that. When I say, “Success is a pile of shit somebody stacked up real high,” I mean it’s folly to measure your success in money or fame. Success in the arts can be measured only by your ability to say yes to this question: “Did I do the work I needed to do, and did I do it like a motherfucker?”
BASSIST: When I moved to New York, I named the wireless network in my new apartment “Famous.” How fucked up is this?
STRAYED: It’s incredibly fucked up. Have you talked to your therapist about this?It seems to me it would help if you refocused what it is you’re trying to be. Do you want to be famous, or do you want to be a great writer? Sometimes those two things are one and the same, but often they aren’t.
BASSIST: I christened the wireless network “Famous” . . . when I thought fame was the intersection of writing and money. . . . If I were tech-savvy enough to change my network name, I would change it to “Humility/Surrender.”
STRAYED: I think most writers feel the same way at the beginning—that fame is the definition of success. In my early twenties, I used to go to readings by famous authors and fantasize about being that person on the stage someday. The longing for success is a healthy force when it drives you forward in the hard times, and because of that, I think it’s kind of sweet you gave your wireless network the name “Famous,” but part of maturing as a writer is understanding how to measure success. It’s not fame and money for many writers. I mean, walk around the AWP conference, and you’ll encounter hundreds of successful, accomplished writers who are not famous or rich—or, at least, not rich from their writing. The other thing I’d like to note is that we’re talking about a very particular kind of fame when we talk about famous writers. If you asked people what they think of Alice Munro, most would reply, “Alice who?”
Since I’ve matured as a writer I’ve rethought of what I’m after.
I’m after the writer’s life, which means I’m after rejection. I’m after a protective hardness against blame and praise. I’m after the feeling I’m feeling now, writing this. I’m after learning to go ahead without precedents and without fear. I’m after antidepressants. I am no longer after this
Really, tell me: what are you after?
Gossip more about F. Scott Fitzgerald in my upcoming seminars:
How to Write a Tragicomic Memoir
October 8th (THIS SUNDAY)
2-5pm EST
Online, via Writing Workshops
Learn to make readers laugh while RIPPING OUT THEIR HEARTS in a full-length sad, funny book about yourself and your exes/mom/dad. I’ll go through all my rejections and what they taught me about how to write a book.
*
October 17th (Tuesday)
7-9pm EST
Online, via Quebec Writers’ Federation
Like this newsletter but with handouts, my face, brainstorming exercises, 10x more information, an AMA, and communal crying.
ICYMI: I’m Elissa Bassist, and I teach short conceptual humor/satire writing, funny personal essays, tragicomic memoir, emotional emails, and that’s it. I edit the “Funny Women” column on The Rumpus, and I wrote the award-deserving book Hysterical. I am probably my therapist’s favorite.
Smash:
Smash:
(Consider smashing “paid” because while I hate fame, I love money.)
And smash that heart button to help people in the Substack Multiverse find this newsletter.
Jesus Christ! Could you stop with the brilliance? Could you stop poking a stick into my heart until it's tenderized? Seriously, best piece ever.
I needed this today. I got an acceptance email last week and a rejection email this week. Guess which one is on my mind. I say that I'm not looking for fame, but how will I know that I'm good if someone doesn't tell me? I know that I'm getting better and that's what really matters. That I don't quit. Thank you for this series. It's profound!