Chapter 160: Lost. And Found

There is one question I get from former students that hurts to read. One came the other day. The writer wasn’t sure whether to be identified as "Seeking Confidence" or "Mid-career Confidence Crisis." Either way, a discouraging pseudonym. 

The writer has enjoyed a terrific career – doing wonderful work across different platforms, all with the exuberance I first saw when she came to the school years ago. She was always a bit of a worrier, but reasonably so; her fears were matched by confidence and ease.

But now that confidence has vanished.

She wrote: Writing has become really hard. Like, too hard. I write and rewrite sentences and paragraphs, paralyzed by the fear that I am actually a bad writer and that my ideas are stupid. While writing has never been easy for me, it hasn't always been this miserable. When I was younger and a new-ish writer, I think the words flowed more seamlessly because I could tell myself that I was young and new to this and no one was expecting me to be great. A decade later, I can't really say those things anymore.

I am completely aware that I am the obstacle. I also know that everyone out there (my real and imagined critics) are too busy thinking about themselves to really care if I'm good or not ... and yet, here I am, scared that I'm not good enough to be the type of writer I want to be. 

I did not want to reply immediately. I was afraid that if I did my response would quickly devolve into an anodyne self-esteem booster that did not address what lay at the heart of her crisis. Her crisis, and one she shares with most every writer I have ever known.

So, to “Crisis” and everyone else reading this newsletter thinking – Oh my God that’s me she’s talking about!!! – let me try to offer a way back to once again being the writer you feel you used to be. Because I want to assure you – because I know it to be so – you still are.

First: you may be feeling alone but you are not.  Years ago I was working on a story about the friendship between two of the world’s most acclaimed classical musicians: the cellist Yo Yo Ma and the pianist Emanuel Ax. I was sitting in the living room of Ax’s summer home near Tanglewood, an audience of one listening to them rehearse Brahams. At one point Ma played a passage that fairly oozed with sadness and longing. The oozing was the problem and Ma, who plays with an intensity that appears to envelop him completely, stopped abruptly, looked at this friend and said, in so many words, that sucked didn’t it.

Ax, a gentle man, smiled and nodded as if to say, yes, it did.

What I love most about that moment is the great Yo Yo Ma displaying what Hemingway said was essential for writers, but applies to all creative people: a 100%, built-in, fool-proof bullshit detector. He knew the passage sucked. He needed his friend to confirm that at that moment, in that living room, his playing was not what he wanted it to be. Even the immortals know. And those who do not, I think it is fair to say, don’t join the ranks of the immortals.

I suspect, dear “Crisis”, you are thinking: what has this to do with me? Yo Yo Ma picked up his bow and played the same passage again and nailed it, right? Yes, he did. But the point is that he displayed in that brief moment of self-criticism a quality that, I believe, all writers share, or should: the existence of two voices in our heads, battling for supremacy. 

One is the good voice, whispering in your ear that you possess the talent and skills to do terrific things. 

Then there is the other voice, the evil one that unlike its sunny counterpart does not whisper but screams: YOU WILL FAIL. 

Writers need both. 

Too much self-regard will keep you from spotting when you are playing the metaphorical passage badly and not allow you to make the necessary corrections. 

Too much self-laceration can keep you from risking even the most tentative step forward, for fear of the catastrophe it will unleash.

That second voice, that bullshit-detector-run-amok voice, is clever, in the way that bullies are clever about spotting weakness. And like bullies, Tony Soprano and a certain politician/s, that voice derives its power from exploiting weakness. It senses when we’re feeling vulnerable. Then it leaps. Sometimes, we see it coming and can  swat it away; quiet, self-critic, for I am on deadline. But too often that voice is akin to the punch that boxers most fear – the one they don’t see coming and knocks them out. 

Weakness abounds for those of us who write and that weakness leaves us vulnerable to crippling self-criticism just when a) we’re feeling good – cue imposter syndrome  b) when we hit even a small roadblock – why can I not find the right word?  and c) when we forget to write when we’re at our best, according to our own rhythms and schedules – I always write in the mornings and now it’s midnight and I’m writing drivel. 

But there is another peril that leaves us vulnerable, one against which we are largely defenseless: life. Things happen. People get sick. Our hearts get broken. Loved ones die. We hear bad news. Our circumstances change. We have children. Children make demands. We want to meet those demands. And suddenly, as if overnight, we find ourselves paying the price of the burdens that life inevitably heaps upon us by watching our voices vanish. 

Which, without giving too much away, is what I believe happened to “Crisis.” Just as it happens to us all.

Much as we may fantasize about locking ourselves away from the world’s myriad distractions and having all the time we could ever want to write without interference and interruption – a show of hands, please, of all those who wish it to be so; thought so –  it never works that way. Practically and emotionally. Trouble and its companion, memory, operates like a bounty hunter: it has one job and that is to find us, even when we think we’re safe. 

So what is a writer to do? You begin, paradoxically, by surrendering.

The difference between those two voices is not limited to the content of the messages. The voice of encouragement reflects reality, which makes it the voice of reason and rationality. The voice of failure is anything but. It is irrational, sometimes hysterical, and possessed of just enough that sounds truthful. In the battle between the rational and the irrational, the irrational is like the casino: it always wins. 

We think because we are good with words that we can argue with that voice. We cannot. The darker voice is the voice of terror and terror is a far more powerful force than reason.

So don’t fight. Don’t try to think your way out. Don’t protest. Instead, let that voice scream all it wants. 

And then, write a sentence. That sentence will begat another sentence. And then another and another.

Those sentences do not have to be good. They just have to be. How do I know this? Because I have re-read “Crisis’” note several times. The note she wrote. Seven sentences. 

The first is five words without punctuation: Writing has become really hard.

Then a second, which builds on the first, musically: Like, too hard. 

Next comes a sentence that unfolds slowly, beginning with what she is doing – I write and rewrite sentences and paragraphs – followed by her reaction to what she has written – paralyzed by the fear that I am actually a bad writer – all the while building to those final, devastating words – and that my ideas are stupid.

She does not see it but she is on a roll. A story, a small one, is unspooling: While writing has never been easy for me, it hasn't always been this miserable. 

She incorporates the element of time: When I was younger and a new-ish writer, I think the words flowed more seamlessly because I could tell myself that I was young and new to this and no one was expecting me to be great. A decade later, I can't really say those things anymore.

Then comes the confessional: I am completely aware that I am the obstacle. I also know that everyone out there (my real and imagined critics) are too busy thinking about themselves to really care if I'm good or not ... and yet, here I am, scared that I'm not good enough to be the type of writer I want to be. 

One hundred and forty-nine words. She has written a story. It is a small story, one that feels like the beginning of something more. But even if her story ends here it has served a purpose she did not see, or perhaps in her fear could not see: She possessed the skills, talent and most importantly the power to write 149 words that allowed her to make sense of her world at a moment in time. 

The pacing, the way she landed that ending – I'm not good enough to be the type of writer I want to be – is something only a writer can do. A writer like “Crisis.” A writer like all of us who struggle and despair. 

We are not powerless in the face of the voice of promised failure. 

We only think we are.

As I write this – and let me confess that this chapter did not come easily – I am reminded of a scene from “The Treasure of Sierra Madre,” a long ago movie that if you have not seen you really should – I have just given you an excuse to procrastinate; you are welcome – in which an elderly prospector played by Walter Huston has what appears to be a mad scene in the middle of nowhere with his fellow gold hunters, Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt. (Think of Bogart here at the face of the evil voice; it works). 

Huston is laughing and dancing and driving Bogart nuts because he and Holt cannot see what he sees. 

Huston is the good voice and this is what he says: You’re so dumb you don’t even see the riches you’re treading on with your own feet.”

Watch it here

We’re talking riches, dear “Crisis.” Your words. 149 of them. Gold. They were there all along. You just didn’t see them. Look again.

* * *

If you have a question, a problem in your work, if you are feeling lost, stuck, confused, at sea, searching, grappling, or baffled, email me at Michaelshapiro808@gmail.com and tell me what you’re confronting and what help you need.

It is seldom, if ever, the case that one student’s problem or question is their’s alone.

Please indicate if you want to remain anonymous, have your name or just first name included. I will include the question and then answer it as best I can.

* * *

Nothing good ever came from writers punishing themselves. We know writing is hard. We’re here to show that it doesn’t have to be torture