Chapter 210: On Being Vulnerable

I begin every semester by reading a paragraph from Norman Maclean’s “Young Men and Fire.” It comes midway through the book and appears out of nowhere. Maclean has been humming along, telling – and trying to get his head and arms around – the story of a fatal 1949 Montana forest fire. Maclean’s writing is easy on the eyes and mind – no fanfare, few distractions.

But then, on page 145 – I don’t even have to check the page, given how familiar it is after all these years – he stops. Pauses might be the better word because it is as if he holds up a hand (in his case, an old man’s hand; Maclean was reporting and writing his book into his late 80s) and, in effect, says I need to explain what’s going on here.

He writes that it was hard to imagine that many people were still around who might feel connected to the sad story of a long ago fire in a place most had never heard of. So, he asks, why tell it? And more to the point, who should do the telling?

“It will,” he wrote, “take something of a storyteller at this date to find it, and it is not easy to imagine what impulses would lead him to search for it. He probably should be an old storyteller, at least old enough to know that the problem of identity is always a problem, not just a problem of youth, and even old enough to know that the nearest anyone can come to finding himself at any given age is to find a story that somehow tells him about himself.”

I know of few passages so inspiring, and so read it aloud in the hope that my students find it inspiring, too – that in this clear, spare prose they hear a powerful and hopefully enduring message: the work you do, starting here and now, is deeply personal. The stories you choose to follow and the ways you tell them reflect what is core about you. I want them to embrace that; I believe that readers can feel that need in the words a writer presents on the page, and when they do they will connect with stories in which they might otherwise have no interest. Like a fatal forest fire of 1949.

But in my well-intentioned attempt to inspire I now see I was also, inadvertently, applying pressure on my students. In telling them, in effect, this is about you – even if the work is about other people and other places – I was sending another message: you will be exposed. You will be evaluated and judged. You, through your stories. You.

We writers may not necessarily be a little nuts but, as seen from the outside, it must appear that what we choose to do with our working lives is crazy. Day in and day out, week and month and year after year we fill empty canvasses with combinations of words that, we hope, will succeed in achieving the miraculous: getting people to see and feel what we have seen and learned. A profile in courage.

A few weeks ago a colleague told me about his deep and abiding admiration for the late astronaut Neil Armstrong for possessing the boldness to step off a ladder and onto the surface of the moon. True enough, I replied. But don’t sell yourself short: you do a remarkably brave thing every day: you reveal yourself to the world through your writing. Perhaps, he conceded, I had a point.

I do not know whether stepping onto the surface of the moon made Neil Armstrong miserable, self-doubting, self-satisfied, terrified, anxious, depressed; whether it made him feel like an imposter, a poser, a hack, a wannabe; whether he wished at that moment to be doing anything other that what he was doing. In other words, whether climbing down from the lunar module onto the moon was akin to the experiences so many writers feel.

My students remind me of their vulnerability. I have just finished editing their stories – I do this with them in person; better to have me explain what I want to change and why, than to return their drafts filled with edits, or as Google puts it euphemistically, “suggestions.”

They come away feeling, at turns, pleased, relieved, exhausted, and also wondering why they needed my help in shaping the writing, why they could not see what I had seen. I remind them that they’ve had their noses pressed up against their stories and that can leave any writer unable to step back and take the wider view; I tell them that this is why on the little-known Eighth Day of Creation God invented editors.

I remind them that they have taken great risks and they have succeeded, to which they will reply, in effect, I suppose so. They believe me, up to a point. I tell myself that they are new to this, that in time they will experience a deeper, inner sense of satisfaction and pride.

They have spent a year learning new skills – reporting and writing to conform to the expectations and standards of traditional journalism – a year that leaves many feeling confounded, lost, inadequate, a year that has often reinforced every doubt and insecurity they carry with them.

And here is the thing: it will not stop with graduation. Or their first jobs. It will not stop with great assignments, promotions, and new and exciting places to work. It will never stop because for reasons that make no sense and which nonetheless endure this is what we do to ourselves, and often with the best of intentions, what we do to those in our charge.

I started writing this newsletter six years ago as a journey to finding joy in the writing life. I do not believe that good things happen when writers feel miserable. I’ve spoken with writers and editors, and paid close attention to what my students were experiencing and how I was teaching them.

This journey was guided by the assumption that suffering was intrinsic to the work as well as magical thinking: it needn’t be this way!!!! But lately, as my teaching life draws to a close, I’ve found myself wondering about this latest group of talented and eager students, and those who came before and who have gone on to terrific careers still burdened by the expectations of writing for a living

I ask myself: Are we doomed to stay vulnerable? our vulnerabilities?

Perhaps not.

So I’ve begun researching the writing psyche, mind and brain. It turns out that there is considerable research on the emotional side of creativity. I plan to continue that research and as I do will share with you what I learn. As Maclean put it, the problem of identity is not just a problem of youth. My hope is that this benefits us all.

Here is one thing I have discovered: I asked my students how much of their learning was guided by the word: Don’t. As in, don’t forget to attribute all quotes, don’t forget to get a quote from the other side of the dispute, don’t forget to use active verbs, don’t forget to use simple declarative sentences, don’t include yourself, don’t editorialize, don’t take one source’s word for things, don’t use too many em-dashes, don’t misuse semi-colons, don’t use the words controversy and “the international community,” don’t forget hyperlinks, don’t forget to check name spellings, don’t write longer than 600 words or no one will read it, don’t use cliches. Don’t make any mistakes.

Not one of these don’ts is unreasonable. But their cumulative impact leaves students feeling as if they are navigating a minefield. Bad things happen with the wrong step in minefields.

Don’t reflects what is known as prevention focus, a phenomenon developed by psychologist E. Tory Higgins of Columbia. Drawing on Higgins’ Regulatory Focus Theory, prevention focus is a useful tool in ensuring that tasks are done well. But they can undermine creativity by presenting an endless series of doubts designed to lessen the risk of failure. Better to prevent failure, even if that means avoiding trying something new.

Higgins termed its corollary “promotion focus.” Promotion focus is guided by a different word: Do. Try. Risk. Do remember to get both sides of the story, and use verbs that will propel the reader along. Do ask people about themselves even if you disagree with them. Do risk failure. Do try again if you fall.

How those messages are imparted – by editors, teachers, institutions that have always done things a certain way – can make all the difference in how writers think about themselves and their work.

We may not admit it – because it feels so needy – but we do want to feel good about what we do. We also want to feel validated.

But that, in turn, raises all sorts of other questions about who does the validating, when we experience it, and whether that validation ends up as a frozen moment in time.

These, however, are questions for another day, and another chapter.

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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 writer’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.

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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.