One of the things I do in the PEN Mark program is write a weekly blog post. PEN gave me some guidelines when I started, but they basically let me write about whatever I want. It would be kind of weird if they didn’t, actually, since the basis of their nonprofit platform is to protect freedom of expression and the rights of writers around the world. But that’s not my point. Like most things writing related, I tend to put off writing my weekly post until the last possible minute. I am a writer who loathes writing, but loves having written. The post I wrote about memoir a couple of days ago was no exception. You can read it here.
I’m struggling with a rewrite of the manuscript I’ve been working on for–jesus–six years, and I’m filled with doubt and self-loathing. There’s a litany of voices singing whocareswhocareswhocares in my head. They sit at the foot of my bed while I’m sleeping. They wait for me. The other day, while the voices harmonized their morning song (“You’re ruining it! Who cares? Eww, stop being so maudlin!), I started thinking about Lorrie Moore, whose work I adore with an unhealthy fervor–no, seriously, I own three copies of Self Help. Some months back, she wrote a review for the NY Review of Books that basically decried memoir. The rest of the world (the narrow world I inhabit the fringes of that’s aware of this type of thing) commented on it, or didn’t, and went on with their lives, but that’s just not how I function. I collect things like that, stuff them into my pockets like loose change and gas receipts, add them to my collection of tiny voices that swell into a choral cacophony of shut the fuck up when I sit down at the page. Letting go is never going to be my default state. It just fucking isn’t. So that’s what I wrote about in my blog post. And some other stuff that just kind of flowed out of it.
Then Cheryl Strayed Facebooked and Tweeted a heap of praise about my post (which, *swoon*), and Brevity Magazine picked it up and talked about it (more swooning, of course). You can read that here.
It’s what we all hope for, right? That people will read our work, be moved in some way, start a conversation. People shared and re-shared the links. Friends and acquaintances emailed congratulations. Kevin Sampsell friended me. (I loved A Common Pornography. Loved it.) I was having a really good day.
And then I saw it.
One snarky post on a different magazine’s Facebook page that mocked the tone of what I’d written by mimicking it. He called it my writing cliche, name-dropped some amazing writers who supported his opinion that what I was saying was old and tired. There was other stuff, too. Basically, he told me to shut the fuck up. And his voice was louder than the whole chorus of love I’d been hearing all day. I had a panic attack before I went to sleep, my heart thudding in my chest so loudly that it literally made my ears pop.
You know how I just said I’ve been working on this book for six years? That’s not true. I started this book six years ago, but I’ve seriously derailed a few times along the way. I’ve had two PEN fellowships, a MacDowell Colony residency, a Norman Mailer Colony fellowship, the CNF Fellowship at the Prague Summer Program, et al. A fucking chorus of encouragement. And yet, I let my head get completely overrun by a couple of nasty voices. Not even necessarily about my work. One mentor technically fulfilled her obligations, but snubbed me so fucking hard in every single social situation that I thought I was going crazy. There was the editor of the lauded lit mag who basically told me my work was unreadable, the same work that won me a coveted full scholarship to that prestigious program in Prague.
Guess whose words I hear when my head hits the pillow at night? It’s not Cheryl Strayed’s or Richard Katrovas’ accolades. Those tiny, dissenting voices take over my world. I don’t just need fuck-you goggles, I need a fuck-you hazmat suit. And a machete.
Don’t confuse vulnerability and weakness.
