There is a well-known letter written by Kurt Vonnegut that he sent to a high school class respectfully declining an invitation to visit them. The guy was 84 years old, so I absolutely get it. I am not going to just repost it here, cuz that kinda feels like cheating, but I will link to Sir Ian McKellan reading it out loud. Because let’s be honest, we’d all just listen to Gandalf read anything and everything, right? And if it is him encouraging us to make art?! Done. Sold. Make it so and whatnot.

If you are anything like me, writing brings you just as much grief as it does joy. You have to do it, and you dread doing it simultaneously. It is a chore and it is a respite from the world around you. Maybe it is a reflection of the world around you, but it also is how you cope. I know that when I go for periods of time without writing - whether that is my WIP (any of the six!) or a freeform piece or anything at all - I can feel it in my bones. It is not guilt, per se. It is more like that dreaded calling to something you love.

What if the words won’t come? What if they fall flat on the page and just lay there instead of dancing like I imagined in my head? What if they stare back at me and say “is that all you got, buddy?” Or worse, they shake their head and say “I’m not mad, just disappointed…”

But what if they fly? What if they sing and roam and burst forth into existence and do everything and more than you had hoped for them? Because they are our children, are they not? And maybe that is what terrifies us so much that they might grow and roam and leave us behind, share themselves with someone else and we might actually succeed and that can be terrifying!

We know how to handle failure. We don’t like it. We hate it. But it is a normal part of the human condition, and sometimes we can become used to it. So much so that we don’t even really try anymore. “Because you can’t really fail if you don’t really try,” our mean brain says to us. But the prospect of success…

On one hand it is what we all want. And not just the fortune and fame that we all thought we would get when we were young baby writers convinced we had the Next Great Novel in our heads. But the knowledge that we had created something that was ours. And that it was something good. The sense of accomplishment when all the edits are done and someone has said “This is something special” and that affirms all of the previous feelings of failure and despair because you DID IT!

And then on the other hand…

The fear of success is a very real thing. What if I can’t do it again? What if not every single person in the world thinks it (and by extension me) is amazing? What if some people don’t like me because I succeeded? I have felt all of these things at one time or another. Now I am reminding myself: so what?

If I can’t do it again, so what? I did it. That is a HUGE win. I want that.

Not everyone liked it, so what? It wasn’t for everyone. And let’s be honest, neither am I.

Someone is mad about my success, so what? Stay mad.

So, until I get there, that will be my mantra. Experience becoming, and make your soul grow. And so what?