By Dauglas Mauldin
When MartIn Luther affixed his 95 theses to the door of the Schlosskirche in 1517, he reportedly declared, “Here I stand. I can do no other.” In doing so, he defined the sine qua non of the writer’s craft: Faith.
Faith? Indeed, but no religious faith, rather, an unblemished faith in yourself as a writer: the Unshakable conviction that you alone are the best-qualified person to put on paper the words dwelling within you. If not you, one might ask, then who?
Faith is nice you say, but what about a little thing called…talent?
“Talent,” Gustave Flaubert wrote, “Is nothing but long patience. “No one is born a “talented” writer. In fact, no one is born a writer, period. Thus, all writers begin on the most level of playing fields. If you can construct a sentence, you have as much potential for greatness as Hemingway, Steinbeck, or Vonnegut. The only thing you might lack is the faith in that potential.
Sound easy? Believe me, it’s not. Writing for publication is a grueling- some might say Sisyphean-task. In some ways, pushing a boulder uphill for eternity might be easier. At least, you’d know what to expect. Not so with the wordsmith’s trade. Because, regardless of how much effort you put into your writing, no matter how much blood, sweat, and ink you spill on the page, your fate depends entirely upon someone else’s opinion. And no matter how often you tell yourself it’s not personal when that someone says your best isn’t good enough, believe me it’s always personal. Painfully personal. At times it can feel as ig you’re wearing a “kick me” sign at an ass-kicker convention.
But to be a writer, to be a good writer, sometimes you have to wear that sign. A person who simply puts words on paper for personal consumption is no more a writer than a solitaire player is a gambler. Writing is a calling, and can any calling be true if it costs nothing and risks nothing?
When Martin Luther published his manifesto on ecclesiastical reform, he risked arrest, torture, even death. For modern writers, however, the dangers aren’t so much physical as psychological. But the writer unwilling to risk the pain of rejection is no writer at all.
To be a writer, you must take risks. You must be fearless. But, most of all, you must be convinced of your own genius, because no one else will be. Not at first, maybe, not ever. So you must also be prepared to fail. Not only fail, but fail spectacularly.
A writer who refuses to case his or her work upon the often treacherous currents of the marketplace is like a ship that never leaves the harbor. It’s safer there, but that’s not what ships are for. “Those who can’t gamble with their own fate, “ Japanese manga artist and writer Masashi Kishimoto said, “who would trade today’s certain risk for tomorrow’s uncertain future, never taking the chance that lies before them, are weaklings who make only weak and easy decisions.” Ouch. But the truth hurts.
“Ever tried?” asked Samuel Beckett. “Ever failed?” No matter, try again, Fail again. Fail Better.” Great writers aren’t great because they possess some ineffable quality denied mere mortals. They simply refuse to quit. When J.K Rowling tried to sell her first Harry Potter book, dozens of publishers turned her down before one perceptive editor decided to take a chance on her.
If “talent” was the only yardstick on great writers, the world might never have heard of Harry and his friends. It was Ms. Rownling’s faith in herself and her writing that made all the difference. Like hungry, young boxer battling his way up the ranks, battling his way up the ranks, genuine writers take their lumps— and come back for more. They see every rejection, not as an obstacle, or worse, a thing to be avoided but as a necessary test of their resolve: “Does it hurt too much?” they ask themselves.” Have I had enough?
To these questions there can only be one response: Here I stand. I can do no other. Granted, the seemingly interminable stream of editorial rejections aspiring (and even established) writers often face can be daunting. But, at the same time, they also serve as an important source of feedback; often telling a writer what she needs to rather than what she wants to hear.
In Memoirs of a Geisha, author Arthur Golden likens adversity to a strong wind that “tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn; so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are, and not as we might like to be.”
The wanna-bes, the moon-eyed romantics, the dilettantes, they fear this gale of rejection because ti tells them what they’re not willing to tell themselves: That, as writers, they’d be in the words of poet Edit Sitwell, “Better off raising habbits.”
It is only the true writer who hears in that tempest words of Winston Churchill; “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
By now it should be obvious that the one thing will fail writers share is this: They knew when to quit after all, they ask, why beat a dead horse? If editors hate your work, they hate your work. Nothing you can do about that. At least the rabbits will appreciate your hard work. The problem with his supremely reasonable attitude, however, is that reason never wrote masterpiece of prose or poetry. Not a single invocative. Why? Because reason never stayed up to four in the morning pounding out yet another rewrite, fueled by nothing but caffeine and an absolute sense of one’s purpose in the world.
Reason says: ‘If it’s published, I bet it flops.” Faith shrugs. Reason smugly points out: “I know the rules.” Faith replies, I know the exceptions. The beauty of faith is that it can’t be reasoned with. But neither can it be learned: You have it or you don’t. In the Church of the Literary Word, there are no agnostics. But even the strongest faith is no proof against the hurt rejections brings. And make no mistake, hurt it does. Still, while faith can’t dull the pain, it does not allow us to endure it; not only endure it but find purpose in it. Like a sail hoisted into the winds of adversity, pain drives us onward. In the words of philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: “With the help of the thorn in my foot, I spring higher than anyone with sound feet.”
If there’s any secret to success as a writer, it is simply this: Learn from your failures, don’t wear them like a yoke around your neck. Doubt is a luxury no writer can afford. Remember this and every new rejection will be a thorn in your foot propelling you ever closer to success.
(*Non illegitimi carborundum: Latin, “Don’t let the b******s grind you down”)
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Douglas took the risk of sending his work out “into the world” and it paid off!
KAIZEN-DO-KA 