The One Piece of Advice You Need to Succeed as a Creative
Assume your work is good
As a writer, I lose my confidence about as often as my phone which is to say, approximately every 10- 15 minutes.
Not that the industry — any creative industry — doesn’t make it easy. Rejection is the most likely outcome of almost every creative endeavor we offer up. Face it: creative output is seldom received into the larger world with open, eager arms. And that constant indifference can easily become a breeding ground for self-doubt.
I have the paperwork to prove my chops as a writer — an MFA and a few mid-grade successes. Still, I can go from feeling pretty good about my work to wallowing in red wine and shame in the time it takes to refresh my computer screen and find a rejection or — arguably worse — nothing at all.
It didn’t start this way. It never does. Like most creatives, I started submitting my work to a larger audience based on encouragement and positive feedback from my inner circle.
So I decided to “become a writer” with fresh faced optimism and began submitting — and immediately got the wrong idea about the venture I had undertaken.
The first piece I submitted — a minor play to a tiny drama publisher — was accepted. Then I won a few dollars, literally, something like $25 bucks, in a newspaper essay contest. A short time after that another lucky break came when I got to interview my favorite band, Relient K, and got the cover story of another (minor) publication.
My early wins gave me a short-lived sense of resilience when I submitted a story to a literary journal and it was rejected. The rejection came with a hand written letter explaining in some detail issues with the structure and pacing. I was too new to understand that a handwritten letter from an editor was a rare treat — tantamount to an invitation to keep submitting. I felt the sting of the rejection, but I also did not agree with the editor’s advice. It didn’t feel right. It shifted the focus and skewed the lens through which wanted to tell the story. So I submitted the same story, untouched, to a Writers Conference contest.
I won the contest, but that wasn’t the best part. Although I appreciated the triple digit check and to this day still display the engraved silver bowl that came with it, what I savor most is the story of the award presentation. See, it just so happened that the editor who rejected the story weeks earlier was on the board of directors for the conference, and he happened to be tasked with presenting the awards — including mine for the story he’d rejected.
Yes. You read that correctly. The editor who passed on my story ended up handing me a check and a silver bowl for completely disregarding his advice.
Yes. You read that correctly. The editor who passed on my story ended up handing me a check and a silver bowl for completely disregarding his advice.
He, of course, had no idea. He’d neither judged the contest or read the submissions. I had an opportunity to tell him what happened months later and we enjoyed a laugh. “It’s a good lesson,” he said.
And it was.
Before.
Before rejections piled up. Before I realized that finding an agent feels like trying to win the lottery. And way before the MFA program that almost made me stop writing altogether.
My MFA years coincided with the appointment of a visiting professor, a nonfiction writer of some renown who took over our nonfiction workshops. He developed a reputation for self- promotion, belittling students, and generally not giving a crap.
For one workshop, I’d written an essay about my children selling their childhood toys at a yard sale, recalling the elementary school summer my friend and I put our own wares out for sale in the driveway since a carnival had pulled into town and we were in the market for overpriced cotton candy and B-roll rides. It was a humorous and introspective coming of age story that involved a bike named Biff and featured cameos from late 70s toys like Suntan Tuesday Taylor and a toot-a-loop radio. It was a solid piece of writing. Or so I thought.
For those who have never been to a writing workshop, the basic format involves the writer sitting in silence while the rest of the group discusses their submitted work. It is customary to highlight what is working in the piece before offering constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement. Afterward, the writer joins the conversation, clears up grave misunderstandings and asks a few clarifying questions. If everything was done well, a few laughs might be shared.
Many times, too many, this process is not done well. And by not well, I mean it’s a raging dumpster fire of snark, tears, and shame. This particular workshop, this particular spring was especially toxic. So much so that a unanimous decision had been made to move class off campus to a coffee shop. The thought was that a public venue would encourage good behavior. To clarify: the students insisted on meeting in a public location in hopes that our instructor, the nonfiction writer of some renown, would treat us appropriately.
To clarify: the students insisted on meeting in a public location in hopes that our instructor, the nonfiction writer of some renown, would treat us appropriately.
In a bid to skew things toward the positive, a couple of students had come to our new coffeehouse sessions with a show and tell item related to the piece they had submitted. Some chuckles were shared and a couple of workshops passed without major incident. On the day in question, I was feeling unwarranted optimism. Some combination of warm spring weather and liking my submission prompted me to toss on a new green and white stripped dress instead of the jeans I’d typically wear. I slid my toot a loop (which had survived the late 70s-yard sale) into my bag and headed to class.
If other workshops had been a dumpster fire, this one was a gas explosion at a waste treatment facility. Everyone at the table was at risk from the harmful toxins — any one of us could get hit at any time. The nonfiction writer of some renown made no secret of the fact that he viewed my piece as trivial, shallow, and without merit. Indeed, he could not come up with a single positive thing to say about the essay. When it was over, I, grabbed my unopened tote of toot-a-loop and ran to my car. Once inside, whatever interior compartment kept my insecurities and self-loathing in check exploded into violent sobs.
Days later I was summoned to the nonfiction writer’s office for a secondary verbal thrashing.
“If you want to waste your life writing about yard sales go ahead,” he told me, explaining that I’d do much better to turn my lens toward the darker elements of life.
The lecture ended with a reading of a scene from his recently released memoir which detailed a family member’s suicide and the subsequent tumble his mom took from the toilet upon hearing the news.
The lecture ended with a reading of a scene from his recently released memoir which detailed a family member’s suicide and the subsequent tumble his mom took from the toilet upon hearing the news.
He slammed the book shut, ending the invitation-only private reading. The unspoken message that filled the awkward silence was: this is the way it’s done. See how I did it? I’m good; you’re a hack. What he said was “you need to up your game.”
I lost a lot of my quirky and funny that day — literary spunk I have never completely recouped.
Like others in the program, I am struggling to find my way on the other side of my MFA. I came to Medium to experiment, to meet people, and to rediscover the range, tones and intensity of my voice. And my brief time here has already gifted me with a new story about trusting my instincts.
A couple weeks in, I decided to submit to a publication. Just one at first, just testing the proverbial waters. I wrote something, submitted, and waited. It was rejected. Not just a garden variety rejection, but for reasons related to rules 5 and 8 of their submission guidelines, which roughly translate to: It sucked and was poorly written.
I was prepared for a rejection…but not a dual dismissal on the basis of Rules 5 and 8. Five and eight! I did what humans have done throughout history whenever they fear being outed: I got rid of the evidence. Which in this case meant deleting the story as quickly as possible — removing it from the internet and going to bed, knowing I needed, once again, to up my game.
The next morning, I got up and headed to my computer. Checking my email, I was shocked to discover that not only did my article not delete, Medium editors selected it “based on its quality” for wider distribution: my first curated article on the Medium platform! Oh — and moments later? A different publication reached out and invited me to publish it with them.
Instantly, I was transported back to that Writer’s Conference award ceremony, clutching a check and a shiny engraved bowl; standing there, because I made the decision to trust my instincts and keep going.
Instantly, I was transported back to that Writer’s Conference award ceremony, clutching a check and a shiny engraved bowl; standing there, because I made the decision to trust my instincts and keep going. My first curated Medium piece? That happened by accident. If I’d successfully deleted the article how long would it have taken me to submit again — days? A week? Never?
This, then, brings me to the lesson every creative must learn to embrace: we have to keep going. Keep submitting. Eventual success depends solely on the ability to shake off rejection and continue producing. Self-doubt serves only to delay the trajectory. We may be brokering in words, but make no mistake: it’s a numbers game. Tastes and interests vary from editor to editor and publication to publication. What one editor won’t consider might be a perfect fit for the next one.
Sure, accept constructive criticism, edit, revise and polish — then assume you have something worth sharing. And do it. As many times as it takes.
