Hey, you. Yes, you, the one fretting in front of the computer because you’re too nervous to start on that story you promised yourself you’d work on. Come here a second; I have something to tell you.
Ready? Okay, here it is: you’ll be fine.
You might have a dozen stories sitting in your hard drive that you don’t think are good enough to show anyone. You might have zero stories because you’re paralyzed by the sight of a blank page. You might have a stack of rejections that are starting to look like a sign from the universe that You Should Give Up, Because Let’s Be Realistic, You’ll Just Never Make It.
You might fail. Your stories might not sell. You may get bad reviews.
Okay, so what?
You probably didn’t make a huge financial investment in order to write those stories. No one’s going to get hurt, either. All you spent was some time and some words. You can make more words. And time was going to pass regardless of how you spent it. Rejection stings, but in the long run you’re no better or worse than when you started off.
If you do reach your goals, though, you get to experience the joy of, well, reaching your goals. I’d say that’s an excellent trade-off. High reward, barely any risk. So what’s stopping you, really? Why does the thought of putting yourself out there still make you so nervous?
Oh, I see. You’re like me, then. You just think you’re not good enough.
“Butter Side Down” is not a serious story. I’m happy to admit this. My story inspiration: my toaster spooked me one day and I got to thinking how funny it would be if the aforementioned toaster did this on purpose. Did anyone ask for an AI love story between some guy and a kitchen appliance? No. But I had fun writing it, which made me think that someone might have fun reading it.
I had no idea where to submit it. Google told me that I could apply to L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future. Sounded fancy. Why not? Obviously, I wouldn’t win, but maybe it would at least get a laugh out of some slush readers before they rejected it.
So I sent it in. Then Joni told me I was a Finalist. Then Joni told me I won Second Place. Then I got put on a plane heading to a place I’d never been, and people I’d never met told me they’d read my story and they’d liked it.
Whoa.
I cannot stress to you how big of a deal this was to me. I am generally not the target audience for most works of fiction; adventures don’t happen in my part of the world. Heroes in stories don’t look/sound/talk/think/live like me. People like me are, regrettably, used to be Othered. It comes in innocuous questions like “How did you learn English” (probably the same way you did) and “Do you have internet in Malaysia” (no, we send emails through smoke signal). The vast majority of people I’ve met in my life have been exceedingly kind, but once in a while, I get slapped with a neon sign saying: YOU ARE INVISIBLE. YOU DO NOT BELONG. ALSO, YOUR NEW HAIRCUT LOOKS SILLY.
If my existence is such an oddity, what more of the work I produce? I don’t know much about science fiction. I know even less about humorous science fiction. Even as I was writing “Butter Side Down,” I berated myself for not writing something respectable. I should have been working on an epic about alien contact, intergalactic war, and serious middle-aged men. This wasn’t real science fiction. My idea was ridiculous. My writing was ridiculous. I was ridiculous, and I had no business trying to stick my nose into an industry not built for me.
I was half-right. I was, indeed, being ridiculous. I came to the Writers of the Future Workshop expecting to feel out of place. I thought I’d have to justify myself, but… that didn’t happen. No one told me that I didn’t deserve to be taken seriously. No one demanded to know how I got here or why I thought a light-hearted science fiction rom-com would be worth writing.
Instead I got some new neon signs. Tell us about yourself. We’re interested in your opinion. I hope you keep writing because your perspective’s worth reading. Also, your haircut is cool, actually.
Whoa (again).
I still feel too clumsy and inexperienced as a writer to lecture you about writing tips. What I can do is tell you something that took me ages to learn: ‘good enough’ is not real. There’s no correct way to write something. You don’t need to fit in because the entire point of a creative endeavor is to write something that resonates. You can’t predict what’s going to resonate with a reader, so that leaves you one option— you’ll have to write something that resonates with you.
For me, the story that resonated was something fun and sweet. I didn’t want to copy Dune or Star Wars, even though those seemed like the gold standard of science fiction. What I wanted was an exploration into the inherently human need to belong, told by characters I liked, using a concept that made me laugh. At the crux of it, I wanted to write about loneliness and how friendship can take you by surprise. So, I did. And it turned out that this was exactly what I was supposed to write.
What you think editors want doesn’t matter. The voice in your head telling you that you’re not good enough doesn’t matter. Rejections don’t matter. Failure doesn’t matter. You won’t lose anything, so get out of your head and write the story, draw the picture, and follow the idea to its end. It may turn out weird or silly or uncomfortably emotional. Okay, so what? Is that really so bad?
Imagine. It took me winning this competition and traveling halfway across the world to learn what, in retrospect, sounds obvious. The thing is, I’m not special. Everyone has a bit of ‘I’m not good enough’ in them. Everyone doubts themselves. If this is you right now, I’m telling you that I see you.
“Should I write it even if it’s self-indulgent?”
Yes.
“Should I submit this even though someone else told me they didn’t like it?”
Yes.
“Should I bother trying even though I think I’ll never be good enough to—”
YES.
Listen. This whole writing thing still seems weird and lonely. I’m well aware there are some people who’ll hate my work just because of who I am. But I’m beginning to understand that there are many more people who’ll think exactly the opposite, and I’m getting tired of second-guessing myself based on criteria I can’t even control. Why shouldn’t I write what I want to read? Do I really want to be my own biggest obstacle? What, am I going to look back someday and think, “I wish I’d believed in myself less?”
This whole blog post is as much a message to myself as it is to you. You aren’t your work. An unsuccessful piece is not a reflection of who you are any more than an unsuccessful sandwich is. It’s just something you made. Someone might like it. Someone might not. You may be emotionally attached to the sandwich, but there will be other sandwiches. There will not be another You.
I am choosing not to listen to my insecurities. I am choosing to write for the people who want to read it. I acknowledge that there will be failures and rejections and people who hate my work. I don’t care. I have two hands and a keyboard, and I’m going to make this everyone’s problem.
Okay. You know what you have to do, right? Open that Word document. Write the first line. Now the second. Now the third.
See? You’re doing it. There was never anything to be afraid of.
Keep going. You might not yet know exactly where you’ll end up, but so what?
Kal M grew up in the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, fully intending to someday become a respectable lawyer. After graduating from the London School of Economics with a BA in Anthropology and Law, however, she found herself back in Malaysia, suddenly no longer interested in dealing with contracts. Instead, she decided to admit to herself that what she really wanted to do was write stories. That’s what she does now, and she intends to keep doing so for the rest of her life.
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