On Creative Courage, Letter Two

Or a Correspondence on Fear, Well-being, and Creativity

This is part 2 in a 6-part correspondence series between writer Henriette Lazaridis and me, Meta Wagner. Henriette is writing three letters at The Entropy Hotel and I’m writing three here at Page Fright, and we’ll cross-post them.

Links will be added as the letters get published: letter 1, letter 2, letter 3, letter 4, letter 5, and letter 6.

Dear Henriette,

Thank you for proposing this correspondence and for starting us off with Letter One. You gave us a lot to think about! (Readers, if you haven’t read it yet, please do!)

I’m happy we’re reviving the lost art of letter writing. Nothing compares to a letter—not an email, not a text, and certainly not a social media post. Why have most of us forsaken it? For convenience and immediacy? Because the technology for faster communication exists, and we’d feel foolish not using it? Our correspondence here is making me question whether we’ve blithely sacrificed something that was worth preserving.

I cherish my memories of letter writing, although I must admit they have more to do with the sweet agony of waiting for a letter rather than the writing itself (mine or theirs): Spotting an envelope from one of my best friends, Nanette, who would write from sleepaway camp and sign off with SWAK (sealed with a kiss). Praying that when college admissions letters arrived, they came in a thick, not a thin, envelope. Unlocking the little door to my mailbox slot at college, hoping it contained a love letter from my boyfriend (who later became my husband—maybe it was the letters?).

I’m speaking here of anticipatory anxiety, one of the many variants (excuse the term) of fear. In Letter One, you noted that fear is seductive, and I see what you mean. Anticipatory anxiety brings us misery yet also causes our hearts to beat faster, fills us with hope, makes us feel alive--in other words, it really is seductive.

Anticipatory anxiety infects most of us throughout the course of a writing career: Will my workshop classmates like (or at least not rip apart) my draft? Will I hear back from the magazine editor I pitched a story to? If they want to see the full article (no promises to publish it!), will they run it? Will any agent choose to work with me? Will a publisher buy my book? Will the reviews be good (or at least not scalding)? And so on and so on.

It’s enough to drive even a stable, sane person a little mad. And, to be blunt, writers are rarely called stable, sane people!

This connects with your thought-provoking exploration of freudenfreude (joy in another’s joy) and schadenfreude (pleasure in another’s misfortune). Since anticipatory anxiety is a writer’s frequent companion, it's challenging at times to engage in freudenfraude—to be happy for another writer who’s perhaps overcome writer’s drought (I’ll call it that instead of writer’s block) or received accolades after years of wishy washy reviews. Despite our better angels, we sometimes engage instead in schadenfreude when another writer slips on the proverbial banana peel (receives a rejection letter or a mediocre score on Goodreads, for instance). We get to feel, phew, it wasn’t me this time or, phew, at least it wasn’t only me.

Like you, I tend to be a cheerleader for other people’s writing success, but I’m not above indulging in a good round of schadenfreude every now and then. I can remember how, in grad school, if my work was being critiqued after another student's in class, I'd feel sorry if their draft was torn to shreds. But I'd also be secretly excited that my work might get to shine in comparison. If, on the other hand, their work was celebrated, I’d be happy for them and simultaneously worried mine would be perceived as less than. How petty of me! How human!

Maybe we’ve been conditioned to view writing as a zero-sum game, where there isn’t room for everyone to succeed and therefore one writer’s success means another’s failure. There is some logic to this. After all, an agent can only represent so many authors, an editor can only respond to so many queries, and only 10 books can make it on a top-ten list.

And yet, when my book came out nearly six years ago, I found other writers—even ones I barely knew—to be incredibly supportive and generous. I never picked up a scent of envy or competitiveness from other authors, even if they were experiencing the dreaded drought at the time. It was quite touching.

And so, I agree with your insight that we’re probably too often looking to inoculate ourselves against fear. Whether it’s through adopting an “us vs. them” mentality or avoiding writing or telling ourselves we’ll never be good enough so why try, or any of the many, many other self-protective measures we take, it’s an understandable response. It’s just not an effective one.

Looking forward to next week’s correspondence!

Yours truly,

Meta

Readers, how does anticipatory anxiety “infect” you in your writing life? Please weigh in on this aspect of Letters One and Two or anything else you’d like to comment on. Thanks, as always!