Across venues, it’s always been my experience as a teacher that more writers will sign up for a “how to write a bestseller” or “how to get published” class than a “how to find your voice” class. But if a person can let go of ambition long enough to find their voice, what they end up creating and offering the world is stunning.
For those who have felt shut out of the literary or any world (most people), it can feel almost like we are an imposition to step inside any artistic world and declare a unique perspective. Many of us have longed to be invited or discovered.
When I was just starting out as a writer, I loved to simply write. When I got more into it, however, and began pursuing my MFA, I started to want something else. Some kind of invitation. I was urged to study Writer X or Y, and I found myself trying to sound like them—not to study and learn my own style but to fit the mold of what was being picked up by publishers.
An invitation didn’t exactly come.
In fact, quite the opposite often happened. I would be told that I could get an invitation if only I’d … (sound more like X, network like Y). Even recently, a former aquisitions editor for the Big Five recently told me that my forthcoming memoir was brilliant BUT because I’m not Maggie O’Farrell, it wouldn’t sell.
Years ago, this would have destroyed me. Recently, it made me laugh.
Years ago, I might have tried to sound more like Maggie or follow her career formula. Honestly, if a former and hungrier version of me had access to AGI, said version might very well have asked it to help her do so; lucky for me, the tech didn’t yet exist in the way it does today. If that fictional version of my former self would’ve done so, not only would she have outsourced the best part of the process, she would have destroyed her own ability to access the unique power of her own voice. And she would’ve lost out on so much beauty.
True artists radically and bravely self-express. The rawness and willingness to be ourselves unabashedly clarifies things in the world that need clarifying.
Besides, we all deserve to be in the room. We all deserve to be ourselves in the room. And we all deserve to leave the room when we find it boring or limiting.
Even if a handful of folks are working damn hard to erase anyone with a unique perspective, all unique voices are powerful if nurtured.
Accolades do not last. Like-for-like transactional relationships do not last. Your authentic voice will.
If someone doesn’t invite you to the table, sit at your own table. And to push the metaphor a bit based on my experiences: If someone offers you a broken chair, it might not be the best place sit down no matter how tired you are.
I have not met a single person, across genres and disciplines, who does not impress me when they feel comfortable enough to try from a place of pure authenticity. Everyone’s voice can carry incredible weight and teach us new things about this dynamic and confusing existence.
When I started to let it go and just “do” me without caring about marketability, things started to open up, and I got some taste of recognition by winning multiple writing awards in a single year for We Arrive Uninvited and also multiple awards for various essays that will appear in At Work (forthcoming, it took some time to cobble her into a book). Some of these awards carried me around the world or earned me grant money.
But honestly, friends, what did a little taste of recognition change? It wasn’t what I thought, I’ll tell you that. I was happy for a few days, and I spent the money. I added a line to a CV I’ll rarely use.
My path is not one of seeking fame and fortune, and even if I were to stumble into that terrain, it would not be what feeds me.
When I began to let go, to release expectation, I was better able to also focus on what I value. For me, that is curiosity, travel, watching others grow, making new connections with good people around the world, and not conforming or using the easy way to tick boxes.
When I’ve let them, my values have led me. They have reminded me to process about my process here. They have taken me around the world on grants or teaching assignments. They have helped me to write my best work—award-winning or not. They have reminded me how silly the machine of artistic capitalism is, how empty. Instead, my values allowed me to be messy and human and grab at genuine insight that somehow always leads to opportunity. More, my values allow me to know I can’t change people, but I can create spaces that allow them to grow via Unleash, if they so choose.
Today, I simply write the raw, real shit. And it feeds me. It feeds me more than the accolades ever will. And maybe that’s not true for everyone, but I suspect it is. I really do, friends.
I suppose this is a bit of a riff, but thanks for reading. I need to remind myself from time to time of what matters.
If you can relate to being at any stage of this process (longing to be invited, being invited and it not being what you think, releasing the need outsource your power), let me know.
Prompt: What values guide your creative work? How can they serve your creative journey today?
xo Jen
(Paid subscribers: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Our next CR circle is Oct 3. I will include the link soon.)