Drop the Pretense and Do What You Enjoy
When both Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare died, the general consensus among critics at the time was that, due to their respective considerably popular reputations, both of them would be forgotten. Dickens, the popular novelist, only assumed his status as a canonical writer after G.K. Chesterton and George Orwell wrote about him nearly a century after he'd died. And Shakespeare, 3 centuries earlier, was only saved after the famous folios of his work were published by his friends and admirers. Yet, both could've been relegated to the trash heap of oblivious obscurity.
It's a sobering, and oddly heartening, thought to consider, especially if you're a writer like me.
My first serious attempts at writing took place while I was in college. I'd spent the majority of my Freshman Year growing accustomed to the University of Missouri - St. Louis, but I did have one dream: to try to get into Litmag.
Litmag was one of the student-run, literary publications. As an English Major, I wanted more than anything to get some work published in it. And it wasn't the only publication UMSL had on campus. There was also the weekly, campus newspaper, The Current. There was the Honor's College literary publication, Bellerive. To get something into any of these publications was the goal.
There was only one problem: I never managed it.
For whatever reason, none of these publications ever bestowed me the honor of being a venue for my work. This, of course, was good training for me now, as many professional venues still don't bestow that honor on my work. However, I did eventually manage to find an outline for my stuff.
Aside from its great name, Brain Stew (initials BS, which adds an extra layer of amusement), had the benefit of being the second most often published, and thus the second most widely read, periodical on the campus. Printed biweekly, everyone on the UMSL campus, but especially the residents who lived on South Campus, loved the magazine. Partly for its comical covers, and partly for its quirky content.
I must've been a popular name for the readers because, by the time I'd graduated, I'd been published by the magazine 16 times. Early short stories, comic essays, and (bad) poetry with my byline on it graced its pages. When you're a full-time student, juggling an average of 14 credit hours of classwork, that's a lot of writing. My one goal every year, especially after the magazine's editors began emailing me to ask for more work, was to get into both March issues of the Magazine (it's my birthday month, and that was my annual present to myself). And I achieved it all 3 years I was an active contributor.
As much as I enjoyed seeing my name in print each time though, there was always this nagging feeling that I was, somehow, a lesser talent than the people who did manage to get into the more exclusive, annual publications, like Litmag and Bellerive. Somehow, that I never cracked that glass ceiling made me feel, for lack of a better word, inferior.
The atmosphere of the English Department only reinforced these feelings. Like many such Departments in the country, UMSL's still pushed this idea that there were "Great Writers," the ones that people would read and study for decades, possibly centuries, to come, and everyone else was a hack of minor note. Because of where my stuff was getting printed, it seemed as though, if I ever managed to make a decent strive into the world of letters, I'd end up one of the forgotten hacks. Sure, I'd be read, but I wouldn't be remembered.
On occasion, I still find myself wrestling with these feelings (especially when my anxiety is clocking in a load of overtime), but I've also come to a place of peace with them as well.
Nobody gets to decided if they're remembered. It's out of our control. Those decisions lie in the hands of people who are either alive now and are too young to care yet, or they lie in the hands of people not yet born. We can only do our best while alive and, hopefully, a little something of our work will survive.
In other words, don't worry about it. Just do the work you love; create the stuff you want to create. If one thing you makes means something to one person, then the artist's gambit has paid off in your favor.
Comments