Life, Death, Self-esteem, and Writing Stories, Part 1
This article was written as a guest post on the blog of Literary Agent Helen Zimmermann who has Project Publish, a helpful blog for aspiring writers. The topic of my entry is the emotional side of writing—specifically on how your life can go in the dumper when you select any outside measurement to decide whether or not you are an okay person, an outstanding person, or a loser.
‘Loser’ is a harsh word, but then we are pretty horrible to ourselves when we fail to live up to, or believe we have failed, in our chosen area. We writers are especially primed to judge ourselves harshly when the measure we will use to determine our right to breathe or call ourselves professionals—is a publishing contract or a boatload of many thousand books sold.
But you don’t have to be a writer to be warped. Anyone and maybe everyone has a standard—a watermark that when met will signal you’ve made it—or we believe reaching the ‘success’ will turn the ticket. Our measuring stick can be a ‘perfect’ marriage (or just avoiding divorce), evidence of excellent parenting proven by the excellence of the offspring. The ‘certain kind of marriage-certain kind of kids’ standard is particularly fickle as you are actually basing how you think about yourself on what other people do. That’s scary. Been there, am there, too.
At least rejection letters come from relative strangers, so we writers can rationalize and believe the problem is with the people sending the rejections.
Could be writers have diagnosable issues with this whole sense of self thing. What other profession or avocation can you go into with the plan of receiving regular doses of rejection? Also, who would be so crazy as to judge themselves by a standard when what it takes to make that standard changes wildly week to week depending on what’s going on in the publishing world?
So, what to do? What to do? 
Rethink our goals. Reassess our standards, our priorities. Pick a bigger dream. A deeper dream. Kick aside those Lexus commercials and Nutri-system stick-lady seductions. You deserve a bigger dream. You really do.
Life, Death, and Writing—original post for writers.
Scene: The Southern California Writers’ Conference. My first writing conference ever.
I sit down at the little table to speak with my first agent contact ever. He glances at my copy, looks up, wrinkles his nose, and says, “What do you think you are doing? You have a gerund right here in the first sentence!”
With his pronouncement I knew two things. One, I should probably look up what a gerund was and, two, my life was over.
Or maybe my life wasn’t quite over, but I needed to decide where writing fit into my life. Now, if you’re like me, you’re thinking, “Here comes the sour grapes bit where she gives up 
writing saying, “Writing’s not all that important with children starving all over the world, and my husband’s closet needs some re-arranging.” We see this stance often when a politician is caught where he or she shouldn’t be. The phrase goes like this: “I’m stepping aside because I need to spend more time with my family.”
This is not an article about giving up writing (or efforts at parenting, marriage, or building the world’s biggest deck) or even changing the way you go about writing. This article is about enjoying writing and tuning down that part of us who is tempted to use writing as a way to prove we’ve ‘made it’ in the world. The little torturer inside us who promises one good publication will make life a dream is the same little witch who promises that if we’d just lose ten pounds life would be different and easy.
What I realized on the weekend of the Gerund Witch Trials was that I’d let myself slide into a weird relationship with the real world and my soul. There had to be a better way to approach writing than to work like crazy all alone then show up at a writers’ conference, cross your fingers, and toss your work into the ring. Remember, I’m not suggesting you not go to conferences, meet agents, and keep searching for someone who loves your story. To not try and keep trying would be silly. ((Just as stopping efforts to do your best as a parent, spouse, or deck-builder–would be silly.))
I’m talking about the fear and loathing part of writing. ((and parenting, marriage, that big deck)) Come on people you know the terror I’m talking about. I’m standing out in those halls right there with you guys and I’m nervous as hell. I have ridden show jumpers, which means galloping horses over five foot walls, I’ve spoken to thousands at one time, I had a mammogram come back shaky–and standing in those lines waiting to speak to an agent was the most anxiety producing.
Maybe it’s just me. No it’s not. Fess up folks. We have to help each other. This writing gig can be fun.
I knew where to start on a new relationship with writing. (Sometimes all that training pays off. See tower to the left.) I knew that anytime my opinion of myself or my access to simply feeling great and positive about the world was determined by another person—or a roulette wheel–I was in trouble. Especially when the people I’d chosen to lift my spirits didn’t even know me, nor did I know them and—just like me—those people were likely thinking about how to finish everything that’s expected that day. Could be the funky fish from last night’s banquet was still an issue.
When our sense of self depends on how someone responds, our feelings are on a runaway roller coaster. With approval we soar into over-valuing our talent and prospects. (“I’m magic. I’m on the way to the top! Oprah will call any minute!”) With bad news we undervalue ourselves and our work. (“Who am I kidding? A third grader could have written a better book. I have wasted so much time and now I’m wasting money attending conferences.”) 
When we humans put our sense of value on another person we tend to either over-value that other person or turn that person into an enemy. Agents are not minor gods or enemies. ((Neither are spouses are kids–or overly competitive neighbors trying to build a bigger deck.))
