The Hardest Thing

I’m often asked by some of the young people I visit: What is the hardest thing about writing? I like it when the question is “What is the hardest thing about writing” and not “What is the hardest thing about being a writer?” Being a “writer” is an ego-construction that we are tempted to bring out when we are sitting next to someone attractive in an airplane. The hardest (and most dangerous) thing about “being a writer” is seeing yourself as one, identifying yourself to yourself as a “writer”. It’s hard when this happens because of all the mental junk that this type of identification conjures and because wearing the writer’s hat has an effect (not a good one, I think) on your writing. So, now that we cleared that up! What’s the hardest thing about writing? The hardest thing about writing is pouring your heart and soul and effort into writing and having your work be deemed not worthy of publication. Everywhere I go I meet people who love to write, people who have been writing since they were children, people who feel they are called to write, but whose work has not been published despite their life-long attempts to do so. I’ve had the privilege of reading the work of some of these people. Sometimes, it is fairly obvious that the person is more interested in being a writer (see above) than in writing. There are works where the author clearly needs to practice more. (Yes, writing, like any other art requires repetition and mastery of form.) There are other cases where the work is stylistically perfect but something is missing, some soul, some spark is not there. Then there are those where you can just feel the author’s heart and passion, where you can see the author’s care for words and structure and everything that makes good writing, and still no publication despite repeated efforts. And I say to myself, “My gosh, this book is so much better than so many others floating out there in the published world.” I write a book that comes from the deepest part of myself. I do my best, my very best. I reflect for months, maybe years. I give the characters all the time to grow and become real in me. I revise. The story and the people in the story touches me. I work until there’s nothing more than I can change. I’ve taken the book as far as I can. I give it to my Beta readers (and to one or two Alphas!) They love it. They give me one or two suggestions which I make. I send it out. Days go by. Surprisingly, no one picks up the phone and says “You hit this one out the ball park! I found two typos we should fix, but otherwise it’s ready to go out.” Then it happens. Through letters or dry, despairing silence it hits you that this story that you wrung out with your heart’s blood with a life-time of learning, with all the gifts God gave you, this story does not click, does not resonate with, does not impress, does not economically or otherwise persuade the persons who have the power to publish it. This is the hardest thing about writing. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. There are, of course, a number of consolations that I tell myself and others. Heartfelt consolations. “Look,” I say, “when you face your maker, you are not going to be asked why you didn’t publish. You’re going to be asked why you didn’t write. So keep writing, no matter what.” I pull out my Bhagavad Gita and point to the passages where Krishna urges Arjuna to give it all he has and then forget about the results. Do what you have to do, which includes trying your hardest to publish your work, but do it without anxiety knowing that you did your part, the rest is up to the Great Mystery that rescues and uses all our good deeds and good thoughts and puts them to use in ways unknown to us. So I recite all these words of comfort and still it hurts. There’s no way of avoiding the hurt. There’s no way. Keep trying? There’s no need to say this. If you like writing rather than being a writer, you’ll keep on writing. If only we would not let this “failure” affect us, damage who we are. If only we could cradle and succor our aspirations the way we do a tender child. If only we could see the goodness and the power that is there at the source of our writing and let it fill us with gratitude for its uniqueness, for the way it makes us see the world, for the compassion it brought to our life, for the lessons it has taught us, for the way its pain softened us and brought us closer to those who suffer much, so much more than us. If only we could. Take care of yourself my dear friend. The hardest thing is hard, but faith, hope and love are in the hard things.