Lifewriting: Dealing with critics and Nay-Sayers

And welcome. This is Steve Barnes, New York Times best selling writer and family man here in the time of the plague, welcoming you to yet another adventure in life writing Live once again as always, if you enjoyed this conversation, please share it. It's the only way we know what what people are enjoying and what they won't. So there was an interesting quote that somebody published earlier today that I thought would tie into writing in a nice way. I want to talk a little bit more about writing right now because I intend to have a really good writing day later on today. The quote goes like this. It's from Nathaniel Brandon's the Six Pillars of Self Esteem. And it goes. Persons with an undeveloped sense of identity often tell themselves, if I express myself, I may evoke disapproval. If I love and affirm myself, I may evoke resentment. If I am too happy with myself, I may evoke jealousy. If I stand out, I may be compelled to stand alone. They remain frozen in the face of such possibilities and pay a terrible price in loss of self esteem. By contrast, persons of high self esteem are not driven to make themselves superior to others. They do not seek to prove their value by measuring themselves against a comparative standard. Their joy is in being who they are, not in being better than someone else. Once again, that's Nathaniel Brandon from the Six Pillars of Self Esteem. I would offer a perspective on this. First of all, I think it's a very fine quote. It is very accurate that if you express yourself, if you put yourself out there, if you try to raise yourself up, you may trigger negative reactions. In fact, you will trigger negative reactions from others. The trick is in understanding that some people will always be critical no matter what you do. And so an adult has to be self contained enough to not be hobbled by the opinions of those people who wouldn't give them a pint of blood. That's my standard. You wouldn't give me a pint of blood. I don't really care much what you think about me. I can't afford to. I have a family to take care of and a life to live right now let's see how this notion applies to writing. Okay, so remember, six steps, I guess. No five steps that I've talked about. For being a social justice warrior or for being basically a person in the world, an adult who speaks their mind and stands for something. The five principles are you love yourself. You love one other person. You understand history without guilt, blame or shame. You avoid trolls and nurture your tribe. And the last step, this step, is that you win with integrity. So how do these things apply? Let's take a look. So first, the first step, love yourself. You have to love yourself enough to be willing to protect yourself and also give yourself the emotional nourishment that you need to be autonomous. You will attract criticism as you move towards success. There's just no question about it. My personal suggestion is that you decide, you make up for yourself. Whose opinions are you going to care about? And ultimately the only person you have to care about is your own. You're the only one who's there all the time. No one can die for you, no one can save your soul. But you, you are responsible to you. So you need, you need to make connection with yourself and to be able to justify the things that you do to you. Even if you're being misinterpreted by the world, even if they reject you, even if sometimes you must stand alone, you have to be capable of being strong enough that that threat from other people. I've had my life threatened, I've had my physical body threatened. I've had my finances threatened. I've had women threaten to withdraw sex and love from me. I mean, it's like you have to be self contained enough that you can look at those things and understand them for the manipulations they are and not be moved. The second step is to love at least one other person. Now this is a matter of opening your heart, but it's also, there are practical considerations here. Having someone to love means that you stand against the world in partnership. You have sex, love, financial partnership. And most external threats fade away. When you've got that, it's like to a certain degree it's having somebody to watch your back in the alley fight of life. Just a way to put it, just being a mated pair, a hunting pair, or if you're an herbivore, a grazing pair. But. But you can watch each other's backs as you graze, or work together as you hunt. This is so close to universal in terms of human needs. And there are so many people in the arts who, without a partner, without a mate, a husband or wife who was supportive, it would have been much harder for them to go forward in their career. Now, some cases, one partner handle the finances, while the other one explored the art on the idea that if the art gets going well enough, it'll be able to handle finances for the both of them. In other cases, it's a matter of somebody being their best reader, their best friend, their best cheerleader. Someone whose shoulder you can cry on when you get those bad Reviews, when things happen. We're going to talk about critics a little bit later, but it's important. The third step is to understand history. Remember, know that all successful people get crapped on. All successful people attract critics and naysayers. Everything that you might have done in the past that people will ignore if you're unsuccessful. Get dredged up if you're successful. So, you know, best thing to do, be as clean as possible, but also understand that you know everybody's got imperfections. And if yours get dragged into the public eye, be ready for it. The fact is that there's no amount of living small that keeps you safe, so that ultimately you are going to have to make some decisions about what you do, who you're going to be in the world, what is ultimately going to matter to you. You cannot let other people decide for you what's important to you. You can't do that because they will always choose stuff that that's good for them. The fourth step, ignore trolls and support your tribe. Right now, you don't need everyone to love you. 1000 true fans will do it. In most professions, you might have to adjust that number up or down depending on what it is that you're doing. But the fact is, you simply don't. You need an insignificant proportion of the world's population to say, yes, you're doing something interesting in terms of critics, in terms of supporting your tribe. What that means is you write for the people who are like you. You write the stories that you would want to read, and you trust that there are enough other people out there who are similar enough to you that you're going to be able to find an audience. And I believe that to be true if you're being honest enough. What, you can run out of clever, but you can never run out of the truth by going deep enough into what turns you on, what thrills you, what horrifies you, what concerns you, what makes you laugh. You emerge at a universal. The people who find themselves, the tiny niche markets are people who are writing. I think they're trying to write what they think somebody else wants rather than really writing their heart. That's being a hack. Now, in terms of critics chopping you down now, I would say that there's a quote from David Ives says, ultimately, one has to pity those poor souls who know every secret about writing, directing, designing, producing and acting, but are stuck in those miserable day jobs writing reviews. Will somebody help them, please? I mean, this is. I like critics. We need critics. I love to read reviews of my Stuff, quite frankly, if it's negative, I might be very upset. But as long as there's a little bit of truth in there, something that I can learn from, I can use it to help me make my next work better. And when it's a good review that feels great. The fact is that I don't run around strutting about good reviews any more than I curl up into a ball and cry over bad reviews. It's just information. It's data. If I know that I did the best I can, I certainly hope people are going to love it. But ultimately, the most important critic is right in here. So the fifth step, win with integrity. When you have succeeded, help others. Okay, you know, just turn around and remember all of your insecurities before you were published. And remember how you got past those insecurities. Remember what you learned to get there. And when you think about the advice you got along the way, write it down in the book that I wrote, my writing book, Chop wood, carry water, I'll give you a chance to get for free. Basically, at the end of this, I basically remembered all the things that people like Robert Heinlein and Harlan Ellison and David Yarrow, Larry Niven, for God's sake, and Octavia Butler and all these people, Charles Johnson, all these people told me about writing and I boiled it down. And I tell this stuff when I'm at science fiction conventions and I'm working with clients or just people call up and say, help, Steve. I give them what was given to me if I filtered it and found that it worked. And this is what I'm asking you to do, too. When you succeed, you know, when the student becomes the teacher, when you move to the next level, leave a trail of breadcrumbs for the people who are just trying to remember how scared you were, how badly you wanted it, how desperate you were to be seen. And remember that others feel that way. Don't you know, don't let them down. Art is self expression. You have an emotional impulse and you seek expression with it. You know, if a baby reaches a hand into the potty and smears the mess on the wall, points to it proudly and says, see, that's art of a kind. It really is. It's the expression of self. But successful art is self expression plus communication. Somebody on the other side has to understand what it was they were trying to say, has to feel the emotions that you were trying to communicate, or else it's not successful. If you dig into your own emotions and you learn the craft of using words Language, whatever the expression of your art form is sufficiently that people who are educated as to the tropes of your art can see what it is that you're doing, read it, listen to it, watch it, whatever, and feel the same emotions that you felt when you created it, then you have created successful art, especially if they're willing to exchange their money for your time and energy. That notion that hack work is trying to create emotions on the page that you yourself do, did not feel it's operating deliberately below. The very best you can do it is deliberately not giving yourself, not trying your best, not being as honest, not being as forthright, not giving it everything you can, not being on that high wire act. If you can find a way to be on that high wire act, doing the best you can, and take your satisfaction from the balance itself. If you can say, you know, if all you have to do is to succeed as a writer is to write at least one sentence every day, and that sentence was the best you could do at that moment. And every day you did the best you could at that moment. It was as true as it could be. It was as deep as it could be. Then you should be able to take pleasure in the moments that you spent writing. You got to spend that time writing. Wasn't it fun? Wasn't it play? I mean, if not, why are you doing it? Lots of easier ways to make money, I can promise you that. But if you got your pleasure from it, then no one can say or do any, anything to take that pleasure from you. You own that. For the rest of your life, you own that. So the critics and the naysayers and the doubters and the people try to tear you down. They wish they could be you. They wish that they had the courage to actually put it out there and try. And the interesting thing is that if you do it right, you'll actually give them the courage to leave their fears behind and stop sitting up in the bleachers criticizing and actually get down in the field and risk a little blood and skin. It's worth it. It's worth it. When you find that courage, be sure to stop and remember that once upon a time you didn't have it and to celebrate yourself and to say, here I am, isn't it cool? I mean, I love this part of my life. I love writing. I love sharing it with you. And I love feeling that I have something to offer. I said to you that I was going to give you a chance to get my new book. Chop Wood, Carry Water, the first book I'VE written on writing free. If you go to lifewriting premium.com lifewritingpremium.com you'll have a chance. For $1, you can sign up for the first month of the Life Writing Premium program, which is a fantastic writing program. And in the first week you'll get a free copy of the book. And if you don't like the course, you cancel. No problem. Otherwise, it's like $29 a month after that. But the first month $1 and you get the book for free. LifeWritingPremium. Com Take care guys. Thank you so much for the time, and stay safe. Bye. Bye.