My son recently attended his very first school dance.  And danced.  Twice.  Which is more than I ever did in school.  Attend or dance.  Never went to a single one.  I asked him if most of the guys danced or if they held up the wall, and he said not many danced.  He did because girls asked him.  I wanted to know why he hadn’t asked any, and his answer was ‘I don’t know.’  Which to me actually said, ‘I was afraid of rejection’.  No one who attended highschool just read those words without instantly flashing backward in time.  Rejection had to have been a humiliating experience.  But with the passage of years, I now think about how much courage it took for someone to step out into the social spotlight and risk rejection.  At least that person was doing something, instead of, like me, hiding behind a book or in a dream story.

Writing has the same risks though.  You face rejection every time you ask that first, trusted reader, for an opinion.  Every time you send out that first query letter.  Every time you open your mouth at a writer’s conference or writer’s group.  Every time you post a blog. 

What terrified me when I sent out my first query letter wasn’t so much the fear of rejection, but the fear of losing my new-found confidence.  It was safer to write in that dark closet alone, then to confess to people I was a writer, send out stories to be edited, and then think I had a right to send out a query letter.  I was terrified that getting a rejection would deflate that fledgling confidence and shove me right back into the closet. 

What happened though, was that I ended up very, very excited about the first rejection letter.  I showed it to everyone, and showed it proudly.  Because it was proof that I was doing something.  In some ways, the rejection proved to me that I was a writer.  Which is kind of embarrassing to admit to because we write for the love of writing, not for publication, so why did a rejection seem like proof?  No idea, but it did.  Maybe because it was a tangible thing I could hold that said I not only worked with words, I did something other than secret them away in the back of that closet.   And I still love getting rejections. 

I’ve also learned since that first query letter that there are levels of rejection.  Some are good, as when the letter comes with personal comments.  And some are awful, as when your return envelope comes back empty, but with a ‘no thanks’ hand-scrawled on the back of the envelope for every postal worker to see.  Of course I prefer the ‘good’ rejections, but I still get a tingle even with the ‘bad’ ones. 

Because it’s still proof of life.

Once a year, as part of my job, I have to pull out an electric typewriter.  It brings back memories of typing class, the old clunky manual typewriters, and the thrill of sitting down to my first electric version.  It felt so high-tech and futuristic.  Like ‘The Jetsons were real.

Today, I plunked out a few test letters to make sure the machine was still working, and found myself typing away.  Nonsense sentences that meant nothing but made my fingers move across the keys, pushing them down, listening to the unmistakable sounds of a typewriter.  Of course the first sentence ran off the page because the margins hadn’t been set so there was no warning beep that I needed to hit the return key.  Remember when the key said ‘return’ and not ‘enter’? 

At first I thought it might be fun to write on a typewriter again.  But after playing with it I changed my mind.  First, there is a deep intimacy between my brain and the pen and paper.  When I hand-write, I slow down, feel the letters and words, and immerse myself in the form.  Which is fine until the story takes over and the pen can’t keep up.  Then it’s time for the laptop because my fingers type faster than they write.  So why doesn’t a typewriter sound enticing?  Because I noticed when I was typing that more effort goes into pushing those keys down then in typing on a computer.  And that minute effort, as little as it is, feels like a barrier between me and the story.  The more I typed the more tense I became, as if I needed to somehow break through that block between fingers, keys, and paper.

So even though the typewriter was fun, I’m going to put it back in its dark hole for another year and stick to a medium that allows no barriers.  In other words, nude writing.  Which is not the same thing as writing in the nude…

Have you found writing mediums that block the words?  What is your preference for writing with no barrier between you and the story?  I know writers who swear by computers only, writers who have to have paper, writers who need the computer to create and paper to edit.  Let me know what works for you.  Maybe there’s even a typist out there.

A friend asked me this morning how to write a book.  He has some ideas and has been jotting them down and is now at the point where he’s thinking about creating. After a long phone conversation that left me excited for him, I started thinking about competition.

Writing seems to be one of the few jobs where competition exists in the higher echelons, in the marketing realms, in that thin ozone layer populated by big names and big dollars.  Down here on the ground level, competition isn’t as apparent.  I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but rather that it’s not as common.

Almost every writer I come across is excited to help other writers. It’s like we get just as enthusiastic to support another as we get when we start one of our own stories.  There’s something about seeing the magic we feel bloom in another.

It’s one of the reasons I love editing and talking writing, and sitting in on writer’s groups, and attending conventions and classes and…you get the idea.  Just being around writers, no matter what level, is inspiring.  Maybe that’s a type of competition because the inspiration makes me want to jump into my own writing.  But if so it’s not a negative competition.

I like the idea of being immersed in something I love, in something that I see in others, and in something I can support another in.  Not once have I paused and thought, ‘damn, that’s a better idea than mine’ or ‘crap, they’re a better writer’.  Instead when I come across writing that shines, I’m inspired to write better, to learn, and to work.  Confess; don’t you get a thrill when you realize the person you’re talking to writes?

Maybe I’m bordering on being naive here, but my friend’s excitement about beginning makes me only want to support him and see him soar.

How about you?  Do you feel a sense of competition when it comes to being around other writers?  Can you tell me what that competition feels like?  Do you want to support beginning writers, or make sure they don’t pass you up?  Does competition inspire you to work harder, or threaten you?   Any other thoughts?