Does Any of This Matter? Am I the Literary Asshole?

Welcome back! That’s right, it’s time for another incredible installment of Am I the Literary Asshole?, the advice column so nice we have it twice (a month). I’m your host, Kristen Arnett, and I’m thrilled to guide you through today’s quandaries. It’s February, month of Cupid and conversation heart candies, so I’m going to keep it short and sweet. Be my Valentine, gentle reader!

Let’s take some quick shots of Fireball and brace ourselves for the onslaught of questions. Ready? Set! Go:

1) Why does being on submission to editors suck so hard?

Oh boy, it sure does suck! You’re not wrong about that, friend!

Think of it like this:

Much of the time, we write alone. We’re sitting and creating something that previously only lived inside our heads, pulling out as much as we can fit onto the page. This is an arduous process, but it can also be a joyful one. We write for many reasons, but at the end of the day, we do it because we must. It is born from real need. There is immeasurable satisfaction found in putting something together and feeling it click neatly into place. Even at my messiest, writing gives me a sense of wholeness that nothing else in my life can match.

Publishing? That’s a whole other can of worms.

So we’ve written something, right? We’ve spent an inordinate amount of time crafting our work until it’s ready for another set of eyes. Let’s say we even worked through stages of a draft with other readers, or possibly even with our agent. That’s still keeping it in the realm of writing—of production and making—that special place where we’re still in the act of crafting. It’s alive, it’s malleable. We’re coaxing it along. But once we’ve gone out on submission, all control is out of our hands. And that loss of control can feel really terrible!

We maybe have a say in where our agent would like to send our work. But we can’t control how or when that editor will read it. We can’t control how they’ll react to what we’ve made. It’s essentially like taking the training wheels off your book’s metaphorical bike and letting it pedal off all on its own (praying that the book won’t crash into the street and get run over by a truck). It’s a tough thing to know that your work is out in the world without you and that people are judging it based on criteria and merits that possibly have nothing to do with your own.

Basically, it’s going to pretty much always feel bad because we can’t control any of it. We simply have to sit back and wait.

Sending you all the luck in the world, friend. And I’ll tell you what I always try and tell myself: you can’t control what an editor might think about your work, but you can always go out and make something new in the meantime.

Okay, let’s take another hit of Fireball and slip on down to our second caller:

2) Hello, I’m in a low-stakes situation where I am becoming resentful of my writing community, and I would appreciate your take on whether I am justified: I am part of an online, amateur writing community for people who are interested in certain types of stories (let’s say LGBT sci-fi erotica—that’s not it, but close enough). Only a few members have ever been published, but many of us self-publish short fiction to a public, online platform. In our online forum, members (are invited) to take turns sharing recommendations with the community.

It’s explicit in the invitation that you’re allowed to promote your own work or to share others’ work that you have enjoyed. I’m fine with some amount of self-promotion, but it seems like lately (over at least the past several months), I am the only person who promotes other people’s work when given the opportunity. Am I right to be bothered? I try to be thoughtful about my recs and often pick older pieces that I feel have been overlooked, but that I think will resonate with the community, and I don’t feel I’m getting the same consideration in return when everyone else is just plugging their latest. Is there a polite way to bring this up, or should I just let it go?

Hi, friend! Thanks for writing in with this question.

I think the short answer here is that if you like being part of the group, I think you might need to let this one go. What you’re describing here is undoubtedly annoying—I would feel the same way if I was in your shoes, truly—but unless you’re the one in charge of creating (and enforcing) the rules of this group, I would urge you to simply post your own recommendations and move along. Part of the problem here is that with a group like this where many people are in the early stages of writing, they can go overboard when it comes to self-promotion because it can sometimes feel like no one will ever see your work at all unless you post it all the time, everywhere.

Now, if you don’t feel like you can still enjoy this group without making some kind of effort to say something about the onslaught of self-promotion, then maybe consider who you might reach out to with regard to specific “rules” in the group. Is there someone who is the de facto leader that you could email on the side, asking them to remind users to share work aside from their own? Or do you feel that you could also maybe post this entreaty to your fellow community members on your own? I’d say to do this with a light tone and bright spirit. Gently. It’s hard to be an amateur writer. It’s hard to share your work! I’m positive you don’t want to burst anyone’s writing bubble. If you can say it nicely, that might have a positive effect.

But I’d also say that if you can simply drop it, you might make things easier on yourself. If you keep leading by example, I promise you that after everyone gets their self-promotional urges out of their system, at least one other member will follow in your very kind footsteps and showcase work that’s not their own.

One more swig and onto our final question!

3) Does any of this really matter? Maybe I’m being the asshole here, but seriously, does it?

I can’t know what you’re asking about specifically here, but I think I get the gist of it.

What a total shitshow, huh? Everything feels overwhelming, all the time, and it can be hard to remain hopeful about art and joy. As cliché as it sounds, community is one of the best forms of care we can give ourselves. And that matters to me, personally, because it allows me to keep moving through the world with renewed purpose. I can’t speak to what matters for you, friend, but I would ask you to consider what that thing might be when it comes to your own life.

But hey, it’s possible you think that drunk literary advice columns don’t matter! And to that I say, to each their own, but as for me, I’ll just finish the last of the Fireball and keep reading your questions, regardless.

That’s it for today, comrades. Join me next time when we look at your beautiful questions, born from your beautiful minds, and subsequently drink beautiful drinks and toast to our beautiful lives.

Beautifully,
Dad

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Are you worried you’re the literary asshole? Ask Kristen via email at AskKristen@lithub.com, or anonymously here.