My Friend Won’t Stop Sending Me Writing and It’s Driving Me Crazy: Am I the Literary Asshole?

Hello there, howdy!

Welcome back to everyone’s favorite bimonthly dramatic reading series, Am I the Literary Asshole?, an advice column that’s fueled by late night Taco Bell and vodka-laced Slurpees. I’m your host, Kristen Arnett, and it’s an honor and a pleasure to be here with you today. In a world so full of dread and awfulness, why not take a moment to read anonymous petty literary gossip on the internet? Allow me to be your guide, gentle reader. Such sights await you!

We’ve got a few good questions today, so why don’t we sort our libations and get right down to business? Beer and a shot sounds like just the ticket. Tequila? Check. High Life? Double check.

On your mark, get set, go:

1) I’m a month away from finishing up my MFA and am experiencing something of a crisis of confidence; all of a sudden, my career goals (publishing my short stories in good magazines, writing a novel, getting an agent, selling a book, etc.) seem like total impossibilities. I’m pretty sure I AM the literary asshole in this case, because I say this after three years of being regularly praised by my classmates and teachers as “smart and talented” and getting selected for many of the competitive awards/opportunities our program has to offer.

I am also aware that the confidence this support and affirmation gave me helped my writing at least as much as the practical skills I learned in school, which makes me extremely worried about the effect the many inevitable rejections I now face are going to have on my writing. Any advice on how to hold onto the wins I enjoyed in the “small pond” of grad school while working toward bigger, less attainable goals?

First off, I want to tell you that you’re not an asshole. You’re merely a human being experiencing life for the first time, just like the rest of us. It’s smart of you to understand right off the bat that you’re coming out of a situation that was special and empowering. As you note in your letter, you were a big fish in a small pond, and now the broader literary world awaits you; a vast sea that isn’t always so kind or pleasant. Yes, part of being a writer means understanding that you’re gonna get a lot of rejections. But I’ll also add that the bigger, more important part is focusing on the stuff that’s not “wins” or “losses.” The thing to be most focused on is the actual act of writing. Career goals are all well and good, but being a writer is simply… writing.

Because you’re coming out of a program, you’re going to have to spend some time unlearning things. By that I mean you’re going to have to reframe how you think about who you’re writing for and why you’re doing it. You were in classes with deadlines and grades, with special award opportunities attached to those deadlines and grades, and now that you’re going out into the world, those things aren’t going to work the same way. You’re the one who’s going to be in charge of when you write, why you choose to write, and how that gets to make you feel.

If you turn inward, friend, I think you’re going to find that the focus will inevitably shift away from wins and losses. And that’s a very good thing! Your attainable goals should all have to do with how you feel about the art you’re producing. Every day, you get up and confront the page. What you bring to that page becomes its own win or loss. Developing that relationship (with yourself, with your art) is going to be crucial to how your work moves forward.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that we can all get focused on publication woes! Rejection, regardless of how often it happens or how thick our skin might become, still stings. But if you take that focus inward and use it to power through your writing, you’re going to find that you care less about what those rejections mean, and more about how you feel about the writing you continue to create. If you care about your work (and I think that you do), you’ll develop a wholly new relationship with it outside of the classroom. The big wide world awaits, and even though it can be scary to swim free of the little pond, I think you’ll find the challenges and growth you’ll uncover through this process are worth more than any award. Good luck, and happy writing!

I think that calls for another beer and a shot! Bottom’s up, here’s our next question:

2) Am I the LA for being annoyed with a writer friend who gave me negative feedback on something I shared with her? I sent a friend an essay I was pretty much done with, and asked for feedback on something very specific related to organization. She instead sent me a lot of notes on things I am not interested in changing, and her feedback boiled down to “I don’t understand the point of this essay.” You just have to believe me that it is clear! But even if it wasn’t, it wasn’t what I asked, and it just annoyed me. Whenever she asks me for notes on her work, I stick within the parameters of what she asks for help with. It is unreasonable to expect someone to only give notes on what you ask for when requesting a second set of eyes on your work?

Woooof! Tough one!

Okay, I will say that it makes sense to be annoyed by this behavior. You were feeling good about the essay you crafted and all you wanted were a few simple questions answered. Only about organization, very specific feedback. It would be unnerving to receive a load of negative reactions to something you were generally feeling great about before you sent it.

I have a few questions that will hopefully open things up a bit.

First of all, how often do y’all exchange work? You say that you read this person’s work and give feedback based on their specific needs, but do they read your work very often? Have they ever done this for you before? If it’s the first time, perhaps a clearer understanding of what you’d like in regard to feedback is in order. Boundaries aren’t just for intimate relationships; they’re an important part of sharing work with each other. If you know that you’re the kind of person who will get upset when presented with unsolicited feedback, then it’s important for you—moving forward—to note that you only wish to receive critique as it applies to the questions you’ve specifically presented.

I say this because there are plenty of people who want to receive general feedback. When these individuals send their work out, they’re looking for any kind of sticky spot/problem area that they may have missed. I have a few writer friends that are like this. I get it. But if you know that you only want the questions you’ve presented addressed, then it’s gonna be up to you to make that abundantly clear to the person who’s reviewing your work.

You should only have to do it once! Right up front, note that you feel good about XYZ piece of writing and would only like the critique to apply to the questions you’ve provided. If they ignore your boundaries and give you unwanted feedback instead? Then hey, it’s time to get another reader. But if this is their first time reading your work and you didn’t give them those limitations ahead of time, it’s totally possible they really thought they were helping you out.

Ostensibly, none of us are reading our friends work for money. We do it because we care about writing, and yes, we care about each other. It’s an act of love. If this is their first oops with you, I’d say give them the benefit of the doubt; moving forward, just make sure you make your critique needs (and your hard boundaries) crystal clear.

Okay, last few drinks and then onto our last caller of the day!

3) My friend keeps sending me their writing, but I don’t have any time to read it right now. In the past we were readers for each other, and I was happy to take a look (they are a good writer), but things have gotten incredibly hectic for me recently and I just don’t have the time to give their work a look, much less get any writing of my own done. I’ve told them multiple times that I don’t have time, but they keep sending me work, regardless. I’m quickly approaching a breaking point. I don’t want to ruin a friendship, but how do I get them to leave me alone?

Another tough one, all having to do with writer friends and boundaries (or the lack thereof).

I’m going to keep this short and sweet. Don’t reply. You’ve told them, multiple times, that you don’t have the bandwidth to look at their work. If they refuse to listen, you don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to read the work. Hell, you don’t even have to respond to the email and/or text! Just let it sit there. Delete it, if you feel so inclined. Part of being a writer friend (and just a friend in general) is respecting the fact that everyone has the same amount of hours in the day, and some of us have way more on our plate than usual. It’s not very friendly to disrespect that time; it’s actually pretty selfish. A good friend would try to help you out as opposed to adding more to your already overloaded schedule. Doesn’t sound like friend behavior to me.

Ghost those emails. And if they ask why, you can tell them I told you to do it.

Well, that’s all the time we have for today, folks! Join me next time when I answer more of your anonymous questions (send them to me HERE) and I also try to finish up all the editing I’ve been avoiding. Maybe I should write in to myself to see if I’m the asshole?

I guess we’ll see,
Dad

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