Beware the Shoulder Vultures

 

By Mary Rosenblum

 

 

            You’re a Long Ridge student or maybe you’re not.  You’re  writing seriously, polishing your work and ready to start sending it off.  But…you hold those pristine, printed pages in your hands and you hear this voice whispering in your ear; this really isn’t very good.  You’re never really going to be a writer.  Why don’t you just give this up?   Or you’re sending your work out and the rejection slips are beginning to accumulate.  Once in awhile you get a hasty scribble from an editor, but mostly they’re those awful, printed form rejections.   Told you you weren’t any good.  See?  You tried, now it’s time to admit you failed and just stop fooling yourself.

 

            Is this the voice of wisdom?  Is this your inner self telling you like it is?

 

            Nah.  That is a  Shoulder Vultures and the best thing you can do is to whap that miserable critter right off your shoulder.  Quick!  Swat it hard!  Chase it away!

 

            Every one of us, bestselling or midlist writer, started out the same way – writing, polish, hoping, and struggling with rejection slips.  We are our own worst enemies in this business, quick to tell ourselves that we won’t make it, we’re no good, that we’re not making it, that we should quit.  We look at that story we just finished and say, this really isn’t very good and it sure feels like truth at the time. 

 

Blurry Vision

 

            Try pressing your nose to the TV screen or a picture in a magazine.  What do you see?  Blurry colors, right?  We’re way too close to our own careers, as writers, to be able to see that full picture clearly.  Our noses are pressed to that goal of publishing and all we can see in front of us is a blur of color.  We can’t see the whole picture.  We all want so much to succeed, to sell, to see our work in print.  And because we can’t see the whole picture of that tough break-in period with the occasional sale and lots of rejections, because we can only see the now of that most recent rejection or negative comment by a reader, we let those Shoulder Vultures croak and we think we’re hearing truth. 

 

Separating Judgment from Doubts

 

          Of course you need to improve your work.  And of course you’re going to see weaknesses in it that need to be corrected.  When the character sounds wooden and stiff, you fix the dialogue until it sounds like someone talking.  If readers can’t visualize your scene, you work on your description until those images emerge clearly.  Those aren’t Shoulder Vulture croaks, you are simply identifying weaknesses in your craft. 

 

            But when the feelings turn large scale… I’m no good…My writing is awful…I should quit… recognize these for the Vulture croaks they are.  YOU are the last person in the universe to objectively rate your writing as good or bad.  Your nose is jammed to that screen, remember?  You simply do not have a clear view of the larger picture.  You cannot have it, at this point.  That will come later, much later, after you have established your career, if you achieve it at all.  

 

Blind Belief is a Good Thing

 

          Many excellent, aspiring writers never make the printed page.  They don’t send their work out, or they send out two or three pieces, get rejections and decide on the basis of those that they aren’t any good.  And they quit.  Professional writers are the ones who stuck it out in the face of seeming failure, who kept writing even when it seemed no editor in the universe had any interest in what they wrote.  That’s what it takes.

 

            You are good right now.  Maybe not quite strong enough to publish regularly yet, but every word you write makes you a better writer.  What you write next week will be better than what you write today, and what you write next month will be better than what you write next week.   That driving sense of I want to do this should be your guide, not the croaks of the Shoulder Vultures that tell you that since you haven’t yet sold something you really must not be any good.  Remember, you might be on the brink of selling.  But if you quit now…  You never will.

 

What Editors Really Think

 

            Those form rejections make you feel as if your story or query never even got a look.  But don’t fool yourself.  Editors know you by name long before they buy from you.  If you meet the editor who has received your work lately at a writers conference and introduce yourself, you may be quite surprised to find out that he certainly does recognize your name and not only that, might well remember what you sent in last.  Editors DO want to discover the next big name in fiction or uncover the next feature writer for the magazine.  They keep an eye on promising new writers.  Alas, they have learned the hard way that encouragement is often misinterpreted by the novice writers, and so they rarely make personal comments, but they DO see your work, and they watch you, waiting for the day you give them something they can include in the magazine. 

 

            Remember…they want more than one submission from you, so they watch you to see  if you’re one of the stubborn ones who will keep writing and submitting in the face of discouragement.  Those are the writers the editors want to encourage.  Think of it as an endurance race and keep slogging along!

 

Selling Doesn’t Shoo Them Away

 

            Most of us believed that after we made that marvelous first sale, everything would be smooth sailing from then on.  We’d be ‘inside’, we’d sell everything we wrote.  Alas, the hard reality is you will get almost as many rejection slips after that first sale as you got before.  Yes, you have sold a story or an article, but that does not make you an instant Big Name.  That clip will help you a bit with the next sale, but it’s still a hard pull as you continue to improve and widen your name recognition among readers and editors.  This period, after that first sale or two and before you have built a solid career, can be even more difficult to get through than those days before you sold anything.  You’re selling, but you still get form rejections.  What is wrong?  Did you only have one or two good pieces in you and now you’re washed up?  Will you never get beyond the small circulation magazines with their tiny payments?   Maybe you’ve hit your level.   The Vultures change their song, but they keep croaking.  Again, you have to realize that with your nose pressed to that screen, you really cannot objectively evaluate your career right now.  Later, MUCH later.  But not now.

 

Duct Tape is Good

 

          So the next time the Shoulder Vulture starts to croak You’re no good, there’s no point, you’ll never sell… either whack the critter with a baseball bat, or grab that handy roll of duct tape and shut its beak.   This is not the voice of wisdom, this is not you admitting truth.  It’s a big, ugly, smelly Vulture and there’s absolutely no reason to let that thing dirty up your shoulder.

 

            Smack it a good one.    Or grab that duct tape. 

 

 

            Remember:  Whether you say “I can”, or “I can’t”, you’re right.