Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin by Sandra Horn
May 2018 be a good one for you, folks! Peace, love, joy and
creativity in ample measures! Here are some early daffodils to lift your spirits.
So far, 2018 hasn’t really lifted my own spirits. I can only
hope it will get better. I’d had a burst of energy towards the end of 2017 and
had sent out several poems and short stories and a children’s novel, mostly in
response to call-outs and competitions. The rejections/non-acceptances came in
thick and fast with the new year. There was one really nice one – just about the
nicest rejection I’ve ever had, from an agent: ‘Thank you for giving me the
opportunity to consider your work. This was a difficult decision as I was
really impressed with your submission. The writing is engaging, the idea is
appealing and you write with real energy and imagination. However, while there
was a lot I enjoyed about your submission, ultimately I did not feel convinced
I could find a publisher for it.’ She went on to say she’d be keen to read
anything I write in the future. So far, so not too bad – but as for all the
rest, silence or shortlists on which my name was not. How to deal with it all?
Once, years ago, I won a prize for best writing for
television. There was a nice cheque and the promise of the script being read by
a TV producer. I waited. Waited. Waited and then sent out a tentative enquiry,
which resulted in an invitation to go to the studio for a meeting. Yay! BAFTAs here
I come! When I got there, the script was produced very mangled and covered in
coffee-cup stains and general uggle. ‘So sorry,’ said the Producer, ‘it had
fallen down the back of the desk, hence the delay – we didn’t find it until we
got your enquiry.’
There were encouraging comments but it didn’t get produced because it didn’t fit their needs – too short for a one-off. What it did was make me twitch every time I sent work anywhere and didn’t hear anything. It must have fallen down the back of the desk! This is not a rejection, they’ve simply lost it...haven’t they? Or, nowadays, they’ve deleted the email by mistake. Nobody has read it, or they’d have taken it up. Obviously. Such little delusions don’t last long, though. I’m not in the habit of embarrassing myself by phoning to ask if they, whoever they are, actually received my work and actually read it. I allow myself the wild thought and then let it go. Nobody else needs to know what goes on inside my fevered head.
There were encouraging comments but it didn’t get produced because it didn’t fit their needs – too short for a one-off. What it did was make me twitch every time I sent work anywhere and didn’t hear anything. It must have fallen down the back of the desk! This is not a rejection, they’ve simply lost it...haven’t they? Or, nowadays, they’ve deleted the email by mistake. Nobody has read it, or they’d have taken it up. Obviously. Such little delusions don’t last long, though. I’m not in the habit of embarrassing myself by phoning to ask if they, whoever they are, actually received my work and actually read it. I allow myself the wild thought and then let it go. Nobody else needs to know what goes on inside my fevered head.
Other private thoughts include: Bastards! They’ve got
something against me! Jobs for the in-crowd! What’s the matter with them – are
they stupid, or what? I indulge one or the others of these for a while and then
let them pass. If there’s a list of the successful work, I’ll look at it. I’m usually
humbled. Yes, I see why those works were chosen and mine fell short.
Occasionally – very occasionally – I’m indignant, especially if it’s poetry
aimed at children. There’s a lot of poor stuff out there. Short stories are another minefield. Often, I
just don’t get it. I have to face it, it’s not my métier, but that doesn’t seem to
stop me trying! Daft, isn’t it? Why keep trying, only to fail? Because the
alternative is unthinkable, that’s why.
James Fenton takes a good look at failure in ‘The Strength
of Poetry’. ‘It’s not enough to fail,’ says Fenton, ‘You have to come to feel
your failure, to live it through, to turn it over in your hand, like a stone
with strange markings. You have to wake up in the night and hear it whistling around
the roof, or chomping in the field below, like some loyal horse – my failure,
my very own failure...And the horse looks up at you in the moonlight and you
feel its melancholy reproach. ..why are you neglecting your failure?’
Fenton goes on to say that ’Many people live in such horror
of failure that they can never embark on any great enterprise...this is the
worst kind of failure because there is truly no way out... In the end, nothing
is achieved by this timidity. Or you can permit yourself one failure in life
and devote your remaining days to mourning...This failure, it would seem, has
been kept like a trophy, lovingly polished and always on display. But for a
productive life, and a happy one, each failure must be felt and worked through.
It must form part of the dynamic of your creativity.’
Wise words indeed. Now, how to implement them?
*The writing on the wall at Belshazzar's feast: you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting
Comments
And I'm with Sue, love the quote.
1. Not start.
2. Give up along the way.
3. Run out of time.
No 3 is probably out of our hands, No 1 does not apply to anyone blogging here, so that only leaves No 2... Don't give up! (My post tomorrow is along these lines.)