Writing takes courage enough and anyone who has taken up the challenge deserves credit, even if they do it in a closet and the resulting opus never sees the light of day.

But submitting our writing to the critical gaze of a heartless public takes fearlessness beyond courage. It takes drink.

Not only do we writers risk criticism – and that associated bruising to our tender egos – but also doubt, and the loss of resolve. The range of things for which we might obtain criticism is vast and varied; and often subjective, which we timid authors take as personal slight. There’s plenty of opportunity for ‘failure’ so the intrepid writer surely needs a lot of courage, mental stamina, thick skin, or possibly narcissism.

But is it really failure we fear? Or fear itself. The adage, ‘Face the fear and do it anyway’, is the definition of courage. Maybe Mark Twain (accomplished author, so likely knows whereof he speaks) said it better: 

The writer’s fear is not without foundation, everywhere he looks he sees many pitfalls: is his story/theme/subject interesting enough to enough readers (keeping in mind you can’t please all of the readers, all of the time)? In other words, will her story find an audience big enough to make the effort worthwhile? (I think I’m a good storyteller – the problem is, a lot of readers want their books in genres other than mine!)

Even if your story is interesting, and in a market-friendly genre, is your writing effective, coherent, fluid, satisfying to the reader? (I’m a good writer – I’ve been told as much by many readers – surely the others think so too, they just haven’t expressed it.)

And then we have all these quirky little irritants: grammar, spelling (typos?), punctuation, usage rules. (I’m not a narcissist but really – I just don’t think all those rules apply to me.)

I’ve written on this theme before: the courage to write, or more aptly, the courage to publish. (Go here, and here, and especially here!) To expose your literary efforts to public scrutiny takes courage, or is that blind fearlessness?

You will recall I felt obliged to defend my choice of usage when I published my last novel, Alex’ Choice. ‘Pity the Apostrophe’, I called the article, (mostly because I liked the alliteration), defending my use of the ’  but no following s in Alex; I argued that the usage was permissible, but in any case, I just didn’t like the sound of Alex’s Choice – too many sibilants. I stuck with my decision despite the feedback. Still, I was surprised at how defensive I felt, how wounded at the (to me) strong criticism, questioning my competence as a writer. I screwed up my resolve, (or was it childish petulance?), reinforced with a little Irish courage, and fired back with my arguments for the usage I used. My book, my choice!

In a similar vein, in my last newsletter I applied a usage style that attracted attention from a few of you (well, two of you) who actually wrote to me to let me know I had got it wrong. Perhaps there were more who noticed but weren’t so doctrinaire that they felt compelled to make the point, or perhaps polite enough to just let it go. (There’s an adage in surveys that if one person expresses an opinion, there were nine others who had it but just didn’t answer the question.) Or perhaps those readers didn’t think the errant usage was actually errant.

Here’s the sentence from the Newsletter; see if you can spot the culprit:

I got a request to conduct an harassment investigation in a large government department and I must say, while I responded in the affirmative, I’m not feeling enthused for this sort of project. 

(I hesitate to give the answer right away so you can stew on it for a while, then check the endnotes^[1]. Or just send me a note.)

But this article is not about obscure grammar rules; it’s about courage, writer’s courage.

Courage is one of the ‘Great Virtues’. It’s a virtue few of us have as a continuous characteristic. Most of us choose discretion as the better part of valour. For many, the moment for courage is strictly a function of the situation that occurs at the time – the ‘courageous’ person acts without thinking: Is the mother who races into danger to save her child really exercising the virtue of ‘courage’? – it’s maternal instinct; Similarly, is the bystander jumping onto the subway tracks to rescue someone who has fallen acting courageously? it may be more a spontaneous act of unthinking valour. But this is not courage. True courage is doing something at great risk to oneself, knowingly, but does it anyway. But is it courage to dive off a bridge into perilous waters, egged on by peers? Acting courageously almost always is an altruistic thing: it is not the same daring as the person who takes actionable risks that benefits only himself. Self-serving temerity may be calculated resolve, which in many ways is a desirable trait, but doesn’t quite make the definition of courage.

So what is courage when it comes to authors willing to put in hours and hours of effort to produce a book that may not sell nor even cover their costs? What virtue is it that risks criticism, that exposes the author’s work to being not good enough, or questions that apostrophe s?

It takes fortitude, resolve, thick skin, foolhardiness maybe, but courage?

I don’t lack for courage while I’m writing, or so I convince myself, but really, what am I risking? I may be exercising bad judgment but is it courage? I know writing takes real effort and time, and constant revisions, and I’m willing to put in the hours. This takes persistence, resolve, stamina; but courage? To assuage my doubts I self-reinforce: I believe my writing is decent (or even better than decent!) and I press on, motivated to finish it and get my opus into the hands of my adoring fans. (See, most courage is actually delusional.)

Still, I enjoy writing (most of the time), and I know that, by writing, my writing improves; the particular piece gets better with each round of editing. (I must admit, sometimes there are many, many rounds of editing and I doubt the quality of writing has much improved but, whatever.) (I’ve also found looking for inspiration in a tot or two doesn’t much help.)

I also know that writing has other benefits for me: using skills that I’m good at gives me satisfaction, and even from time to time earns me approbation. More than that, as I have written elsewhere, it gives me opportunity to get into periods of ‘flow’, and when in ‘flow’ the brain is sufficiently distracted as to shed its worries of all the other things going on in my life. And I know that using my talents in pursuit of something (projects) from which I derive satisfaction, and possibly even provide benefit to others (to entertain, possibly to educate) contributes to episodic happiness, and that is the very definition of life’s purpose.

Still, the need for ‘courage’ comes at that moment of no return, when you decide to press ‘Send’. Sometimes that decision has more to do with deadlines, and maybe ennui, than compelling conviction, but what the hell, let’s just get it out there, shall we?

The doubt, the remorse, the regret, comes just after I press send. That’s usually when I get out the bottle of Writer’s Tears™.

The Muse eternal

For most writers – I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this – the time for courage is not in the writing but in the marketing. We know what to do but the prospect is somehow daunting. We are reluctant to make that call to the bookseller; we hesitate to contact publishers and agents; we procrastinate until too late, or almost too late, to enter our books in contests and Book Award competitions; we agonize over asking for feedback – we crave positive feedback but dread criticism; we cringe at the thought of lugging our meagre stock of books to a store for a book signing, or to a book fair displaying our wares, engaging browsers, flogging our books, and hoping for a few buyers; and worry that our sales won’t even cover the entry fee.

Maybe that’s the time for the Irish courage. Maybe instead of adding cream to our coffee in our travel mugs we put Baileys. I wonder how many of us aspiring authors may be alcoholics. But when it comes to courage in a bottle, I suspect most of us writers are sensible enough to avoid that kind of pluck.

Doug Jordan, reporting to you from Kanata

© Douglas Jordan & AFS Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of these blogs and newsletters may be reproduced without the express permission of the author and/or the publisher, except upon payment of a small royalty, 5¢. 

---

^[1] The argument is that even though the ‘h’ in harassment, or many other h words, is often not pronounced, the rule is, the indefinite article to use is a lone ‘a’, not the elided ‘an’. I disagree for the same reason as I choose not to use ’s in words ending with a sibilant: it sounds awkward to the ear.