Authenticity vs Hustling for Worthiness
Our online selves
Cartoon by Tom Gauld
Some years ago, a writer I know was shortlisted for a non-life-changing but respected literary award for her debut novel. She didn’t win but afterwards she shared an upbeat blog-post about the ceremony, warmly congratulating the winner. Some years earlier, when I had been shortlisted for the same award, I had gone around for days afterwards trash-talking the winning book (which I hadn’t read but hated on principle, because it was about farming, and I was contemptuous of how much literary Australia seemed to froth over books about regional life). After I commented on this other author’s post to tell her how impressed I was by her magnanimity, she emailed me to admit that she actually felt bitter and devastated; that in fact she had gone home, drunk too much wine and cried.
I appreciated her being privately honest with me about her true feelings; (her confession made me feel slightly less ashamed of my own bad behaviour). I was, however, interested in the pressure she had felt to perform a generosity of spirit she didn’t feel; to pretend that missing out on winning a literary award was something she could easily take in stride.
My writing colleague’s blog post was a perfect example of the idealised online identity Naomi Klein explores in Doppelganger: ‘virtual versions of ourselves that represent us to others’. She writes of ‘the imperative to create a consumable, public-facing identity…an acute consciousness of having an externalised double, a digital double, an idealised identity’ that we must ‘perform for the benefit of others if [we] are to succeed.’
As writers, many of us have internalised this idealised online identity by watching it performed on social media for years. The ‘consumable’ writer is collegiate and congratulatory; rolling with the punches; accepting rejection with self-deprecating humour. To reveal jealousy, bitterness or despair is unpalatable.
And yet, all these idealised versions of writers only serve to make the rest of us feel worse, beating ourselves up because we can’t be more graceful in defeat, like @IdealisedWriterX, or more productive like @IdealisedWriterY, or at least, more hilarious about our neuroses, like @IdealisedWriterZ. If we spend too much time on social media, it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that every single solitary writer in the whole wide world is more successful than we are.
Our idealised online selves are engaged in what sociologist Brené Brown calls ‘hustling for worthiness’:
pleasing (gushing over other writers and their work);
performing (pretending to be something other than we really are, or to feel other than we really feel);
perfecting (only showing our best side, or our successes)
proving (desperately trying to convince others of our success, or our talent)
While hustling for worthiness might bring short-lived dopamine hits, it never truly fills the hole in our soul. As my dear friend Beth said to me about dating, ‘you can’t go looking for validation from random dudes you meet on the internet.’ At some level, most of us know (but somehow forget) that the real satisfaction of writing does not come from external validation; that the satisfaction is mostly in the process itself: of crafting a sentence that perfectly captures a character, of finally finishing a difficult scene, of seeing patterns and making connections amidst the mess of our ideas.
A decade ago, I published a blog post called On (Not) Making a Living from Writing, in which I revealed how much (or should I say, how little) I had earned from writing since the publication of my second novel, Whisky Charlie Foxtrot. In the writing world, speaking about earnings is taboo. No one admits to how much money they are making, and the only press is about the ‘six figure deals’, which makes it easy to feel like a failure if you got a ‘four figure deal’ …or even no deal at all. My post went viral, (by my modest standards). It attracted thousands of views, dozens of comments, and generated a great deal of discussion on Twitter, leading to me writing a follow-up piece for The Wheeler Centre. And one of the most common themes that came through in the feedback on this piece was how reassuring it was to hear how little money other authors were making. Instead of ‘performing’ success, I admitted to feeling like a failure, thereby making space for others to come forward and share their own struggles. I felt less alone; they felt less alone.
So let’s share more days when we didn’t manage to write, or when all our words seemed terrible; more rejections and paltry royalty statements, more messy desks and abandoned projects, more self-doubt and existential crises! Let’s stop hustling for worthiness, and whenever possible, try to remember that the satisfaction is in the writing itself.
To Whom It May Concern | Friday, August 30th
I am excited to be hosting another night of juicy complaint letters night at Beaufort Street Books on Friday, August 30th, featuring a fantastic line-up of local authors.
Here’s what people said about the last event:
Hilarious and heartwarming too - one of the best nights out I’ve had in ages - Melanie
A smorgasbord of wordsmithing goodness. Heart and mind both full and my face hurt from smiling! - Susie
And if you are a visual person, here is photographic evidence of people aghast and amused in equal measure at the May event:
Photo by Alireza Zamani
Beaufort Street Books | Community Conveyer Belt
On Saturday, July 20th, I was privileged to take part in a fantastic event in which more than 150 book-lovers gathered to help Beaufort Street Books move their stock to their new shop, 3 doors down! Community members formed a human conveyer belt, passing boxes of books from hand to hand, while others waited to unpack them in the new store. Armed with a microphone, I was hype girl for the event, but truthfully, the crowd provided their own hype; there was a wonderful atmosphere among the all-ages crowd, enhanced by the amazing baked goods provided by other fans of the beautiful book store, and as a team we moved 14,000 books in one hour! The new store—on the corner of Beaufort Street and Vincent—is looking beautiful, so pop in and show your support for this wonderful local business. Better still, buy a ticket for my complaint letters night on August 30th!
It is ok for me to call you Annabel Yoda Rose now?