Emma Young's Questions for Writers

And Complaint Letters Live! April 17th

Emma Young’s Questions for Writers

Last year, WA author Emma Young bravely posted the photo and caption below on Instagram.

Here is me smiling bravely on the night I heard I didn't win the potentially life-changing $60,000 WA Premier's Award I was shortlisted for. And that was by no means the worst emotional hammering of the year, though it was certainly up there. In fact this year I have received four crushing professional blows, each more devastating than the last. ⁠

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I admire Emma’s vulnerability and authenticity in sharing these feelings so publicly, and I very much relate to her comments about crushing professional blows. I’ve certainly had my share of those, the most significant of which is spending 8 years completing 2 novels for which I haven’t managed to find a publisher.

Emma followed up with a series of questions for fellow creatives that I found very thought-provoking, and have been wanting to answer ever since. 6 months later, I am finally getting round to it!

• How do you balance the need to use social media with the need to protect yourself from toxic envy of other writers' achievements? ⁠

• How do you deal with the cognitive dissonance that comes from only publicly representing the positive parts of your career, and knowing in so doing you're probably causing others to feel toxic envy for you in turn? ⁠

• How do you communicate your setbacks and the financial reality of being a writer to make all that media a bit realer, without being unprofessional and potentially alienating the system and organisations you are a part of? ⁠

• How do you maintain a focus on remembering, being proud of and celebrating the achievements that preceded the failures?⁠

• How do you protect and heal yourself from the disappointment of rejection and failure professionally and maintain the spirit to continue applying for things and pushing, over the long haul (years and decades)? ⁠

• How do you practice acceptance of the state of the creative industries in Australia and WA, and your own powerlessness to change this? ⁠

• How do you back away from it all and create the space to write, but maintain the online presence (and physical networking/socialising presence) you need to keep your career moving forward and your books selling? And while maintaining your presence within your family and friendship circles? ⁠

I’m going to give my answers to these questions below, but first, a small promo.

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Complaint Letters Live! April 17th | The Rechabite

My next monthly Complaint Letters Live! starring Nadia Heisler-Walpole, Sharron Booth, Shannon Meyerkort and Katherine Allum, is April 17th at The Rechabite in William Street, Northbridge.

There are still a few earlybird tickets available for $25 so get in quick! Concession tikets are the low low price of $15 as always.

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My Reflections on Emma’s Questions

• How do you balance the need to use social media with the need to protect yourself from toxic envy of other writers' achievements? ⁠

I spend very little time on social media. I log on, post what I need to, read the few posts that are on the front page of my feed, and then log off. I don’t have social media on my phone so I have to sit at my desk to use it, which massively reduces the temptation to doom scroll, and exposure to other writers’ success posts, which, in turn, reduces my envy of and preoccupation with other writers’ success. Twitter was probably my biggest source of professional envy, and thanks to Voldemort, I no longer use Twitter so that has helped a lot. I unfollow anyone who makes me feel toxic envy, even if my envy of that person might not seem rational to anyone else.

• How do you deal with the cognitive dissonance that comes from only publicly representing the positive parts of your career, and knowing in so doing you're probably causing others to feel toxic envy for you in turn? ⁠

Many years ago I wrote a blog post titled On Not Making a Living from Writing, in which I shared my pitiful earnings for the financial year. This post received significantly more views, shares and comments than anything I had ever written, and it made me realise these were the stories people really wanted to hear. It gave me the courage to be authentic. From then on, I have tried to share the challenges and frustrations of my writing life, as much as my successes. I tend to unfollow writers who only share the positive side of writing, as I find it inauthentic and irritating.

• How do you communicate your setbacks and the financial reality of being a writer to make all that media a bit realer, without being unprofessional and potentially alienating the system and organisations you are a part of? ⁠

This is a tougher question to answer. Because I haven’t had a book out for ten years (did I mention that?!), I haven’t had to worry about how being honest about my disappointments in my writing career might reflect on my publisher/agent etc. I’d be very interested to hear how other writers manage this. Leave me a comment!

• How do you maintain a focus on remembering, being proud of and celebrating the achievements that preceded the failures?⁠

I believe this is something we have to be very intentional about. I think keeping a list that you add to whenever something happens that you feel good about is a valuable strategy, because that is something you can go back to when it all feels hopeless. Recently, I’ve been sharing daily ‘glimmers’ with a friend via text. Glimmers are the opposite of triggers—moments that bring us joy, pleasure, connectedness or other good feelings. It could be a good idea to keep a glimmers diary for writing or even to have a glimmer buddy you share the small, enlivening moments with. (NB: Make sure your buddy is not someone whose glimmers might be things like, Hit the NYT bestseller list!, and more someone who might share, Finished a motherf*cker of a scene today! Flex emoji).

• How do you protect and heal yourself from the disappointment of rejection and failure professionally and maintain the spirit to continue applying for things and pushing, over the long haul (years and decades)? ⁠

For me, this is partly about time. Sometimes after a painful rejection, or series of what feel like rejections (e.g. missing out on grants etc), I have to take a break from putting myself out there, because I know I don’t have the resilience to cope with any further rejection. I wait until my skin thickens again, and then—to mix a metaphor—I get back on the horse. Sometimes it can take months and at the back of my mind are all the opportunities I’m potentially missing out on during that time. But I’ve learnt to let go of that. There will always be new opportunities and I’ll apply for them when I’m in the right headspace and my bruised soul has healed a bit.

But the other part of this question concerns the idea of ‘professional failure’.

I believe it is vitally important for creatives to differentiate between creative success and public or commercial success.

We tend to equate success with the ways our work is valued in the wider world—through awards or sales or publication deals etc. But if I am writing work that I believe in, and feel proud of; work that is the very best work I’m capable of, that, to me, is still creative success, even if it’s not recognised externally as such. What has been helpful to me is to create my own definition of success, and to remind myself of that when I feel like a ‘failure’ because my work is not being valued by grant panels, critics, readers etc

Sara Foster wrote a great post on this topic, in which she differentiates between intrinsic value, cultural value and marketplace value, and I found this a really helpful way of considering the question of professional success.

Three different, essential ways for us to value our creative work

• How do you practice acceptance of the state of the creative industries in Australia and WA, and your own powerlessness to change this?

I try to think about it as little as possible. Reducing time spent on social media helps with this. If I’m not always reading about it, I’m less likely to worry about it. But if book sales make a huge difference to your income, then the state of the industry is going to be an ongoing source of stress. So for me, the biggest piece of this particular puzzle has been accepting that I’m probably never going to make a living from writing. It took me a long time to arrive at that acceptance. Like most writers, my early success gave me hope that my sales were going to grow continually, to a point where I could make a reasonable living from my books.

It seems a common assumption among writers, that each book will sell more than the last. But I think, for a very large proportion of writers, it is simply not what happens.

Letting go of the expectation of that has been helpful.

• How do you back away from it all and create the space to write, but maintain the online presence (and physical networking/socialising presence) you need to keep your career moving forward and your books selling? And while maintaining your presence within your family and friendship circles? ⁠

There is very little evidence that online presence equates to book sales, so I don’t invest too much time in social media. I do it when I’m in the mood, and am quite irregular about it. I’m sure that affects my statistics but it protects my sanity - everything’s a trade-off! I do very little networking and feel completely out of the loop in WA writing circles. I have become introverted in middle-age and only go to writing events I feel genuinely excited about. And, as much as possible, I try to avoid putting pressure on myself around my writing goals.

I remind myself that in the beginning, this is something I chose to do because I loved it. The more pressure I put on myself, the less I’ll enjoy the process.

My books take forever to write, and for now, I’m okay with that.

I would love to hear other writers’ responses to Emma’s questions.

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Other things that have intrigued or entertained me lately

• Film | Anora I loved the vulnerability of this film and the fearlessness Mikey Madison brought to her character; more female heroines like this, please!

• TV | Severance This show had so many things working for it: an intriguing sci-fi premise, great performances and incredible production design. But the pacing was agonising and I often felt bored and frustrated. It was hamstrung by their focus on aesthetic and mood at the expense of story progress.

• Substack |Why are Men Still So Dangerous? Jennie Young’s conclusion to this question is 1. Because they want to be and 2. Because they’re allowed to be, and honestly, that makes me so sad and tired.

• Op Ed | Yotam Ottolenghi: I tried intermittent fasting, and hated it. I know intermittent fasting works for a lot of people, but for me, it exacerbated an existing eating disorder and ultimately made me gain significant weight, so this piece resonated.

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