I had a long conversation with a writer friend of mine last night, and I think there are a couple of points I made that I should pass on. Even if you are not a writer, I think you should consider this.
Everyone struggles. And you can’t compare yourself with what you see, or more accurately what you THINK you are seeing regarding how other people are doing. Especially in this day of social media.
Years ago, I learned the term: “Unicorn Poop.”
This, I was told, was a description of the magical BS people post online about how happy they are and how great their lives are and how wonderful everything is going. You know, the “staged” posts with everyone smiling and everything great all the time and the fantastic thing that just happened and the exciting thing they are getting ready to do…
As writers, most of us start out so damned enthused people can’t stand to be around us. Then, after nothing happens, or worse, Bad Things happen, we slump. Hard. A lot of us give up. Even those of us who were writing fan fiction for free because we love it. Because people can be poopy, can say poopy things, can do poopy things, can crush our dreams, our hopes, our loves, with a single, really nasty, and sometimes not so nasty, comment on social media. (Or maybe it was that snide, back-handed thing a family member said.)
Then, as writers, we can become so despondent that we/our work is not worthwhile, or that we are never going to “succeed” that we create a situation where other people can’t stand to be around us. We are too full of negativity. We become toxic to others trying to succeed.
Social Media has changed a lot of things. Attention spans not the least of them.
One of the things it has changed is we are constantly bombarded with Bad News. Things that, once upon a time, would take weeks for the world to find out are now posted on Twitter as they happen. They are broadcast live on CNN. They show up as alerts on the phone in our pocket. Instant Bad News.
As a result, I think, we, in general as a whole, don’t have much tolerance, and worse, don’t have much sympathy anymore. We just CANNOT take that emotional abuse all the time. But we do.
So, we relegate our responses, our emotions, our concerns.
Because of this, we respond to Unicorn Poop. (At least outside of politics—that’s a whole different beast, and, in general, I think, no matter what political reporting is being done, it is, as a whole, classified in most of our minds as Bad News.) We responded because we need little “yays!” in our lives, little happinesses, even if, deep down inside we know they are BS.
And, because we respond to Unicorn Poop, that’s what many people post. They post it about their families, their jobs, their vacations, the dinner they cooked. All the little wins they need to pay attention to in order to get through the day.
And that’s what many writers post. “Look at this great thing I did!” “Look at what I am doing!” “Look at what I am going to do!”
That’s what I do, too. “Look at this book release!” “Look at this anthology I’m in!” “Come see me at this convention!”
This leads to a lot of writers thinking all of the other writers are doing GREAT! And then they compare themselves to those writers and think “I am doing TERRIBLE!”
They don’t realize all of the terrible stuff, all the hardships, all the hard work, all the rejections, all the disappointments are not being posted. Because writers who do that lose fans. They lose followers. They lose opportunities that may have come up with other writers/publishers who don’t want to deal with a “complainer” or a self-professed failure.
And thus, a writer who does not believe in themselves (at least publicly) becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That’s why I don’t post (publicly) about every short story rejection I receive, every marketing failure that cost more than a book earned, every famous author I met whom I didn’t get along with, every opportunity I thought I had a chance at that fell through. I save those for the small group of writer friends who are going through the same things, and we all vent to each other in safe spaces, in places we’ve designated for exactly that. Not publicly. Not at every social function I see them at. Not all the time.
I think this applies to everyone else too, not just writers. Friends begin to avoid friends who are Debby Downers. Co-workers don’t want to be associated with malcontents. Bosses don’t promote, and maybe actually work to remove, people who seem to promote problems. People avoid people who actively make them unhappy.
A lot of people, especially successful people, understand that, at least on some level.
And thus, Unicorn Poop gains traction and thrives. And we don’t publicly see all the things others endure on their road to success.
Now, I am not advocating Unicorn Poop. Were I doing so, I wouldn’t be explaining it this way, as a cautionary tale. But I don’t think it is a Bad Thing, either. I think it is just part of our modern-day social interactions in this world of instant communication and world-wide community.
And I am not telling you not to post about your trials and tribulations. That is not a Bad Thing either. We all need to see that others CAN survive these things. We all need to reach out for help sometimes. We all need support sometimes.
What I am trying to say is this: If you want to look at what people post and admire them and aspire to do the same, then good for you. We all need role models. We all need goals. I think this is a good thing.
But if you are going to look at what people post and think, “I am never going to be that good,” then shame on you for not being able to see through the BS and into the reality. Everyone struggles. Being human is hard.
Being you is hard.
I have met people who seemed to have had the world handed to them on a silver platter. The ones I got to know had a much harder time dealing with life than most people would ever imagine. But they hide it because no one has any sympathy for their “silly” problems. What could they possibly know about “hardship?”
I have heard stories of authors who became instantly, easily famous, but I have NEVER met one. The famous, successful authors I know have gone through some terrible struggles to get to where they are. To stay where they are. Most of them are STILL struggling with terrible things. Even the ones many others think had instant, easy success.
And honestly, I admire them all the more because of what they have gone through, what they are overcoming to continue on.
But they don’t (usually) make that stuff public.
People/fans don’t buy their stories because they heard these terrible things about what they’ve gone through. There is (virtually) no (lasting) path to success that way.
People buy their stories because they are excited about it. Because they saw how excited the author was about it. Because of the Unicorn Poop.
And the same is true for all the rest of us, for all the rest of life. You can’t compare yourself as a failure to someone you think accomplished something magically easy. Because you don’t really know how they accomplished it, even if you think you do. And you have no idea what they’ve gone through since.
Instead, compare yourself as someone with similar aspirations, as someone who wants to achieve that goal too. Realize they have overcome unknown obstacles and use that as inspiration to overcome your own obstacles.
You don’t have to post your own Unicorn Poop. You don’t have to believe your own Unicorn Poop if you do post it.
But if you can’t see it for what it is, people trying to put their best foot forward, or if you post the opposite of Unicorn Poop, (want to coin a term? Here’s your chance!) if you always tell everyone how terrible everything is, or worse how terrible you are, you create that reality for yourself.
And there are enough Bad Things in this world already. I don’t want that Bad Thing to happen to you.
It’s okay to feel bad about something. It’s okay to feel sorry for yourself. It’s okay to be upset, miserable, and maybe even a little despondent. But only for a little while. If you have to have your good cry, then do it, and get it out of your system, and then get up and go looking for Unicorn Poop to share with the rest of the world. When you find a particularly polished piece, then maybe, when you share it, share the story of the journey it took to find it. That way you can inspire others too.
