I lost two writing contests recently. Or, I didn’t win them? “I lost,” makes it sound like so much of it’s on me, but it was my writing so I guess that scans. Of the two, only one kind of twanged. I had gotten my hopes up about it in a way that even I knew was foolish. The other I forgot I entered, and was surprised to remember that at the same time I was informed that I had lost. That email came later— I woke up to the first loss. The one that kind of hurt. It still kind of hurts.
I read somewhere once about writing as one of those uniquely lonely activities, the silence or music-filled room abated only by the clacking of keys or the scratching of pens (I dislike pencils). That’s only a little true, something less so now in the age of Discord (I love my writing group!) and things like fanfiction (reviews and comments make the process so nice). During NaNo, there’s a kindred connection to the thousands of others engaging in the gross self-flagellation of trying to write so many words in so little time. But, then, here we are all the same doing it even know. If I were to stop and think of, hopefully, how many people are at this moment writing along with me, the hundreds of thousands of words and worlds forming from thin air, it makes me feel a little awe inspired, and a little small. Competitions bring us together, a chance to show off and a chance to claim a little credit and a little money. But it really isn’t a competition, any of it.
Okay, maybe publishing is, but. But even now that isn’t even true! Freedom and Control is self-published and not hurting anyone except the people who buy and read it and witness a first-attempt self-published fantasy novel.
I’m so good at selling my work, y’all.
Writing, like so much else, is also a competition mainly against yourself. Even in the groups and the bonds and the NaNo and the camaraderie, the greatest measure of how to do it and whether or not you’re improving and continuing is how you measure against the you of two years ago, five years ago, ten years ago. The thing that sustains is the love of the craft (God, I sound pretentious), and the passion of telling these stories. There’s a Rilke quote about something like that, asking yourself whether you would perish if you were forbidden to write. There are days, even in the bounds of writer’s block, where it does almost feel like a physical pain if something isn’t getting done. Maybe that’s just a result of that constant tickticktick of life, or maybe that’s because I genuinely do love sitting here, warm pot of tea beside me, surrounded by maps I drew and notes I’ve taken, clacking away at a story about a psychopathic plant princess in the same moment I’m dreaming of why a poison expert would want to become a baker and setting the final lines up for Zhaekota, Eilatek, Isenhartz, and Fezharek’s next chapters.
I was reminded of this feeling in more than a few ways over the past few weeks. Recently, a friend and I went to watch the chef of the restaurant I work at participate in a weightlifting competition. It was in one sense a world so surreally unlike the one I live in— a celebration of physical prowess in front of others. But it was, like a comment on a fanfiction or a clap on the back from a beta reader, surreally similar. It was a celebration of a uniting craft, a gathering of understanding and support, and an expression of competing not even necessarily against each other in things like state or national records but against yourself. The work that goes into that is unimaginably intense, especially for someone like me with self described noodle arms who struggles occasionally to put a shirt on the right way. It was a celebration of form, of technique, of pushing limits and personal achievement. For them it was lifting weights, and for me it’s nailing just the right way to word a villainous threat or heroic triumph.
It's passion.
I think so many of us get bogged down in the idea that passion even needs to be like the above, about the hard drives and personal besting and the struggle towards success but that’s so… linear. But the friend who accompanied me, one of my newest and best, once simply remarked at how crazy it seemed that I simply seemed to love life. There’s a lot if that there, too. What these kinds of things, the writing and the weightlifting, boil down to are celebrations of the maximizing of existence. That looks different to everyone, and it’s what makes existence so worth having. It even looks different day to day.
I’ve recently felt, for the most part, even reinvigorated for my work-work. I say mostly because everyone has those things about their work they dislike, or would change. But, I wrote this somewhere, settling in does not mean settling, and maybe that itch for the kind of monumental changes I fancy isn’t quite something I should follow at the moment. That’s still being decided. But I went to the first grand wine tasting and discussion recently, about the Wines of Portugal. In a room there with winemakers and importers and sommeliers I felt again that connection to the things I do and why I got into restaurants in the first place. The passion behind the eyes of a winemaker, the joy in discovering a new region, varietal expression, of possibility. There again, maximizing existence. Someone else’s worldview.
A couple at the end of Easter’s long brunch service toasted themselves as I walked away from their table having just poured their wine. I had been going since ten in the morning, and they were the second to last table I served that day. They were older (I’m 26), and they toasted each other.
“Happy Easter, my love.”
And I just fuckin’ smiled. I couldn’t help it. It was so sweet.
I’ve taken recently to writing more slice of life snapshot kinds of poems for that reason. Those little moments like that which maximize existence for being smaller. I think finding joy there is helpful to finding it anywhere, and for weathering moments when it’s not there. There were a couple comics I’ve read recently that have been like that, too. This poem, as well! Just a general understanding of the little things that build to a rich life. Appreciating that is one of the things that helped keep me around, and thinking about it now was also one of the things my annoyingly poignant therapist said that’s stuck with me.
Today I’m going to my first rock concert. I think it’s rock… There’s a recurring joke at work about how little I know about music (mostly deserved). I imagine it will be loud, and close, and all kinds of things I may not be ready for. Maybe I’m making too much about it, but then isn’t that the point of everything I just wrote? I’ll get dinner out. Maybe buy some books.
For now, I’m having my morning pot of tea. The window is open and I’m a little chilly. The playlist I started writing to has ended, and so now I only hear the clacking the keys, the birds out the window, someone leaf blowing down the street. I’m debating holding off on a late breakfast to get an early lunch (the border between eggs benedict and a burger). I think I have to get an oil change, too.
More than a few people at the weightlifting competition lost their events.
But there were three events at the meet, and they stayed for the rest of them.
There are millions of words left to write.
I’m here for those, too.