On Developing Some Swagger
And, officially announcing spring writing circles!
I often torture my husband remind my husband why he’s lucky to be married to me by sharing with him snippets from the infinite loop of early 1990s songs that play constantly in my head. Today, I woke up humming the chorus the 1991 REM classic "Losing My Religion” (do we all remember that music video? Strange stuff), so I invited him to rediscover the song along with me.
The Wikipedia page for the song reveals fascinating insights into the artistic process of the band; here are some of my favorite bits— Peter Buck, the guitarist, “wrote the main riff and chorus to the song on a mandolin while watching television one day. Buck had just bought the instrument and was attempting to learn how to play it, recording the music as he practiced.” Meanwhile, bassist Mike Mills wrote the bass line based on a Fleetwood Mac song because “by his own admission he could not come up with one for the song that was not derivative,” and the lead vocalist Michael Stipe’s “vocals were recorded in a single take.” And the song went on to win seven zillion Grammys and be one of the most critically acclaimed hits of the early 1990s.
So my friends, today I am inviting you to bring a little of REM’s energy into your writing practice.
What REM Can Teach Us About Writing
If you’ve been around academics, particularly groups of academic women, for very long, you’ve probably been part of a conversation about imposter syndrome. How do you write when you’re convinced you’re a fraud, and as soon as this gets published everyone will know you’re a fraud? Or—worse—what happens if you spend all of your time writing this thing and no one wants to publish it which proves you’re a fraud and that you stole a spot in your department from someone who really deserved it? Or maybe that’s better because the shame will just be yours and no one will actually know…there are a million variations on this conversation, but it’s basically about how we psyche ourselves out and get in our own way to protect ourselves from how shitty the institution can be (it’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me).
In one of these conversations, a brilliant writer in the group said something to the effect of: “you know, men don’t have these conversations with each other. They just get on with it. It’s not that individual men don’t have their struggles and doubts, they do, but by and large they don’t discuss it and just get on with the business of writing and that’s that.” The blissful ignorance (and dangerous legacy) of the mediocre white man. It’s not that they don’t have doubts, but the doubts don’t become the thing—they don’t get between the writer and their work. I polled the academic white guy I talk to the very most, (my husband), and he agreed—this just isn’t a topic that comes up in the circles of men he talks to. And maybe it should, but it doesn’t seem to be a way that men socialize each other in the academic world.
This isn’t to say that that imposter syndrome, fears, doubts, and mental struggles aren’t worth sharing—they are, and it’s a vital reason we build community. But instead, it’s another type of labor that women perform that men (largely) don’t: doing the metawork of overcoming these doubts in order to even get to the point where they can do the work. And the voice telling you that you’re not good enough is selfish: it steals your time and talent and makes you focus on it, instead of on the good work that you’re doing.
So what do we do?
And I wonder what kind of song REM would have written had fear occurred to them. Had Peter Buck thought “ooh I need to take a year worth of Mandolin lessons before I’m qualified to record this song” or had Mike Mills channeled that imposter syndrome and said "ooh I don’t want people to think I’m unoriginal so maybe we need to wait or bring in another bassist” or had Michael Stipe decided that the pitch was off in the third voice so we needed another few takes. It’s possible they would have written a worse song! Or they would have said “fuck it” and recorded a different song. But they achieved success because they didn’t let doubt into the process.
What if we borrow some of the swagger of a man who can play an instrument for the first time and write a bestselling song on it in the same week!! I feel like when we tell these stories we always focus on the these folks as prodigies—and having some exceptional talent that allows them to achieve greatness. But what I think it interesting is not their talents, but the confidence they have to believe they’ve written a work of genius.
I’ve shared this a lot lately, but my friend and writing teacher Janelle Hanchett has this to say about fear: “Because nothing I've ever done has had any lasting effect on my fear - not really, not in the long term - so if I'm going to be afraid anyway, I might as well be afraid while speaking my fucking mind. and this—no matter what we do, “We will not be safe. We will only be silent. And who the hell wants fear AND silence? That's a bullshit hand. I have no interest in that hand.” And this: “I hear people talk about ‘overcoming fear.’ They sell whole goddamn books about it. I don't know anything about that. I only know how to let my fear do its sad little dance in the back of my mind while I carry on with my work, because scared fingers still move, thank god.”
And I love this, because it reminds me that we don’t need to overcome our fears and doubts to keep going. Instead of trying to overcome imposter syndrome, I wonder what happens if we “nothing” it. We engage in antipolitics. We don’t make eye contact. Instead of trying to reason with our doubt or soften it or rationalize it or contextualize it, what happens if we just let it stay there, in the corner, doing—as Janelle says—its sad little dance. And we just do our work anyway? We can’t do anything about our talent, but we can work hard, learn new stuff, and (outwardly) adopt the swagger of people who get things done.
So my friends, today I invite you to give your little imposter friend that lives in your head the silent treatment. Listen to some early 1990s music to embrace exquisite mediocrity in all of its glory (The Presidents of the United States of America wrote a song about peaches! And they played guitars with like 3 strings because it was too hard to learn to play a real guitar!) Let the doubt and fear cower in the dark corner of your mind, but write anyway—because in the end, we can always do the work.
Kelly
[The first version of this article referred to Peter Buck once as Peter Beck. My apologies to the REM purists of the world, and it shows that everyone, even editors, need copyeditors in their lives.]
A few last reminders—
December: A little editing pause. I’m going to be taking December 17-January 10 off from editing to decompress, spend family time, and focus on the writing retreat. If you have something in the pipeline and we haven’t talked about it yet, let’s touch base to figure out how to schedule it around that that time. If we’ve already talked, you’re on my schedule!
…And Spring editing! This is a great time to set up a time for us to work together in the spring—let me know if you’d like to get on my editing calendar for mid-January and beyond. Bring me great stuff to read! Let’s get it published!
Referrals: Because writing is better with friends—especially AcWriMo-writing—I’d love for you to refer people to write with us. Substack has a fun new recruiting plan where you can get stuff (writing prompts! A Zoom call with me!) just for referring people to the newsletter - if that’s your jam, you can use this button: