Many Ways

Yestereve, as my husband and I sat reading Proust and Kafka side by side on our antique leather sofa, one of us happened to switch on the demonic gogglebox in the corner of the room, purely by accident of course. The programme which appeared on it was entitled something like ‘X-Idol All-Singing All-Dancing Contest Factor’ and it featured several people who were very (very!) young performing popular musical hits in front of a panel of judges.

I’m sure you know the type of show to which I am referring. Don’t pretend you don’t, because – frankly – nobody believes you.

My better half and I looked a little like these two fine gentlemen as we watched…
Image: muppets.wikia.com

I wasn’t paying full attention to the screen, because I was lost in a book (in fact, this is true, but I don’t expect you to believe it); however, after a while I put down what I was reading and started to focus on the TV. It wasn’t because I was so intrigued by the cutting-edge, brand-new, thrilling format of the show (zzzz….), but because I couldn’t believe the way these young, talented people were talking about themselves.

‘This is my last chance,’ some of them sobbed. ‘I’ll never be able to do this if I don’t get through today.’ ‘My whole life depends on this.’ ‘I don’t know how I’ll go home and face my family if I don’t succeed here today.’ ‘I want my family to be proud of me.’

Image: onesinglevoice.com

I felt so sorry and sad to hear them talk like this, and I couldn’t understand why they were putting such pressure on themselves. I was horrified most of all by the fact that they were all so young.

I remember being sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. I remember how I was desperate for life to start, and how I felt like every second spent not doing what I wanted was a second wasted. I remember having dreams and ambitions and drive, and I remember more than anything wanting to make something of my life, to get away from everything I’d known up to that point and move to another place, begin a new existence, and meet new people. I can completely understand the urge, at that age, to get started, to stop wasting time, to break into the thick of life and immerse yourself in it. It’s an exciting time, for sure. But what you lack at that age is any way of knowing how much time you have, just waiting for you to turn it into something amazing.

I just wish someone would take those young people to one side and remind them that there are a million different ways to reach your goal, and not winning a TV show is not the death of your dream. I also wish they’d try to explain to them that, when you’re sixteen, you can literally do anything you want. Your life is barely begun, you have so much time, and you can shape your future whatever way you choose. I also wish that the young people concerned would listen, and understand – I know, when I was that age, the advice of anyone out of their teens was considered less than worthless. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth hearing, though.

All the contestants on this particular show wanted to be professional recording artists, and all of them were hoping that their individual skills would be good enough to see them advance through the competition to the ultimate prize of a record deal. I’m sure some of them also wanted to take advantage of the expert mentoring offered to them by the established artists who take part in the show, year after year, and – perhaps – some of them just wanted to be on TV. These contestants are not people who have been working for twenty or thirty years in the business, who have struggled to fill venues, who have played in bars to audiences of four or five, who have had to put up with catcalls and abuse, who have lost bookings, put every penny they have into their career, and live their lives on the road. They are not people who have been worn down by the industry, who have had every last drop of their youthful idealism ground into the dirt by the relentless effort of trying to make it, and who have given their music career every ounce of their devotion and effort. Those are the kind of people who might be able to say ‘This is my last chance’ or ‘If I don’t make it on this show, I know the dream is over,’ and from whose lips it might sound legitimate.

For a person of sixteen whose only prior experience is singing in their bedroom into their hairbrush, the concept of ‘last chance’ shouldn’t even come into play.

But then, these young contestants can hardly be blamed for thinking the way they do – all their lives, these shows have been the biggest thing on TV. It’s not surprising that they think entering one and winning it is the ‘only’ path to success. But if someone has every shred of their self-worth and self-belief wrapped up in winning a TV show – which, I’m sure they don’t realise, is primarily a vehicle to make money for its producers, not to make them into stars – and if they’re knocked out of the running, it’s clearly going to have a terrible effect on their mind and their mental health. I find that thought chilling, and very sad.

I know some contestants enter these shows year after year after year, and each time they ‘fail’ their confidence takes another knock. Eventually, they won’t have any self-belief left, because they’re trying to succeed in an environment which is not geared towards helping them to achieve what they want. Not winning a competition like this is not ‘failure.’ Instead of pouring their hearts into entering the same competition again and again, I wish some of these young people would just make music, if that’s what they want to do. Record yourself performing and upload it to YouTube. Set up an artist’s Facebook page, Twitter account, Tumblr blog, whatever it takes – and build an audience. Get gigs. Get paying gigs. Buy more equipment. Put a band together. Go on the road. Find a friend who’s good at computing, and ask them to make you a website. Find a friend who’s arty, and get them to design your merch. All of this can be done – and it’s amazing how much people want to help when they see you chasing your dream, and working for it. When I was a teenager, all of this could be achieved, too – but it was much, much harder. Nowadays, the internet makes all things possible.

Not winning a TV show which is designed to make money for everyone but the artists who pour their hearts into it is not, decidedly not, the only way to make it in the music business. Every single contestant on those shows has it within themselves to make a success of their career, if they’re willing to put in the effort and use a little imagination. It’s never ‘too late’. It’s never their ‘last chance.’ Their families are already proud of them.

All that pressure, all that stress, and all that incredible emotional pain they’re inflicting upon themselves is damaging, horrible to watch and utterly unnecessary. We’re in the middle of Mental Health Week, and so there’s no better time to remind people that there are lots of ways to get there, and they have plenty of time to make the journey.

Also, I’m never watching another TV talent show. I’ll happily stick to Proust and Kafka from now on, thank you very much.

Image: 123rf.com

The Importance of Trust

I’ll keep it brief today. It’s a gorgeous Saturday morning here in Eire-Land, and I’m sure we all have things to be getting on with. I’m looking forward to welcoming a friend to my home later today and giving her a restful weekend where she will be looked after and pampered, so I’ll be happily, busily preparing for that today.

Just like this!
Image: jesusjazzbuddhism.org

I just wanted to write a quick note about Trust, and how important it is, and how it still has a place in this world of ours despite all the hatred and suspicion that we have to live with on a daily basis. Doing anything creative involves a huge amount of trust – we have to trust ourselves, for a start, that we know what we’re doing when we follow the call to create. We have to trust other people to allow us the space we need to do whatever it is we have to do. We have to trust them not to sabotage us, or not to undermine us – even when they mean well. We have to trust our audience, that their taste will lead them towards our work and that they’ll enjoy it enough to spread the word; we have to trust that our efforts to create something will inspire others to do the same, and that a cycle of newness will be kickstarted from our one moment of bravery.

And we have to be able to trust that people will help us, if we ask them to.

I’ve just watched a TED talk, given by the luminously talented Amanda Palmer, where she talks about this very thing. I won’t attempt to paraphrase her words, but I’ll just leave this link here:

and hope that it works.

Amanda Palmer’s talk is short enough to watch in one sitting, but (like everything she does) it’s full of honesty and love, and shot through with humour and a sense of freedom like very few other artists possess. I like her music, but more than that I respect her as an artist, and as a person. Her talk mentions how she learned to trust her audience while working as a street performer, and how she took that trust through to her later music career. When she asked for help to make an album, she was rewarded beyond anything she could have imagined – she says it’s because she connected with her audience, and trusted them to catch her when she took a leap of faith.

If only we were all so brave.

Have a wonderful Saturday.

Dealing With Disappointment

Perhaps this post is tempting fate. If my mother were here, she’d no doubt tell me to put the laptop away and go to bed, and not to be writing nonsense all over my lovely blog. But she’s not, so I’m going to take a short trip down a dark and scary road, and talk a little bit about disappointment.

Anyone who stops by here on a regular basis (hello and thank you, by the way) will know that a writer is what I want to be. Anyone with half a brain will know that it’s not exactly a secure or lucrative thing to do with your life. You may also have gathered that I’m sort of new to the whole writing scene – I’m just beginning to dip my toes in the cold, unforgiving water that is A Writing Career. I’m green, full of ‘notions’ (as we say in Ireland), perhaps even a little too optimistic. I’m aware of all this, I know that it’s not very clever, and I know that I will, at some stage – possibly in the very near future – have to deal with disappointment.

The bad thing is, I know from personal experience that I don’t deal well with disappointment. I’m almost afraid to get feedback on my writing, because it (both my writing, and by extension, the criticism) feels so personal to me, and if the feedback isn’t good, it feels like a laceration across my heart. This is ridiculous, of course – I’m well aware of it, too. But it’s a hard habit to break. Thinking about it logically, here and now, I realise clearly that interpreting someone’s opinion about something I’ve written as a direct judgement upon me as a person is completely nuts. But still I do it. And because I tend toward that way of thinking, I often wonder why I’m choosing to put myself in the firing line, and why I’m leaving myself open to huge disappointment and rejection. I know that writing professionally is a long, hard struggle. I know that overnight success doesn’t happen. I know that I’m setting myself up for a fall, followed by another fall, followed by another… Knowing it isn’t the same as experiencing it, but I hope it’ll help, when the time comes.

I suppose I’m taking this path in life because I want to write more than I fear being rejected; however, it’s taken me a long, long time to come to this point. It’s also good for me – I tell myself, at least – to start dealing with rejection and disappointment in a constructive way, and to learn (through being rejected and disappointed on a regular basis!) how to separate the feeling of ‘not being good enough’ from my concept of myself. I don’t have any secrets around how to get through the feeling of rejection after rejection – not yet, at least – but I hope that the mental preparation I’m trying to do now will act as some sort of armour when I’m sitting waiting for the phone to ring, or for an email to appear. Sometimes, reminders about what I’m facing come from the most unexpected places. A throwaway comment from a friend today, for instance, threw me into a funk of ‘what the heck am I letting myself in for?’-itis;  I went for a long walk in the evening sunshine, and thought about these issues deeply. I came to a few conclusions:

1. If/When I’m rejected, whether it be by beta-reader, agent, publisher, or whomever, it’ll hurt, but it’s not the end of the world.

2. If/When I’m rejected, I should take time to realise that it is not me who is being rejected. It’s my work which has not come up to scratch, and there may be myriad reasons for that. Tastes differ, the market might not be right, I may have made a huge error in my presentation, or in my work… whatever. It doesn’t mean that I’ve suddenly become a horrible person, who isn’t worthy of anything good happening to her.

3. Rejection, and the crushing disappointment that inevitably follows, is an opportunity to learn and grow. Weed out what’s not working, re-jig your work, and send it out again. Let someone else have the opportunity to read it.

4. Every rejection will make me a better writer, and – more than likely – a far better person, too.

5. When I’m disappointed, I need to allow myself to feel it, get through it, and get over it. Telling myself my own feelings are silly is another route to mental pain, so I hope I’ll allow myself time to recover between onslaughts.

6. Don’t Give Up. I’ve worked hard to get here.

(and my favourite, possibly because it’s my mother’s mantra):

7. All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well (Julian of Norwich).

Anybody have any tips, or words of wisdom they’d care to share? For those who are old hands at the whole ‘submit work, which is rejected, which is re-worked, which is submitted again’ cycle – does it get easier with time? (Please say ‘yes’!)