Tobias Wolff's memoir, This Boy's Life, was the book that sparked my literary/artistic ambition to the point of making a rock-solid commitment to completing and publishing my book. Before that, I was just working on it quietly, privately, as a maybe-someday-author. But after that, I took the pledge, literally, out loud to myself one night before I went to sleep. I told God I would do it.

Well, lots of never-published-authors do that. That was important, but still safe. Then I read Mary Karr's memoir The Liar's Club, and it resonated with my own life and mistakes, the circus-characters of my family, and my expatriated state of Texas. (Her town in The Liars Club is a disguised Port Arthur Texas, where Janis Joplin was born and her troubled lonesome soul never really escaped from.) I went to hear Karr in one of those interview/conversations at an old hall at UC Berkeley, and that clinched it for me.

I had been genuinely writing my book, but still on the down-low. Anybody can do that. I realized that I had to take the leap into the abyss. I had to become A Writer, publicly, brazenly, and make myself emotionally bare-ass-naked to the world. OMG. From that moment, things started to change. The lens shifted, somewhere out in the universe a gear clicked, and it was scary as hell. Now I was no longer invisible; anybody could take a shot at me.

I took a few hits. I said ouch. But I had served eight years as a line firefighter a decade before, where I'd learned how to take a hit, get up quick, and get back on-task. But this was different. It wasn't physical, and it wasn't bad reviews that stung, I didn't get so many of those. What I got was entirely unexpected subtle but discernible bad vibes from other writers. Veiled snarkyness.

We writers are a jealous lot. Hypersensitive and neurotically vulnerable, most of us. Perhaps it's this artist's temperament that enables us to receive profound meaning and God-sent talents of expression, that also makes us easy victims to insecurities and self-doubts. Sometimes we fall into something less than our truest and best selves.

Lately I've been learning and practicing the Buddhist concept of non-attachment. (It does take practice, like a foreign language.) It works like this: When you feel yourself being snagged and pulled down by an emotion like jealousy, self-doubt, fear (the worst one) or any negative feeling, first, just notice it. Notice how it makes you feel bad/ uncomfortable/ unhappy, and you don't like that. The action to take to change this circumstance is simple but effective. Admit it to yourself, (yes, I'm feeling like this) and then Let the feeling go. Push it away, and go on to something else you do like.

Easier said than done of course. So I devised a trick upon myself. (You could try it if you like, it might work for you.) I say, out loud, right in the middle of the feeling, "I don't need this." And then I visualize myself picking it up with two fingers, (like something nasty) putting it into a plain white business-size envelope, closing the flap, and dropping it into a garbage can. Done.

I actually do feel noticeably better, lighter, and I feel like a real smarty-pants for having so cleverly handled myself and refusing the annoying aggravation. I smile a smug little smile, think to myself, I win. And I go back to work.

The truth is: In the expression of the gift that has been given to you, no one else's opinion matters as much as yours. Every day, remind yourself to recognize ("re-know") and commit to this truth:  This person may be either trying to help you, or hurt you. It doesn't matter which, because nobody else can tell you how to be your best you, because nobody else knows. You will find the answer inside yourself if you keep on seeking it. Everything else is not "the truth," it's an opinion. A perception. A different perspective. These can often be useful and valuable, as long as you don't forget that they are not necessarily The Truth.

When you get a disappointing response to a heartfelt endeavor, the problem is not that there's anything about you that someone else should or could fix, the problem is that they didn't know this. What they don't know, as well as what they think, actually can't hurt you unless you choose to let it. Don't choose to let it. Don't give in to doubts, misunderstandings, or insecure jealousies, and never give them squatters-rights in your mind. Get a big box of plain white #10 business envelopes ...
(and be sure to empty the trash every day.)
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You're welcome to visit my website, Writer To Writer, at  writer2writer.victoriachames.com