Preparing for Success: An Addendum

Today I opened my email and found a lovely note from a fellow writer, La Belette Rouge. She wrote to tell me that a blog entry I had written a while back (this one on “Preparing for Success”) had kept her up all night thinking, and that it had inspired her to write her own piece on the subject.

Well, I read her piece, and it got me thinking about the whole topic of “preparing for success.” What had I learned since I wrote that? Turns out, quite a bit, and I offered my thoughts in a LONG comment on her blog. A comment so long that I thought it might be a good addition to my own site—an addendum to the original entry.

So, if you got something, anything, out of my first bit on preparing for success, maybe you’ll get something else out of this:

Dear La Belette,

I’m touched that you were inspired by my humble blog entry, but I’m sorry that it kept you awake. When I think about writing that has kept me awake—anything by Nabokov, who makes me stew with envy and a potentially inaccurate sense of what might have been, had I been raised in the pre-1917 Russian aristocracy—my little blog doesn’t qualify.

But ultimately none of this matters because once we write something, we have no control (nor, do I think, should we want control) over the level of comfort or inspiration someone else draws from it. In short, if it affected you, if it communicated something to you (my first mentor, Thomas Gallagher, told me a week before his death, “Writing is communication”), then it was a success and I’m glad I wrote it.

However, since then I’ve learned three things that I think are valuable addenda to the “Preparing for Success” mantra:

1. Preparing for success is no guarantee that the success will follow right away or that it will come in the form you expect. In my own case, this past spring my agent started sending out my second PI novel, The Rich Are Different. It was quickly requested by three top editors, at St. Martin’s Press, Penguin NAL, and Hachette (Time Warner Books). Two loved this and that about it, but somehow, “…it wasn’t quite right…” for them. The third editor we still haven’t heard from; I think he found himself at his Connecticut country home one weekend without newspaper to start a fire in his fireplace, glanced at my manuscript and, well….

Anyway, my point is that I’m beginning to wonder if it just isn’t in the cards for me to be a “mystery writer.” It took me a while to reach this conclusion, but I think I’ve finally made peace with the idea. Now, I could fight the perceived indifference to my work by aggressively campaigning for it at conferences, or emailing editors directly, or stalking bestselling authors (a few live in my town of Millbrook, NY), but to echo what Dave said regarding forest fires, I’ve learned that these actions only tend to create new problems. Better to stay patient, and like a trout drifting at the bottom of the falls, save your energy for that perfect morsel and then SNAP at it. I don’t know what that morsel will look like (bug, worm, beetle?), but I’ve resolved to be ready for it when it comes.

2. Remember what Michael Cunningham said. Five or six years ago I was considering MFA programs, and I applied to Michael Cunningham’s at Brooklyn College. (Cunningham had won his Pulitzer for The Hours and had recently returned from the Golden Globes, where he had an altercation with Harrison Ford, but I digress.) M.C. called me, told me I was accepted, and invited me in to participate in one of his graduate classes, take a tour, etc. So I went, and the best part of the day was when the two of us were sitting in his office, sipping coffee, and he (perhaps flatteringly) told me what he liked about my writing (it’s a secret). Then I asked him a question, and if you want to talk about stuff that can keep a writer up at night, this is one:

Orcutt: When did it start come together for you? When did the success that you’d been striving for finally arrive?

Cunningham: It was when I decided that it didn’t matter if I ever got published or not. I just realized one day that I loved writing, writing for its own sake—the process—and it really didn’t matter to me if anybody else got it. That realization loosened something up inside me, and I was finally able to say all the things that I’d been holding back.

3. Remember that Spirit knows the fastest way. This might be a little too “New Agey” for you, La Belette, but it’s a thought that has given me a lot of comfort over the years. I read it in another spiritual/philosophical book, Faith by A.C. Ping, in which he describes how he wanted to open a retreat center in Australia and for years saw his attempts at making his dream happen thwarted by other people, institutions, Fate. Then, years later, he was living on a farm in South Africa, with a gorgeous view of the Drakensberg Mountains, when he learned that the property was available. In his heart of hearts, Ping knew that the South African farm was the better place for his retreat center, but he had been fighting (a la the forest fires) for his own vision of the “best” outcome, which only delayed what he wanted. As Ping says at the end of the chapter on this: “…if you ask for great gifts, with absolute clarity, then you dramatically increase the chances of them happening. BUT you need to let go of being a control freak and trust that SPIRIT KNOWS THE FASTEST WAY!”

Thank you, La Belette, for so generously referencing my blog, and I’m glad you (and hopefully others) got something out of the “Preparing for Success” piece. Your entry made me think about what else I’ve learned, and what the above three addenda have in common is this: Preparing for success is probably more MENTAL than anything. You have to get your head (and spirit) right before the Muse is going to show up again, before agents start calling, before publishers start accepting. I really believe this. Merry Christmas to you and all of your scintillating, upbeat (flattery?) readers. —Chris Orcutt

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It just occurred to me what a nice little circular argument thing I’ve got going here…