{"id":114,"date":"2008-12-15T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-15T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.orcutt.net\/weblog\/?p=114"},"modified":"2012-04-06T14:55:51","modified_gmt":"2012-04-06T14:55:51","slug":"preparing-for-success-an-addendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/preparing-for-success-an-addendum\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparing for Success: An Addendum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I opened my email and found a love\u00adly note from a fel\u00adlow writer, La Belette Rouge. She wrote to tell me that a blog entry I had writ\u00adten a while back (this one on \u201cPrepar\u00ading for Suc\u00adcess\u201d) had kept her up all night think\u00ading, and that it had inspired her to write her own piece on the sub\u00adject<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Well, I read her piece, and it got me think\u00ading about the whole top\u00adic of \u201cprepar\u00ading for suc\u00adcess.\u201d What had I learned since I wrote that? Turns out, quite a bit, and I offered my thoughts in a LONG com\u00adment on her blog. A com\u00adment so long that I thought it might be a good addi\u00adtion to my own site\u2014an adden\u00addum to the orig\u00adi\u00adnal entry.<\/p>\n

So, if you got some\u00adthing, any\u00adthing, out of my first bit on prepar\u00ading for suc\u00adcess, maybe you\u2019ll get some\u00adthing else out of this:<\/p>\n

Dear La Belette,<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m touched that you were inspired by my hum\u00adble blog entry, but I\u2019m sor\u00adry that it kept you awake. When I think about writ\u00ading that has kept me awake\u2014anything by Nabokov, who makes me stew with envy and a poten\u00adtial\u00adly inac\u00adcu\u00adrate sense of what might have been, had I been raised in the pre-1917 Russ\u00adian aristocracy\u2014my lit\u00adtle blog does\u00adn\u2019t qual\u00adi\u00adfy.<\/p>\n

But ulti\u00admate\u00adly none of this mat\u00adters because once we write some\u00adthing, we have no con\u00adtrol (nor, do I think, should we want<\/em> con\u00adtrol) over the lev\u00adel of com\u00adfort or inspi\u00adra\u00adtion some\u00adone else draws from it. In short, if it affect\u00aded you, if it com\u00admu\u00adni\u00adcat\u00aded some\u00adthing to you (my first men\u00adtor, Thomas Gal\u00adlagher<\/a>, told me a week before his death, \u201cWrit\u00ading is com\u00admu\u00adni\u00adca\u00adtion\u201d), then it was a suc\u00adcess and I\u2019m glad I wrote it.<\/p>\n

How\u00adev\u00ader, since then I\u2019ve learned three things that I think are valu\u00adable adden\u00adda to the \u201cPrepar\u00ading for Suc\u00adcess\u201d mantra:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. Prepar\u00ading for suc\u00adcess is no guar\u00adan\u00adtee that the suc\u00adcess will fol\u00adlow right away or that it will come in the form you expect.<\/strong> In my own case, this past spring my agent start\u00aded send\u00ading out my sec\u00adond PI nov\u00adel, The Rich Are Dif\u00adfer\u00adent<\/em>. It was quick\u00adly request\u00aded by three top edi\u00adtors, at St. Mar\u00adt\u00adin\u2019s Press, Pen\u00adguin NAL, and Hachette (Time Warn\u00ader Books). Two loved this and that about it, but some\u00adhow, \u201c\u2026it was\u00adn\u2019t quite right\u2026\u201d for them. The third edi\u00adtor we still haven\u2019t heard from; I think he found him\u00adself at his Con\u00adnecti\u00adcut coun\u00adtry home one week\u00adend with\u00adout news\u00adpa\u00adper to start a fire in his fire\u00adplace, glanced at my man\u00adu\u00adscript and, well.\u2026<\/p>\n

Any\u00adway, my point is that I\u2019m begin\u00adning to won\u00adder if it just isn\u2019t in the cards for me to be a \u201cmys\u00adtery writer.\u201d It took me a while to reach this con\u00adclu\u00adsion, but I think I\u2019ve final\u00adly made peace with the idea. Now, I could fight the per\u00adceived indif\u00adfer\u00adence to my work by aggres\u00adsive\u00adly cam\u00adpaign\u00ading for it at con\u00adfer\u00adences, or email\u00ading edi\u00adtors direct\u00adly, or stalk\u00ading best\u00adselling authors (a few live in my town of Mill\u00adbrook, NY), but to echo what Dave said regard\u00ading for\u00adest fires, I\u2019ve learned that these actions only tend to cre\u00adate new prob\u00adlems. Bet\u00adter to stay patient, and like a trout drift\u00ading at the bot\u00adtom of the falls, save your ener\u00adgy for that per\u00adfect morsel and then SNAP at it. I don\u2019t know what that morsel will look like (bug, worm, bee\u00adtle?), but I\u2019ve resolved to be ready for it when it comes.<\/p>\n

2. Remem\u00adber what Michael Cun\u00adning\u00adham said.<\/strong> Five or six years ago I was con\u00adsid\u00ader\u00ading MFA pro\u00adgrams, and I applied to Michael Cun\u00adning\u00adham\u2019s at Brook\u00adlyn Col\u00adlege. (Cun\u00adning\u00adham had won his Pulitzer for The Hours<\/em> and had recent\u00adly returned from the Gold\u00aden Globes, where he had an alter\u00adca\u00adtion with Har\u00adri\u00adson Ford, but I digress.) M.C. called me, told me I was accept\u00aded, and invit\u00aded me in to par\u00adtic\u00adi\u00adpate in one of his grad\u00adu\u00adate class\u00ades, take a tour, etc. So I went, and the best part of the day was when the two of us were sit\u00adting in his office, sip\u00adping cof\u00adfee, and he (per\u00adhaps flat\u00adter\u00ading\u00adly) told me what he liked about my writ\u00ading (it\u2019s a secret). Then I asked him a ques\u00adtion, and if you want to talk about stuff that can keep a writer up at night, this is one:<\/p>\n

Orcutt<\/strong>: When did it start come togeth\u00ader for you? When did the suc\u00adcess that you\u2019d been striv\u00ading for final\u00adly arrive?<\/em><\/p>\n

Cun\u00adning\u00adham<\/strong>: It was when I decid\u00aded that it did\u00adn\u2019t mat\u00adter if I ever got pub\u00adlished or not. I just real\u00adized one day that I loved writ\u00ading, writ\u00ading for its own sake\u2014the process\u2014and it real\u00adly did\u00adn\u2019t mat\u00adter to me if any\u00adbody else <\/em>got it. That real\u00adiza\u00adtion loos\u00adened some\u00adthing up inside me, and I was final\u00adly able to say all the things that I\u2019d been hold\u00ading back.<\/em><\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

3. Remem\u00adber that Spir\u00adit knows the fastest way.<\/strong> This might be a lit\u00adtle too \u201cNew Agey\u201d for you, La Belette, but it\u2019s a thought that has giv\u00aden me a lot of com\u00adfort over the years. I read it in anoth\u00ader spiritual\/philosophical book, Faith<\/em> by A.C. Ping<\/a>, in which he describes how he want\u00aded to open a retreat cen\u00adter in Aus\u00adtralia and for years saw his attempts at mak\u00ading his dream hap\u00adpen thwart\u00aded by oth\u00ader peo\u00adple, insti\u00adtu\u00adtions, Fate. Then, years lat\u00ader, he was liv\u00ading on a farm in South Africa, with a gor\u00adgeous view of the Drak\u00adens\u00adberg Moun\u00adtains<\/a>, when he learned that the prop\u00ader\u00adty was avail\u00adable. In his heart of hearts, Ping knew that the South African farm was the bet\u00adter place for his retreat cen\u00adter, but he had been fight\u00ading (a la the for\u00adest fires) for his own vision of the \u201cbest\u201d out\u00adcome, which only delayed what he want\u00aded. As Ping says at the end of the chap\u00adter on this: \u201c\u2026if you ask for great gifts, with absolute clar\u00adi\u00adty, then you dra\u00admat\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly increase the chances of them hap\u00adpen\u00ading. BUT you need to let go of being a con\u00adtrol freak and trust that SPIRIT KNOWS THE FASTEST WAY!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Thank you, La Belette, for so gen\u00ader\u00adous\u00adly ref\u00ader\u00adenc\u00ading my blog, and I\u2019m glad you (and hope\u00adful\u00adly oth\u00aders) got some\u00adthing out of the \u201cPrepar\u00ading for Suc\u00adcess\u201d piece. Your entry made me think about what else I\u2019ve learned, and what the above three adden\u00adda have in com\u00admon is this: Prepar\u00ading for suc\u00adcess is prob\u00ada\u00adbly more MENTAL than any\u00adthing. You have to get your head (and spir\u00adit) right before the Muse is going to show up again, before agents start call\u00ading, before pub\u00adlish\u00aders start accept\u00ading. I real\u00adly believe this. Mer\u00adry Christ\u00admas to you and all of your scin\u00adtil\u00adlat\u00ading, upbeat (flat\u00adtery?) read\u00aders. \u2013Chris Orcutt<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

It just occurred to me what a nice lit\u00adtle cir\u00adcu\u00adlar argu\u00adment<\/a> thing I\u2019ve got going here\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I opened my email and found a love\u00adly note from a fel\u00adlow writer, La Belette Rouge. She wrote to tell me that a blog\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft","category-personal","category-writingexperiences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2669,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions\/2669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}