Just Press Send

I am not a shy person. Call it extrovertedness. Call it being an Army brat. Call it a desperate need for approval. But if I walk into a room of strangers, I will be the first person to walk up to someone I don't know, put out my hand, and say—Hi, I'm Claire. What's your name? I think that actually may be the first full sentence I ever spoke.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBtYlhNXhh8]

Regardless of my desperate need to be liked (see video above), I sincerely enjoy meeting new people. Learning their story. But the longer I live (hello 30, I see you!)... the more I'm realizing that it's hard to tell mine.

Here's the deal. For most people, work looks like showing up. Doing a good job. Hoping you get recognized. Leveraging that recognition into promotions or a new gig. Etc. Etc. into infinity. For creative-types, (think writers, musicians, artists, producers) work looks like showing up. Doing what you desperately hope is a good job because there's no one out there to really compare to when you're trying to create something new. And instead of hoping you get recognized, you must actively endeavor to be recognized, while suffering myriads of rejection.

So far, I have sent my novel-in-progress to a total of TWO agents. Both have turned it down. One never wrote me back. The other asked me to keep working and try again.

Since then.... (and it's been about a year)... I've been in a hellish hole of self-doubt, unable to hit send. The Army brat in me is dying to reach across the room and introduce myself. The creative in me is desperately trying to find a hole to crawl in where I can avoid disappointment. It's kind of a cluster-f#$% in my head, if you can imagine.

But today. I'm hitting send. On an email to an agent. On this blog post. Because hey. Why not. What's the worst thing that can happen?

You don't like me?

Ha! Do I need to be liked? Absolutely not. I like to be liked. I enjoy being liked. I have to be liked. But it's not like this compulsive need to be liked, like my need to be praised...

A Writing Retreat: Blue Ridge, Georgia

I like taxidermy. It harkens back to the late great 1990s Harry Connick Junior tear-jerker, Hope Floats, where I first was introduced to the idea of stuffed mammals. But somehow, more recently, it's been popping up out of nowhere, surprising me with beady eyes, stiff fur, and an eerie thought that life can end, and still go on.

I saw a lot of great taxidermy last weekend (before my birthday and my first Skillery class) on a short trip to Blue Ridge, Georgia, to meet up with two other Atlanta-based writers, Jennifer Bradley Franklin and Kate Abney. Jennifer (who is also the managing editor of this great publication), was nice enough to offer up her family's taxidermy-filled log cabin for the weekend as a place where we could  hunker down and send out as many pitches as possible in one 24-hour period.

So on Friday morning, I woke up at 6 a.m., drove for four hours listening to my new favorite music, and ended up here:

As beautiful as the scenery was, I'm sad to say I spent most of the day and night staring at my computer screen forcing words onto paper... after all... that was the point. But I was also surrounded by taxidermy. Lots of it. Animals who'd lived their lives and now stood in stoic mockery of how each and every pitch I sent sounded: dead.

It's easy to make it look easy when it's easy. But it's hard to make it look easy when it's hard. And last weekend, it was hard as the feet and the snout and the chest of each cotton-stuffed animal staring in my direction.

But those creatures looked look peaceful in repose. No longer fighting for their life. No longer concerned about their next meal or burrowing down or the frost or the predator above. I wondered if I could bring that kind of death to my life. That kind of peace to my preoccupation.

But I guess at some point you have to decide if you're going to let the death get you, or if you're going to live on. If you're going to let the "thanks but no thanks," e-mail determine that it's time to shrivel up and stop in your tracks—or if you'll let "no" mean "try again."

Because unlike the beautifully dead decor—safe, unmoving, and predictable—this life is not. Taxidermy stiffens a righteous dynamic creature into one frozen moment, and we all could freeze like that too. Some of us already have. Frozen into a peaceful comfortable routine that requires less than a beating heart. Frozen into the same story lines and bylines and goal lines.  I could decide this is good enough and stop right here. But I can't.  I'm still moving. Still breathing. Still unsafe, unpredictable, and unstable.

And it hurts.