On Graduating and Chasing Chipmunks

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abandoning perfectionism, graduation, setting goals, writing

This week, my fiance and my sister graduated back-to-back, earning a Masters and two Bachelors degrees, respectively. Clearly, I am incredibly fortunate to be part of a family that kicks academic butt. I am so proud of them.

One moment in the speaker’s address for the Masters commencement caught my attention. He was praising the graduates for their innovation and perseverance, and urging them to dream as big as possible, and he said, “Do you know why a lion doesn’t chase chipmunks? He knows if he does, he’ll starve to death.”

My first reaction was wow, that makes a lot of sense. Pouring my time and energy into busywork is a great way to burn myself out without accomplishing anything I’m proud of or receiving a sustainable reward. It’s the reason I don’t write $5 content mill articles. It’s also the reason I tend to let the apartment get messy when I’m working on a midterm project or trying to finish NaNo–having a clutter-free coffee table is nowhere near as important as polishing my short story.

But then I started thinking about a conversation I recently had with my supervisor, Teresa. She told me the story of a freelancer we work with–the freelancer timed her switch from a 9-5 to freelance life poorly, leaving her company when another member of her team was on maternity leave so that the company ended up feeling forced into a corner to work with her freelance  because they didn’t have the in-house resources to cover her work while they found someone new. The freelancer also apparently asked to be paid a steep hourly rate–nearly twice what Teresa’s encountered other, more experienced freelancers charging. Her company cut her off as soon as they could. Our company still works with her, so I guess that’s a sign that being a little pushy can get you what you need, but she comes off as greedy and a little underhanded in how she went after her goal.

Working for goals too small can kill your spirit.

Setting your goals too high can cross the line from assertiveness into entitlement, or can leave you with nothing at all.

I’m only 3 years postgrad myself, so I am still figuring things out. It occurs to me, though, that although the lion will die if he only eats tiny chipmunks, he won’t be any better off only trying to catch the strongest, fastest antelope. And in fact, by claiming the older or weaker animals, the lion not only satisfies his hunger without working to exhaustion, but strengthens the herd.

So my advice this year for graduates is this: Know what kind of animal you are. Know what you need to fuel your goals and do not underestimate or cheat yourself from going for what inspires you. But don’t undervalue the ones around you, either. Creativity, passion, drive, and innovation reach far enough to benefit more than one.

Mid-Year Report

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abandoning perfectionism, reports, sometimes goals are hard, writing, writing life

It’s been a whirlwind three months! It’s amazing to think that only a few days after I posted the Quarterly Report, Andrew and I got engaged. I kind of wish I was reporting on progress in wedding planning: we’ve already figured out the guest list, set a date, booked the ceremony and reception sites, picked a pastor to officiate, picked bridesmaids, picked colors (more or less), started our registry, and scheduled tastings with local caterers. We are winning at wedding planning.

But this isn’t a wedding blog (yet :-P), and I had made myself some goals for the kind of writing work I had wanted to accomplish over the last three months. They were:

Submit 120 pieces

Write and revise 4 pieces

Okay. I have to admit I didn’t complete either of those goals as I had intended to. Here’s what I did do:

1. Submitted about 10-12 pieces
2. Began heavy revision of one story
3. Started several stories that died after the 1^st paragraph
4. Wrote class material (Experimental Forms) that I ended up submitting to a contest
5. Designed 2 completed book projects (Book Design) that definitely involved thoughtful revision
6. Started full-time work in publishing
7. Subscribed to Poets & Writers and The New Yorker
8. Maintained reasonably regular blog postings and updated What I’m Reading and Home pages of my site

So while I didn’t turn into the warrior of submitting that I wanted to be, I haven’t been sitting on my butt for three months, either. What I think I’m doing well:

1. With the new job, I’m simultaneously immersing myself in a word-driven atmosphere, improving my editing skills, and freeing up time to write (my commute’s two-thirds shorter now)
2. I’m devoting significant time to creative work (design lately, analysis of experimental work and writing experiments of my own before that)
3. I’m spending more of my reading time reading material that can help me with my writing

What I think I’m doing badly:

1. I’m not actually writing
2. I’m not submitting enough

Scheduling writing is a problem for me because, since so many of my day-to-day responsibilities are deadline-driven, anything that can be put off will be if I get into a crunch. I’m still struggling to make writing enough of a routine that I won’t drop it when academics or other deadlines need my immediate attention. I do still read every day, after all, so having that time in my schedule is possible.

Part of me really wants to give myself the same goals for the next three months (10 subs/week, 4 new polished stories gleaming on my desk), but I’m not sure that’s the best way to go. Instead, I’m going to try something tough, but hopefully more doable:

1. Write and/or revise fiction at least five days a week, aiming for 500 words a day or 2 revised pages a day
2. Submit at least five pieces a week (simultaneous submissions count)
3. Keep doing the good things I’m doing (blogging, reading good stuff, working hard in class)

Hopefully I’ll have better luck achieving what I’ve set for myself in the next three months!

Two Jobs and a Midnight Snack

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abandoning perfectionism, criticism, essay, memoir, short stories, work

Last May, I was working at a church, and it was awful. The pastor was a perfectionist, slow to praise and quick to point out anything I did wrong. The last straw came when he told me that he’d decided I had five typos left, and then I’d be out of a job. I hadn’t thought I was making that many mistakes, and I knew I was putting effort into my work. I also was involved in other projects, like helping overhaul the website, that were acknowledged minimally, if at all. So I quit.

About a week later, I was chatting to my MFA program director, who’s also the co-founder and editor of a literary magazine, and when she heard I needed work, she offered me a job on the spot. It’s a fantastic job. I’ve learned how to use two new computer programs since I’ve been here (not to mention a new operating system), and gotten markedly better than I used to be at two more. My bosses now are all about exploration and playfulness, and much less about mechanical perfection. I design posters, for example, for guest poets and speakers, for example, and once or twice it’s happened that a typo went to print and it hasn’t been a big deal (I keep wanting to clarify – I really don’t mess up that often, and I catch more errors than I make, but sometimes ‘night’ gets changed to ‘evening’ at the last second and I forget to switch ‘a’ to ‘an’). If I was thoughtless or careless about what I was doing, that would be another story, but in this job the bigger picture of what I’m doing matters more than any little bumps.

I’m still working on making a similar shift in my writing life. I’m still too quick to scold myself for not being as good or fast or prolific as I want to be, and need a hugely significant achievement (see Exhibit A) to happen in order to feel proud of what I’m doing. So I’m trying to quit, or rather I’m trying to be that kind of supportive presence for myself. I’ve got a new essay up in Stories & Things, a little piece I’ve been meaning to write for a while now, but hadn’t, perhaps because I thought it was too light to really matter. Now it’s written, and it made me happy to write it, and I hope someone may read it and like it too, but what’s best is that it is there now when it wasn’t before.