Every year around this time, as we start to notice the days growing shorter signaling an end to Summer, my teaching schedule fills up with writers eager to meet the moment. What moment is that?
It's that time of year when lots of submissions are due for development opportunities, grants and competitions.
Recently, a favorite student of mine, someone I'll call Hal had booked time with me to prepare a major submission. This involves us reviewing writing samples together as well as the dreaded Artistic Statement. (I'll be the first to admit, by the way, that I suck at writing artistic statements; and yet people seek out my help so frequently that it almost proves the old adage: Those who can't do, teach.)
Seriously though, there's no magic secret to all this. It's simply a matter of reading someone else's material with care and then reflecting back to them what it is you see. We all have the capacity to do this. It's just that most of us lack the patience and curiosity to do it well.
The other day Hal reached out to cancel their appointment with me. It was a surprise to me because I know Hal to be a supremely hard-working and detail oriented writer.
It was Hal's reason for canceling that inspired me to write this post. Because it contains within it what I consider to be one of the biggest challenges most artists struggle with.
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Knowing When to Say No
Sometimes we face a serious golden opportunity, something that has the potential to be a career game-changer, something that we want so badly that when we come upon an announcement we're tempted to drop everything and get our submission in by the deadline which--oops! how'd we miss it 'til now?--is next week!
This was Hal's situation. The opportunity beckoned but the deadline was impossibly close. And so, Hal made the very wise and very difficult decision to wait a year.
And I am here to tell you that that decision--the decision to stop, apply the brakes and maybe delay 'til you're better prepared--is one that eludes most of us at least some of the time.
I suspect one of the things fueling our desire to just submit, submit to almost everything no matter what the circumstances may be our deep understanding that most opportunities for artistic accomplishment in any arena are pretty much a crap shoot.
Nevertheless, while talent and quality are not all there is to getting to "yes," and it certainly does also take a bit of luck, trust me when I say your odds dramatically increase if you've dotted your I's and crossed your T's.
So the next time you find your heart racing as you remember that deadline that's in two days, try to hit the pause button. Sitting this one out and using the time you may have spent scrambling to instead do something else related to your work will pay off in the end.
In the life of a writer, patience is not so much a virtue as it is a necessity.
And remember: putting your feet up and relaxing with a good book or a great piece of music might feel like relaxation but it is part of your work. It may even be tax-deductible.
Now, vaya con Diós.
Ed note: To any writers who submitted to this year's Hear Me Out Monologue Competition, the festival and awards ceremony and the announcement of finalists have all been postponed. To never miss out on any such opportunity updates, get yourself on the RT Inner Circle.
