KBO

Some months ago I listened to a five-year-old interview from the Longform podcast. I believe that a lot has changed at Longform since October 2013, which was when the interview was conducted, and I'm certain that a lot has changed in the life of the subject, Elizabeth Wurtzel. So I can't really guarantee anything about how this interview went, or could be interpreted, except for what I got out of it.

Wurtzel is a tricky figure. She ripped the lid off mental illness with Prozac Nation, made it a topic that was no longer taboo (even if it's still not as easily discussed as it could be), and then she did a whole lot of drugs, wrote some weird books, and behaved really weirdly on the public stage. She seems like she's a difficult person, generally, and that her solipsism has been nurtured in an unfortunate, almost pathological way by her early fame. As a writer she is not someone to rely upon, or even admire, but I believe she's always going to be someone to watch.

I listened to this interview because Prozac Nation meant a lot to me when I was in my late teens and early 20s, and I wanted to know what she'd sound like. She sounds weird, is the answer. She self-contradicted a lot, and when called on it, used slippery rhetoric and arrogance to elude admitting she was mistaken. She redirected or restarted her sentences more often than not. She said some generally insulting things and threw her weight around inordinately.

Nevertheless, there's a certain quote from this interview that I've been mulling over since I listened to it. Which was when I still had a day job, so, like, in March or before. I can't stop thinking about it.

E: I also did not stop bugging people. I mean, people don't know how to do that anymore. They think that you can get things done with a text message. You can't get things done with a text message.

Q: What does bugging people mean to you?

E: It means asking people if you can do something until they say yes. I mean, you just have to ask until they say yes. 

The context had to do with how to get opportunities as a writer. She emphasized that you have to beat doors down and be insistent and annoying before you get the kinds of opportunities you want.

I've pitched reviews to a certain editor at a prominent publication at least a dozen times. Probably closer to two dozen. When I was about to give up on his publication a couple of months ago, he wrote back, with the email subtext of a heavy sigh, to tell me that he'd ask his colleague if they had anything for me. He never got back to me with an assignment, but even that email was proof that being persistent was closer to the answer than giving up was. I mean, you do risk being annoying enough for an editor to block you or ignore you or continue turning you down forever. But as soon as I think in that direction, I think about this Wurtzel quote.

To break it out a little further: a) Giving up is not going to get me closer to a yes from that editor, or any other. That's a guarantee. No one who gave up has reached the top of any mountain. b) Every editor interview I've ever read that talks about the submitting styles of men and women says that generally, men keep trying forever, while women give up after some variable amount of rejection. Considering that, men are statistically more likely to get published. That's not a VIDA thing, that's a pure numbers thing. Men try more, so they succeed more. The person who keeps trying is statistically more likely to get up the mountain. c) It's possible that being too annoying is going to get me no further than giving up. But I don't know that.

That means, if only in percentage, not even considering what feeds the soul, there is less harm in being persistent than there is in giving up.

So I'm going to be persistent. I'm going to keep pitching that damn editor, asking him if he has anything for me, bugging him, until he says yes. I got a third rejection from a women's mag the other day that said "please keep pitching me." Early last week I got a nibble on a pitch at a super-snooty publication, and that guy didn't write me back after I sent the full article, so you better believe I'm gonna ask him about it early this week. If he didn't like it, I'm going to try it somewhere else, and somewhere else, and somewhere else. Until it lands or becomes irrelevant, I'm going to keep trying it.

So thanks, Elizabeth Wurtzel, for giving me the words to whisper to myself every day, staring at the inbox. Just keep bugging them until they say yes.

Somewhat related: I got started on writing 1,000 words every day on Friday. I really wish this had not started on a Friday, but it did, so I got going. I picked up where I'd left off on the Citizen Kane essay and I have a pretty good trajectory for what's going in next. I'm a bit worried that the ideas won't all hang together once I'm done drafting - more so than I have been on a trifecta essay thus far - but it's early yet to be judging.

My ARC pile is juicy right now, and everything is decently far off, so I'm happy. Full measures of good and bad in the past week in terms of writing news.

Out in the world:

VERY IMPORTANTLY: I wrote a long, wacko essay about Sean Penn and Amanda McKittrick Ros, and the Millions very gracefully accepted it. I am sharing this piece everywhere, persistently, annoyingly. I love and am proud of it and perhaps I'll tell you why in another post sometime. Though I did already write this about it.

I interviewed Kelly Sundberg for TRUE. Her memoir, Goodbye, Sweet Girl, is a stunning piece of craft with an amazingly confident voice for a first book. Grab it before it becomes the next Wild and you're mad you didn't get in on it early.