Is the universe telling me to stop writing?
Also: how I can turn any compliment into an insult, lol
Hello from the long weekend šŗšø
Listen. I love a long weekend. I love the luxury I feel on Saturday morning, knowing that itās not my only chill day for the weekend. I love how the Sunday scaries donāt come on Sunday. And I love that thereās a random Monday where I can do whatever I like.
I especially love a long weekend when I can get. things. done. Thatās been the plan for this Memorial Day weekend. Iāve got short stories to finish, books to review, classes to catch up on, an apartment to clean, and simply so many other things I want to accomplish. In addition to catching up on things like cleaning, I want to get ahead on things like reading.
The chances that Iāll actually accomplish everything I want to this week are, admittedly, slim (considering I slept in til 1 pm yesterdayā¦). But I love a good to-do list, a plan of action, an ambitious goal. Iāve just learned to hold them a little loosely in my fist.
What are yāall looking forward to this long weekend, if youāre in the States and/or able to celebrate it?
From the heart š
Letās talk about being special, shall we?
I wasnāt raised in America, and to my knowledge during my elementary and middle school days the Italian schools I went to didnāt have āgifted & talentedā programs, so I canāt say with confidence that I was a gifted and/or talented child.
What I can say is that the adults in my life, both in my family and in my school and in my social circles, poured into me the belief that I was gifted and I was talented. That I was precocious, special, smart, able to do anything I put my mind to. When I told people in second grade that I was going to be a published author someday, I wasnāt met with doubt and scorn.
How lucky! To be raised with such firm belief in oneself! Youād think it would have made me overconfident to an obscene degree.
Unfortunately, I am nothing if not ornery and skilled at turning anything good into a negative1. So what did I do with all that belief? I decided that it was the baseline.
Essentially, I internalized the idea that succeeding meant getting effusive, never-ending praise. I set the bar in the stratosphere, too, convincing myself that if I didnāt reach a certain ālevelā of effusive praise, it meant I wasnāt up to snuff. I had failed, or worse, exhibited mediocrity.
This belief has followed me into adulthood and, in fact, somehow gotten worse in my late 20s and early 30s.
If a friend reads my book and says, āitās good,ā the lack of exclamation points, effusive over-the-top praise, and concrete examples of what, specifically, stood out to them, will send me spiraling.
If I put on a new dress and show it off to my roommate and she says, ālooks niceā without clapping her hands and jumping up and down and squealing, Iāll be convinced she thinks Iām ugly, and also, sheās moving out tomorrow2.
Basically, unless people react to me with the same level of awe and excitement they did when I was like 10 and wrote my first poem, I am convinced that it means I didnāt succeed.
To me, āsuccessā means āexcelling.ā It means not just being good enough, but being the best. Itās not just a positive review in a trade magazine, itās a star. Itās not just being a finalist for an award, itās winning the award. Itās not just being accepted to a presitigious writing program, itās being awarded a merit scholarship as well.
This is, Iām sure you also know, incredibly toxic. Not just for me, but for everyone around me. How am I supposed to have healthy relationships with others if Iām constantly comparing our work and output and trying to be at the top??? How can anyone trust me?3
I donāt have an easy solution for this, or even the ability to say, āI realized this and then did xyz and now Iām fixed!ā Something tells me that unlearning this way of thinking is going to take just as long if not longer as it took to establish it in the first place. Iāve spent the past 31 years believing this way, and behaving accordingly. I canāt undo all of that conditioning in one newsletter.
What I can do, however, is promise that I will strive to unravel this thorny mental load. I will not just seek to be happy with the validation I do receive; I will actively speak back to the voice in my mind that says I didnāt get more validation because I wasnāt good enough. I will work to lean on my own sense of satisfaction with a project more than I do someone elseās validation. I will try to stop believing that success is only measured in extremes, understanding instead that itās a spectrum (like literally everything else, I swear).
The first step to healing is often recognizing the problem, so thatās what Iām doing here. Hi, my name is Karis, and I think that if Iām not number one by a mile, Iām a failure. Thatās not okay. Iām working to fix it š¤.
From the camera roll šø
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From the page āļø
I suppose itās time to get painfully honest in here, huh? Listen ā Iām on sub for Nat & Camiās Guide to Running an Undercover GSA, and sometimes I donāt know how to keep going because of it.
Being on sub is thrilling and exciting and devastating and mind-numbing and disheartening. Itās all the horrors of querying minus the control of it all, with fewer editors as options. Itās kind of like hell, Iād bet.
And the more time passes on sub, the more I begin to wonder whether the universe isnāt trying to send me a simple message: give up.
The thing is, Iāve been sensing the universe sending me that message for at least five years now. After I queried four books with nary a full request between them, and after I wrote seven novels and none of them got me an agent, and after I had spent more than eight years in the trenches, the message rattling through my head was insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Was I insane?
Possibly.
But I kept going. I queried that fifth book, and I signed with my agent for it. And now weāre on sub. And Iām wondering ā is the universe trying to speak to me, again? Because Iām not willing to listen.
Hereās the thing: the universe might be telling me to give up. It might be telling me that there isnāt a place for my voice on the worldās stage, or that publishing books isnāt for me, or that I should quit now and pursue something else. Unfortunately, for the universe, I do not care to do that.
I have longed to publish books since I was in the second fucking grade, and Iāll be damned if anything short of my own death gets in the way of that goal.
So the universe can say what it will, and do what it wants, but Iām going to keep writing, and Iām going to keep trying. This is my calling. Try and stop me.
Alla prossima š
On Friday, the ICJ ordered Israel to stop its invasion of Rafah, and Isarel has continued to bomb it. The territory where it told all Palestinians to seek refuge as a āsafe zone.ā I donāt understand how anyone can spend more than one minute reading the news coming out of Palestine and not recognize that Israel is intent on committing a genocide. It has been seven and a half months of this. Tens of thousands of people have been killed. Enough.
Iāve been following this account on Instagram, which has a broadcast channel and posts daily actions to take. I recommend it.
Thatās all for today, friends. Love yāall.
ā Karis xoxo
Ok, letās clarify: Iām skilled at turning compliments into insults and faith into overbearing belief. I donāt literally make everything I touch go bad. Well, sometimes I think I do. But Iām working to rid myself of that mentality!
Iām so sorry, JenĆ©.
I must be THE MOST TRUSTWORTHY!!! Ohā¦
This is unfortunately so relatable