EPTThis year I've been getting deeper into both of these things than I ever have before, and in the process I've come across some interesting revelations. I'll start with the fiction side of things.
I've been writing a long time, but never very regularly. For a while in middle school I would get up at five o'clock every morning and work on some novel or another. All in secret, of course—I thought it was the lamest thing ever. I never finished anything, either, so it wasn't like I had anything to show anyone.
In high school I started to come to terms with it as a big part of my life. Sophomore year I won my first short story contest (at my public library, lol). Junior year I wrote a full novel during National Novel Writing Month and self-published it. I sold a whole bunch of copies to people at my school as a fundraiser for an immersion program in Germany that summer (Kennt jemand Krefeld? Da habe ich den ganzen Sommer gewöhnt!). Senior year I wrote and published a sequel.
Boy, did I think I was the shit.
Then I got to college and took a creative writing class. I went into it more confident than MC in a tournament for platinums. I came out of my first workshop feeling one emotion over all others: deep, crushing, unadultered BUTTHURT.
So, what does that have to do with anything?
I never improved as a writer until I had somebody tell me I was shit. I never made any progress, never came any closer to my dream of being an author, until I was shown just how far away I was from being even COMPETENT at writing.
This year (I'm a sophomore) my creative writing class is more brutal than ever. I'm writing an essay on literary craft every week, PLUS keeping a journal (300 words a day, 7 days a week), PLUS writing new stories and editing my old stories and reading my classmates' stories and reading PROFESSIONAL stories and—IMPROVING.
Turns out, to improve at writing fiction, you have to write every day, the same way you have to practice for anything else. The same way you have to treat Starcraft. But for some reason, I always thought I was improving just fine, writing whenever the desire happened to strike me (which was about once a month).
Richard Bausch came and gave a reading at Emory the other night. He's a pretty well-known author. That being said, I'd never heard of him. At the end of the reading, he opened things up for questions.
"I know it can be hard to get started as a writer," I said when he picked my hand out of the crowd. "Was there ever a moment when you gave up hope that it would all work out, and if so, how did you keep going?"
Richard Bausch, with all his published novels on the table outside the room, with all his short stories in the New Yorker and Gulf Coast and Playboy, he just raised an eyebrow at me. "Oh, there are always those moments," he said. "I still have those moments." He laughed. "I'm writing something right now. A novel. But I'll still have to work to get it published."
He leaned on the podium and pointed a finger at me. "But that doubt," he said. "That doubt is how you know you have talent. The people who don't have talent—they don't have that doubt."
Everybody chuckled. Richard Bausch just smiled. "Those people," he said, "they look at something they wrote, and they say—wow! This is brilliant!" He shook his head. "But it's not that easy. It never gets that easy."
It's the same way in Starcraft.
I'm running the Emory CSL team this year (we just beat Georgia Tech—woo!). Because I feel really lame leading the team when I'm only in diamond, I've been trying really hard to improve. That means I've been playing a lot of games with people who are way better than me, and I've been getting my ass kicked left and right.
Sometimes one of them will spectate me.
"God," they'll say. "You just need to stop getting supply blocked."
"Watch the minimap," they'll cry. "YOUR MUTAS, DUDE! YOUR MUTAS—ahh, never mind."
If you get complacent—if you ever sit back in your chair after a stint of laddering and say "damn, I'm good"—you're done. You won't get any better. To have any chance of improving at anything, whether it's creative writing or Starcraft or anything else, you have to stop paying attention to the things you're doing RIGHT, and start spending your time figuring out how to fix all the stuff you're doing WRONG.
And trust me, there's a lot of that. Starcraft is a game where only the top two percent of players can be considered "COMPETENT." BW, so I hear, was even worse. Creative writing is about as lucrative for the average author as scavenging under park benches for loose change.
I'm fucking terrible at Starcraft AND creative writing. And that's why, someday, after a lot of pain and agony and teeth-grinding and nightmares, I might not be half-bad at either.
+ Show Spoiler +
In case you're curious, I'm attaching a short little story I wrote for the Emory Wheel student newspaper: + Show Spoiler +
The train is coming. I know because the rails are trembling beneath my feet.
“You feel that?”
Ben sneers at me. “Yeah,” he says, “I feel it.”
We’re facing each other down ten feet of railroad tracks. The rules are simple: whoever steps off first, loses.
I’m already winning. My back is to the train. As long as I don’t turn, there’s no way I can know when to jump. The initiative is his, and we both know it.
Ben turns and faces away. There’s a sweat stain shaped like a bullet on his back.
Now we’re even. I can hear the rumble of the train. I feel it in my bones as the rails begin to vibrate.
“It’s coming,” I say.
“I’m not going anywhere,” replies Ben.
I’m vomiting before I realize what’s happening, frothing acid spewing through my lips. I bend over. Heave. I try to keep as silent as possible - can’t betray my weakness. Can’t... I retch again, doubled over, but I stand my ground.
“She loves me, now,” I croak. It’s barely audible over the growing roar.
“I won’t let you have her,” says Ben over his shoulder. I grasp at my sides, willing the monstrous jaws of my anger to slam shut around my fear. I didn’t come this far to give up now.
The train roars. I wipe my mouth and glance back. From here it looks like a model. A toy.
I curse into my fist. Thirty seconds to live.
The train’s whistle erupts and I clap my hands to my ears. It doesn’t let up, just keeps bellowing, until my teeth rattle and bounce against each other.
Fifteen seconds.
I’m screaming. I want more than anything for Ben to leap off the tracks so that I can follow. His hands are limp at his sides, and he’s staring up at the sky.
I’m here because he’s my best friend. I’m here because I’m in love with his girlfriend, and I’m fairly sure she loves me back.
Last year we used to hang out. All three of us. I always tried to sit across from her at dinner, so the glances I snuck at her would seem innocent. Sometimes she caught me peeking, and it always earned me a knowing smile.
This year they fight at every dinner. But Ben won’t let it go. He’s always been the stubborn one.
The train slams down the tracks towards us. I close my eyes.
Through the darkness I see her face.
I take three quick steps and tackle Ben off the tracks.
The train is coming. I know because the rails are trembling beneath my feet.
“You feel that?”
Ben sneers at me. “Yeah,” he says, “I feel it.”
We’re facing each other down ten feet of railroad tracks. The rules are simple: whoever steps off first, loses.
I’m already winning. My back is to the train. As long as I don’t turn, there’s no way I can know when to jump. The initiative is his, and we both know it.
Ben turns and faces away. There’s a sweat stain shaped like a bullet on his back.
Now we’re even. I can hear the rumble of the train. I feel it in my bones as the rails begin to vibrate.
“It’s coming,” I say.
“I’m not going anywhere,” replies Ben.
I’m vomiting before I realize what’s happening, frothing acid spewing through my lips. I bend over. Heave. I try to keep as silent as possible - can’t betray my weakness. Can’t... I retch again, doubled over, but I stand my ground.
“She loves me, now,” I croak. It’s barely audible over the growing roar.
“I won’t let you have her,” says Ben over his shoulder. I grasp at my sides, willing the monstrous jaws of my anger to slam shut around my fear. I didn’t come this far to give up now.
The train roars. I wipe my mouth and glance back. From here it looks like a model. A toy.
I curse into my fist. Thirty seconds to live.
The train’s whistle erupts and I clap my hands to my ears. It doesn’t let up, just keeps bellowing, until my teeth rattle and bounce against each other.
Fifteen seconds.
I’m screaming. I want more than anything for Ben to leap off the tracks so that I can follow. His hands are limp at his sides, and he’s staring up at the sky.
I’m here because he’s my best friend. I’m here because I’m in love with his girlfriend, and I’m fairly sure she loves me back.
Last year we used to hang out. All three of us. I always tried to sit across from her at dinner, so the glances I snuck at her would seem innocent. Sometimes she caught me peeking, and it always earned me a knowing smile.
This year they fight at every dinner. But Ben won’t let it go. He’s always been the stubborn one.
The train slams down the tracks towards us. I close my eyes.
Through the darkness I see her face.
I take three quick steps and tackle Ben off the tracks.
