Insecurity vs. Inspiration

Since I started working in more of an editor and mentoring role at my job, I’ve fallen in love with this quote from the movie “Wonder Boys”, which is pretty faithfully based on the novel with the same title by Michael Chabon. It’s spoken by Grady Tripp, a college writing professor, to his book editor:

“Nobody teaches a writer anything. You tell them what you know. You tell them to find their voice and stay with it. You tell the ones that have it to keep at it, you tell the ones that don’t have it to keep at it, too, because it’s the only way they’re going to get where they’re going. . . . Helping my students figure that out … that, and Sara. That’s what’s made these last years worthwhile.”

That passage seems to me equally applicable to teaching as it is to music or painting or any art. Which is probably one reason Chabon is such a good writer … the bastard. I figure the best I can do in my quasi-teacher role at work is just what Tripp says, and to try to set a good example through my own writing.

My own writing. . . . Yes, and what about that? It’s funny (or not) how often insecurity rears its head in that regard. No matter how often I tell myself that I’m not writing for them, I’m writing for me, somehow it always seems to matter what they think. Someone tells me he or she read something I wrote and I freeze. What do I say? “Thanks?” “Did you like it?” More often than not I make a joke about the six other people who also read it, or I quickly backpedal into some kind of awkward chit-chat. Most people with whom I’ve had the “I read your. . . .” conversation probably were left with the impression I’d rather they hadn’t read whatever it was they read. Which is 180 degrees from the truth, of course.

I want people to read what I write. But I don’t want to ask anyone to read it, and I would just as soon undergo waterboarding as ask someone what he or she thought of something I wrote. I can play that off by pretending I don’t care what anybody thinks. While sometimes there’s truth to that, it’s really just a façade constructed to protect my ego.

I face a similar situation at work. I wonder if the advice I’m giving means anything to anyone, or if they all think I’m full of shit. I’m pretty sure if they thought I was full of shit, they’d let me know, or I’d at least sense it.

Some days I feel so old, like a grizzled veteran handing down kernels of journalistic and writing wisdom. Other days I feel like I just started myself, and I have no business telling anyone anything. Where do artists get the confidence to overcome that? Where do teachers?

Maybe we never overcome it, per se. Maybe we just stare it down as best we can, as often as we can, and success is when we manage to get up in front of a crowd (literally for some, figuratively for others) and do the thing each of us does. That way is found inspiration, rather than insecurity.