Those Heartbreaking Put-downs

Dec 4, 2015 by M. Marmer Verhoeff

I thought I was going to devote my first blog to the whys behind my desire to write stories. A grand effort to help everyone understand the events that led up to my decision to become a novelist. However, something else has taken center stage over the last few weeks and I feel a strong pull to address it. Oddly enough, it came as the result of attending a writer’s conference in Sanibel Island, Florida.

It is the concept of the put-down. If you look in a dictionary, you will see many uses for the two word phrase. In some cases, with a very positive definition. Sadly, in most cases, with just the opposite. I myself came across definitions such as: to bring to an end, to degrade, to criticize, and to squelch. There was one definition however, that nailed it for me in terms of what has been going through my mind as of late. It was: to make ineffective.

The writer’s conference was attended by hopeful future novelists, song writers, journalists, and others. Each with dreams of writing perfection onto paper or at least to the best of their ability, creating something that others can relate to and enjoy. The panelists and session leaders were accomplished authors and composers. Individuals who “have made it” in their respective industries.

There was a persistent theme that seemed to emerge from day one of the four day experience, as well as a secondary theme that trailed it like a duckling trails behind its mother. It was simply this: Know right here and now that you will likely fail to achieve your dreams. The duckling behind it: Unless you can write melt in your mouth sentences or choose the perfect word to express a thought or idea, you are already a loser in the industry. To be fair, there was one author who to my surprise expressed his frustration with those very notions. He couldn’t understand why we have to write things like: he retorted, when it is just as understood if the writer had written: he said. Nonetheless, he too, is a success in the business.

 

This brought about my own personal theme as well as the duckling behind it. The theme was a personal epiphany. That for me, self publishing was the right thing to do. I want to share my stories and I have no interest in catering to the industries desire to have writers with that ineffable style and all others need not apply. Or to be more honest, they’ll publish you if you’re already in the industry for years or a famous person who is suddenly an expert on diet and exercise or wants to create a memoir. It never ceases to amaze me how many famous folks are on the air talking about the book they just wrote. It can’t possibly be that every single one of them is an expert in writing. More likely, that they had ghost writers and or, lots of editing help to create their books. If nothing else, the very fact exposes the industry as one more interested in sales than substance. How many of us have read a book or article and pondered how it could have possibly been published because the writing is so bad? Did you know that the rejection rate for new and unknown authors is 98 to 99%? It’s akin to winning Lotto or the Powerball.

I still recall my shock and amazement when seeing with my very own eyes, a particular piece of art worth millions that in essence was nothing more than a huge canvas with a single bold red strip down the middle. The artist was well known, hence the amount paid for the piece. Well known enough that something as mundane and beginner level as painting a stripe down the middle of a canvas could dupe others to pay millions for it. Others might read something like this and insist I am simply jealous and that is why I am being so negative. They couldn’t be more wrong. I am merely coming from my continued viewpoint of being shocked by what we place value on versus all the things we should be valuing and don’t.

I don’t care about fame. I don’t care about royalties. I don’t care about making each and every word mouth watering although it is wonderful when that happens. Simple writing can be effective in its own way and in my case, I simply want to tell a story. If I get lucky and live the fantasy, well, hooray for me but in essence, it is unlikely that will ever happen. Self publishing was what has afforded me a way to do what I love without feeling ineffective. Happily, I received good reviews from Kirkus Indie as well as on Amazon and Goodreads. I’m busy preparing novel number three and plan to self publish novel number two in the months ahead.
So what’s the purpose of this first blog? It isn’t quite what you might be thinking at this point. My intent is not to single out the publishing industry as the ultimate put-down. It’s actually something more general than pointing the finger at the publishing industry. It’s to bring to light the put-down that every industry seems to thrive on.

You can’t make it as a singer unless you can belt out triple forte notes that can wail up and down the scale like a slithering snake. And of course you can’t be a back up dancer unless you can bend over backwards, gyrate to an exhausting level, and stand up effortlessly from a split. You can’t act unless you can deliver the spoken word as if your very life depended on it. Yes, there are those of us who have a level of talent that is so high, anyone can easily recognize it for what it is. And yes, we should honor that talent and enjoy the gift that it is for us. However, we should know too, that most of us don’t reside up there with the angels. We need to remember that we should support the efforts of those who are trying to become angels themselves. We should lift up the spirit of those who have a passion for the dance, the canvas, the voice, so that they don’t hide in the corner, fearful of being ridiculed.

What exactly are we striving for here? For me, the answer is a level of perfection that in actuality just doesn’t exist. The result…that we make each other feel ineffective. Psychology 101 is clear that often times people need to put someone else down in order to feel good about themselves. In the industries that have to do with the arts, this seems to be the norm. What exactly has been achieved by telling someone they sing like a frog or that they are too ugly to perform, etc., etc.? Isn’t it just as easy to be kind when stating the exact same thing? Your voice doesn’t quite have the sound we’re looking for right now but if you love singing, keep trying. You don’t have the look we were seeking for this role but keep up those acting skills. Cheesy? Perhaps, but most definitely a put-up and not a put-down.

The fact that the public thrives on the drama presented in those shows specifically aimed at proving talent in someone (or lack thereof), breaks my heart. Even cooking shows have been nasty and brutal. The notion of making someone feel ineffective over something as basic as feeding their belly, well, I will never understand it. All I can see is the enormously painful hurt you have subjected the receiver to. All I can see is the person feels ineffective. Whatever happened to constructive criticism? What has happened to human kindness as a buffer to criticism?

My point at last…know in your heart of hearts that what you have to say or what you want to sing, what you want to write or paint, and so on and so on, is valid. It is part and parcel of who you are and what you want to bring to the world. Too many people worship intangible levels of being and try to convince you it’s the only way to be valid. They are wrong. Know that you are a person with your own special gifts to bring to the table called humanity. For me, it’s to share my stories, to make clothes (another of my passions) and always, always, in all interactions with others, to try my best to make others feel valid and effective.