The Introverted Voice--AKA my article got rejected a whole lot

So I wrote this thing about introversion amongst writers. I was quite proud of it. I had some witty dialogue and fun descriptions of my elementary school, which is one of my absolute places. And I submitted it to some places and they were all "yeah, it's okay, but not concrete enough, you should start writing about times of the day and wanting to drive a fork into your head and that would make it all lovely."

Maybe I'm exaggerating, but still. 

So that stung quite a bit. Obviously writers are just supposed to string some words together and have them appear magically on the internet.


...No? That's not how it works.

Damnit.

But never fear, my lovely mother emailed me with the saving news that there was another literary magazine! The Rumpus  (don't judge) was all about quality writing that really made you think. At this point, I was doing anything to stroke my little ego, so I submitted it, thinking that at 19, I would finally make my big break--Jodi Picoult and John Green would be calling me, demanding to know where I found my inspiration. And I'd be all "heh, heh, a writer never tells...just kidding, I got it at Wal Mart."

Yeah. No. Instead, this happened:

So that's fun. At least they appreciate the chance to "just say no."

Now, I realize that professional writers have to go through loads of rejection, and they're just scratching the surface when two literary magazines tell them they're not good enough for the literary world. But three things make this particularly difficult for me:
1) I'm a newbie to the publication world.
2) The first three times I submitted something to a literary magazine, I was Seventeen and eighteen, and they were all "this is great, of course it's going in the magazine!"
3) I have this nasty habit of wanting to dive under the covers and never emerge when someone implies they don't like something about me.

But I will never cease to be proud of this piece. As you regular blog readers know, I've struggled a lot with the idea of being introverted vs. extroverted. This piece deals with how a sociable introvert doesn't have to be a complete contradiction, and that to be able to write, you have to be able to detach yourself from the immediate chaos of the world. I also covered that a bit in the writing blog if you're interested.

Perhaps my insistence that this piece is pride-worthy is just my failure to accept rejection. But I still want to get it out in the world to show other intro-extroverts that they're not complete aliens in the writing world.

And so, I present to you...The Introverted Voice:

In my elementary school, there was a room that sat in stillness for most of the year; kindergarteners fidgeted in that room during meeting for worship, and quiet prayer was encouraged to happen in between these walls. I loved the feeling of solitude this little room gave me--I felt safe to just walk in and let my thoughts take over me, rather than drown my brain in anxiety over what small talk would sound most normal coming out of my mouth. It was in this room that I  developed story ideas, play ideas, and heightened illusions fourth graders tend to have about this world. The lack of discourse didn’t seem a problem to me--rather, it was an escape from the mundane conversation I had to conjure during the other seven hours of my school day.

    

It wasn’t until parent-teacher conferences that this room unveiled its true purpose: Dodgeball. While teachers told nervous parents in suits and tacky patterned ties that their fourth grader would go far in life and that their latest glue project showed great genius, kids flung balls at each other like they were competing for gold. Do not be fooled by the innocent Disney character clothing and round, naive eyes; these kids were vicious. My once safe haven turned into a war zone. After sporting several bruises from the battles of dodgeball, I slipped out of the room, rummaged through my backpack for a book, pencil and notebook, and found my new safe haven: fiction.     

Through these afternoons of scrawling plays and “what-if” stories about adults disappearing off the face of the universe, I learned to appreciate the company of my characters, and spent more of my childhood with these fictional friends instead of my schoolmates. I had a strong hold on the line between fiction and reality, yet the concept of imaginary friends fascinated me. It seemed obvious that anyone would want to spend their time with a sixteen year old rock star rather than a scarily large fifth grader who steals your lunch. Through fiction, I was in control of my own life, and I had a group of comrades I could relate to, instead of having to explain to.   

At home, my creative endeavors were encouraged; my family chose to engage in quiet activities in their spare time, so I hardly seemed an outlier when I brought out my fuzzy pink pen and wrote about a set of twins entering a music video competition. Not only did I get my childish wish to be a star (mostly) out of my system, but I dealt with domineering personalities and rejection in a constructive way. I only half understood the kid who made fun of me for putting potato chips in the refrigerator, but instead of dwelling on that incident, I created a character who told the twins in my plays that their way of life was ridiculous, and must be changed immediately. I would spend hours in this world, comforted by the safety of being in charge of each plot twist. At school however, the structured time to write baffled me; why couldn’t I write when I was inspired, or wanted to get away from the world? When I wrote during recess or lunch, teachers came up to me with furrowed brows, asking what was wrong. The conclusion that my solitude showed distress shocked me; it seemed about as related as saying someone wore a jacket because they were afraid of spiders. I was a social kid, just not at the times teachers said it was okay to be. I used school to write my ideas down, then at home I would share the plays with my friends and use that opportunity to laugh and act silly. Yet I failed to understand how my writing was anti-social. I used these plays and stories to reflect on my own life, and through these revelations about my experiences, I was speaking as loud as I could.

The voice of fiction is not a quiet one--it’s different, but writers are still getting messages across. If I tried to talk through how I was feeling about the world, it would come out as a jumbled mess with too many stutters and “uh”s and “like”s. As Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts points out, “The greatest speaker is not always the greatest thinker.” A talented speaker may hold great respect, but the voice of a writer should be no less powerful. I have always had difficulty looking someone in the eye and explaining what it’s like to have an eating disorder during the blurring lines of childhood and adulthood, or what it means to live in a family full of academics, but through writing, these messages are significantly cleaner and evoke much more pathos than if I walked up to someone and stumbled through “so yeah, there was a  time when...stuff happened.”

When you’re in a society where the spoken word is the main mode of communication, it can be challenging to get your point across through the obstacle of facial expressions, body language, or the judging eye of your peers. My friends consider me eccentric when I write them letters and publish a new blog post almost every day. But a sentence has so much more strength when you have time to reflect, to revise, to think. A friend once read a book written by an author I try to channel through my own writing; when she finished only then did she realize she finally understood me. I didn’t have to say anything; I knew both the author’s writing and my own explained everything.

We often hear that “actions speak louder than words,” but it seems more appropriate to make the claim that a thoughtful phrase speaks louder than a careless sentence. As a writer, I try to choose my words carefully, and to allow my poetry, plays and narrative to speak louder than any spoken word could.

What are your experiences in the introversion/extroversion battle in writing, or just art in general?
Happy Wednesday!
Namaste.