Fail Like No One is Watching
It's the sequel to "dance like no one is watching."
Sometime in the last six months, I decided to start submitting to writing opportunities like I already knew I would be rejected.
Pessimistic. Defeatist. Cynical. Bleak. Fatalistic. On the surface, this submitting philosophy could be any of those things. Well, it could be one of those. All the words are all synonyms for “pessimistic” so, on the surface, this submitting philosophy could be considered very pessimistic. Sure, it’s pessimistic. But bearing in mind just how many people submit for any given opportunity, it’s also not necessarily wrong.
At this point, you might be thinking, “Well, the lady doth protest too much.” Or, you might be asking yourself, “Isn’t this just a ‘pretend not to care so you don’t get hurt’ kind of thing?” To which I would reply, your sass is not appreciated here, thank you very much.
Really, this viewpoint was (is) meant to help me stop worrying about what a selection person or committee might want and, instead, apply for things being as authentic and true to my work and to myself as a writer as I could (can) be.
Basically, the goal was (is) to fail like nobody is watching.
One of the realities of life is that, at some point, all of us will have to be picked by someone else to move along our own paths. Writing opportunities, funding opportunities, advanced schooling, jobs—much of the modern way of applying to things includes sending resumes, artistic samples, our heart and souls out into the void, hoping that it will land in the lap of the right person, on the right day, at the right time and they will invite us to the next step. Likely, the response we’ll get to the time and effort we spend on applications will be a generic ‘thanks but no thanks.’ Even more likely than that, there will be no response at all. It’ll be radio silence. And if there is not an alien on the other side of that radio silence, I DON’T WANT IT.
There are whole industries built on trying to predict what the unseen pickers want and encouraging you to tailor every single piece of something to those predictions. Sometimes those predictions are based on real-world data and clear instructions from the selection body. Most of the time, those predictions are based on informed guesses, rapidly changing technology and algorithms, and perceived expertise. On the whole, I don’t personally have an issue with these industries necessarily—I’d tutor or help people with college essays so. fast.—but there is a general problem:
You can never truly know what a person or a panel of people will truly want or connect with on any given day.
Yes, there are webinars and application instructions and directed questions that lay out what a company, an organization, or a person might be looking for. I have taken my fair share of webinars related to writing opportunities and I have taken more than my fair share of LinkedIn Learning courses to know that is true. I always appreciate those kinds of things; more direction is usually better. The world, however, is mostly frustratingly subjective. Acceptances and rejections are managed by subjective people. With things like job applications, there is a technology stop gap but those stop gaps are based on requirements that a particular person deems to be important. Application Tracking Systems (ATS) may kick your resume out of bed for not having enough matching keywords but those keywords were tucked in by a human (probably) being in the first place.
On a smaller scale, the person or panel of people reviewing things like, say, headshots or, say, submissions to writing opportunities, grants, residencies are afflicted much the same as everyone else. They are also a people. Human, that is. With, presumably, human emotions.
Now, this is not an argument saying that selection committees are just people LET THEM LIVE. No no. There are some real, deep, systemic issues inherent to many selection processes. There are real, documented ways in which these systems are set up in a way meant to exclude large swaths of people based on race, sexual orientation, able-bodiedness, economic background, personal biases of the committee itself, etc. etc. Lots of places are doing work to address the flaws of these systems. But, you know, lots of places are also not doing that work. All that is to say, just because you aren’t being excluded doesn’t mean it’s not happening to other people and that’s something that’s always important to remember. /tangent
What I am saying is that recently I realized there is no way I’m ever gonna know how the people behind the submit button are actually going to feel or react to or focus on, on any given day. I don’t know if they are grumpy or feeling generous or the most critical person that exists. I have no idea what’s happening in their personal lives or if Brenda took the last coffee pod from the machine and now they are half asleep reading applications. That’s something I’m never gonna know and never gonna have control over. What I have control over is what I submit.
So, I’m done trying to make a twin sized duvet work on a king sized mattress.
Thus, submitting to things like I know I’m going to be rejected.
Honestly, I don’t yet have any data to confirm whether this mindset works for me or not. It’s early(ish) in the year but the first rejection season is right around the corner so I guess we’ll see. But personally, this mindset has really helped me approach applications with the type of authenticity I want and not the type of authenticity that I believe is expected of me.
What that means, practically, is that I’m writing artistic statements that are as un-hinged…or hinged…as I want them to be. I’m worried less about trying to figure out how many different ways I can say, “yes, the time and money this opportunity would afford me would be helpful because I need both time and money” and worrying more about being as honest as I can about my work as it stands now and what I hope to do with it. (There is, of course, still talking through what the opportunities would do for me but I try to spend more brain space on other things.) Again, I don’t know if this approach is actually going to work but it has made me feel lighter and a lot more free in a field where rejections are part of the daily diet. That lightness has also meant that it has felt a bit easier to spend real time on these applications—applications for what I actually want to be pursuing in my life.
I should note that I have also taken this approach with some job applications. I have done things like title a resume file “S Cooper [has a great]_Resume” and answered an application question or two in a quippy way that was meant to be funny and endear me to a reviewer. I’ve also approached some cover letters easy and breezy, really leaning into trying to make a personal connection with whoever might read it. Now, I’ve applied to a ton of jobs in the last ten months, with a good portion of those being since the beginning of the year, and none of the applications I used this sort of method resulted in any movement. Over the last ten months, the times I have moved onto another step of a job search are very few. The data would seem to point to it doesn’t really work in that context but, also, The economy! The job market! Etc! so, who knows what the deal is there. (It’s not them, it’s me??)
It feels a bit silly to be writing about this now, before I have any evidence whether this philosophy will work for me or not. But, it’s been ringing extra loudly in my ears lately and making me wonder why I’m not approaching other parts of my life in the same way. In tandem with a consistent writing career, there are things that I want that are coming more into focus everyday. It’s things that I’m not sure I ever saw myself doing. It’s things where I could fall on my face. I could absolutely fail. Real hard.
But, you know, I’m not sure if I could feel like I’m failing any harder than I feel like I’m failing right now (all the feels) so, why not?
Why not actually try and make my life look like one I want instead of doing the regular old thing in hopes that it will help me make that life in the future—sometime? Why not actually take it seriously and not let it be a “if it happens, it happens” sort of thing? Why not take a crazy chance? WHY NOT INDEED HILARY DUFF.
I think the thing that I’m really reckoning with is that something is not working. And I’ve spent a lot of time feeling like I’m not in control. In some ways, I’m not. Many of us are not in control of a lot of things. But there are ways that I can, at least, try something else. It’s scary of put that in writing.
As my friend Jen (hi Jen!) said to me the other day: “You are good at helping other people get out of their own way. Now, it’s time for you to get out of your own way.”
Alright.
Alright.
So. How are we feeling about this at the end instead of the beginning? Thoughts? Anyone?!
I am continuing on with the subscription donation project. For February and March, the organization is the MENA Arts Advocacy Coalition. If you are new here (welcome!) or need a refresher, you can always find more details on the project on my About page.
I have also decided to extend the paid subscription discount offer! Paid subscriptions are 10% off for the whole next year as a celebration for NYC Decade-aversary. If you want to upgrade, between now and August is a great time. Or, if a one time support is more your thing, my venmo is @samjeancoop. (That feels weird but I continue to be unemployed so.)
It’s also also always a great time to share the newsletter.
DANG JEN. (That’s great advice)