Last week, my wife Natalie and I were invited to guest lecture at WMU’s Direct Encounter with the Arts. During the Q & A section, one student asked, “Does rejection still hurt? I’m scared of my art being rejected.”
I admitted, “Yes! Absolutely!”
Steven King talks about rejection in his book, On Writing. He used to put a nail in the wall, and he would fill it up with his rejection letters. When the nail would hold no more, he would pound in another nail.
After filling his office wall with nails, Steven King finally had a big break: Carrie was accepted to be published.
I’ve let King’s anecdote guide me when I’m dealing with rejection, and I’m thinking about it, again, today. Today I found out I wasn’t accepted into a writing program I desired to pursue. Rejection still stings.
But here’s a positive point about rejection: We still have our work that we submitted!
Usually, the rejection simply marks a period of where we were driven to work really hard, meet a deadline, and then wait. The important step was the “working” period, right?
Even though I didn’t get accepted into a program, I have half of a book of poetry finished! During late October to the end of December, I was a writing machine! The deadline simply got me working.
Embracing rejection allows us to embrace deadlines; and most importantly, when we embrace our work, we are “picking ourselves.”
When we embrace our work, we forget to fear rejection, and forget to eat lunch.
The Artist’s Gift of Seeing Potential
If I lost my iPhone, the person who found it could listen to dozens, maybe hundreds, of voice memos of my new song ideas. They would probably think, “This guy is the worst singer I’ve ever heard!”
Why? Because new song ideas, like the one linked above, are often sung out of key. New demos are full of mistakes.
But when I hear a new song demo, I don’t listen for the mistakes; I hear the potential.
During my start as a songwriter, I assumed everyone shared this ability to “hear potential.” I quickly learned this is not the case.
I used to share early drafts of songs with friends and family. “I don’t know, Mike. I like your other songs better,” some many would say.
I would feel dismayed; I assumed my new songs weren’t very good.
I now realize it’s not the song that’s being judged, but the performance; and my mind is hearing something different than current reality. It’s like my brain has an Autotune program engaged!
The ability to visualize the future potential of our creations is an essential skill to learn.
Sure, this skill can have negative consequences if we don’t learn to edit and polish our pieces later on; but during the brainstorming stage, this skill is essential as an artist. Maybe in life, too.
We must learn to hear–and see–the potential.
* * *
In the spirit of the blog, here’s a new song demo from my 52 Song Project. (Some friends and I are writing a song a week this year!) “Winter Shows the Worst of My Ways”
When I was in seventh grade, I was the least popular kid school; that year I decided to run for student council.
* * * Good Idea/Bad Idea * * *
I don’t have any recollection to why I decided to run for class representative. It’s possible someone signed me up as a joke. I do remember I had to give a speech in front of my homeroom class, and I was terrified.
The night before my big speech, I decided to put my best skill forward: I drew a giant poster. Specifically, it was a giant picture of a tiger that said something like “Vote for Vial.”
It was a pretty sweet tiger, if I do say so myself, and it had nothing to do with my school (our mascot was a falcon) and nothing to do with student council. I spent all afternoon and night on that poster, way more time than on my speech.
The next day, I stood up in front of the class, put my giant poster on the blackboard, and stuttered my way through my speech in front of 20-30 peers. I have no recollection of what I said. All I remember is the Q and A segment.
“Did you draw that poster yourself, or did your parents do it?”
“I drew it,” I answered.
I won the vote by a landslide.
* * * Consequences * * *
I could go on to share how I was the worst student council representative to ever hold the position, but instead, I will share the consequence to accidentally winning.
You see, no one told me one giant responsibility of all student council members was to dance with another member from stu-co in front of the whole middle school.
Student council had to introduce “slow dancing is cool” and break the ice at the first junior high dance.
Makes sense, right? Student council is a popularity contest, so have the cool kids lead the first dance. But I wasn’t cool. I was the dork who drew a poster of a tiger.
Poor, Megan Andrus.
Megan was the girl who had to dance with me in front of the entire middle school.
I almost didn’t go out there.
A group of boys grabbed me, pushed me out into the center of the gymnasium, and then pointed and laughed as Megan and I danced to Bryan Adam’s “Everything I Do” along with the rest of student council in pairs.
I regretted drawing that damn poster for 4 minutes and 17.
(Fun fact: Megan went on to become a model in California.)
* * * Dancing with Music Decisions * * *
Shortly after this cripplingly embarrassing experience, I decided to play guitar. And many years later, I decided to perform songs in front of people.
Throughout my music career, many people have told me try out for American Idol or the Voice. I’ve always struggled to come up with an answer why I won’t do this.
One reason is I feel like I’m a limited singer who simply loves to write songs.
Thinking back to seventh grade, I think I’ve found another answer: What if I actually fooled the judges and had to go on TV?
There are always consequences to accidentally winning, and I’d rather not be pushed into the center of the gymnasium, again.
* * *
(I was inspired to share this after reading Seth Godin’s blog today, and Amy Petty’s blog last year.)
Quick snapshot about expense of college education:
Jack Lessenberry wrote about the costs of education in Michigan today, and he points out an obvious problem facing so many of us now-a-days.
Lessenberry states, “Recently I found an old tuition receipt from my graduate school days at Michigan in 1978. I was enrolled for nine credits, and paid $554. That’s about $2,000 in today’s money – still far less than today’s students pay.”
I’d like to point out how that’s less money than what a teacher will most likely pay to renew his or her certificate to keep their job.
(That’s six credit hours, or a combination of earned hours of SCECHs (30 SCECH hours = 1 credit), by the way.)
And what about those young teachers at schools where they are working without a contract and there is no pay raises offered?
I was recently chatting Joe Hertler, musician and recent CMU graduate in education, at the Folk the Police concert last week. He said, “Student loans, it’s scary to think if they are even worth it.”
We need to do something able this problem as a state and country.
I have a good job in a field related to my degree – and I still sometimes feel that student loans make college almost not worth it.
— Joe Hertler (@joehertler) January 22, 2014
