Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive

Get That Look Off Your Face

Get That Look Off Your Face When I was growing up, my parents had no tolerance for whining or selfabsorption , which I think was the main reason I felt put out much of the time. How could I appreciate an otherwise happy childhood when the world did not always revolve around me? As a result, I spent much of my youth moping and preoccupied with my own sorry circumstances, though I knew better than to voice my bad attitude aloud. My mother wasn’t fooled by my stoic silence. “Get that look off your face,” she would always be telling me. Fast-forward to a few months ago. I received a phone call from a retired surgeon in his early seventies, who invited me to lunch at a swanky, historical inn. He had just finished writing a memoir, and his wife had heard from someone in their senior housing community that I taught writing workshops and had recently had a book published. This gentleman wanted my advice about getting published, a subject I am asked about on a regular basis—which seems strange to me because I still see myself as a desperate wannabe. My advice on how to get published? Get a New York City phone book; get a copy of Writer’s Market; and prepare to feel like Joan Crawford’s adopted daughter in Mommy Dearest every time you check the mailbox— “No more wire hangers! No more wire hangers!” The gentleman and I met at the swanky, historical inn, wonderfully genteel with its sun-faded, floral wallpaper, white tablecloths laden with delicate china, and a preponderance of diners of a certain age sporting tweed jackets and pocketbooks with clasps. My host, whose handsome, surgeon hands still looked capable of massaging a human heart back to life, invited me to start the meal with a glass of wine. Who was I to argue? Here was an alternate universe, far removed from my own reality at home all day, writing in my holey jeans, lunching on Lean Pockets, just me and my beloved seventeen-year-old dog, her bony back curled against the roller of my office chair. Looking at the elegantly etched faces all around me in this lovely dining room, it occurred to me that I needed to get out more, or at least make more money so I could save up for a facelift. Over crab cakes, the gentleman asked me about my writing and my life. As usual when I am talking about myself, the time passed quickly and pleasantly. Late in the meal, however, the conversation turned to his memoir , which he told me he had been urged to write by his wife and several of his friends. I have noticed that memoirists do this a lot; they bring up the fact that someone else was behind their decision to write their personal story, as if they need second-party validation to justify a book about their lives. “I think everyone should write a memoir,” I reassured him sincerely. “Lots of them in fact.” That last remark might have been the wine talking, but I really do believe that every person has memories worth chronicling and sharing. Memoirs only disappoint because of how they are rendered, not because the writer isn’t a worthy subject. “No, I’m sorry, your life doesn’t qualify for a memoir. Now, if you had been a geisha or a superhero . . . Next!” I asked the gentleman if he had started looking for an agent, remembering that the purpose of this lunch was to talk about publishing. “I’ve done a bit of research,” he said, dismissing his efforts with a shrug. “The ideal agent is a compassionate barracuda,” I announced, borrowing this phrase from one of my successful novelist friends. I wasn’t sure this observation qualified as useful advice, but I have always liked saying it and pretending it was my own. “Actually, I’m not really interested in agents or publishers at the moment ,” the gentleman confessed, after the waitress had removed our empty plates and refilled our coffee. “I’ve been toiling alone on this memoir for two years now, and what I really want is an outside perspective. I was wondering ,” he paused to take a sip of his decaf, and I thought I noted a slight tremor in his steady, surgeon’s hands, “if you might possibly consider reading the book and offering me some feedback?” Oh...