Your stuff is weird
Your stuff is weird
I vividly remember my first acceptance letter—yes a letter, before the email age—I originally took offence to that today brings a smile to my face. I was at university, studying Old English, the Classics, Modernism, and trying my hand at poetry and the occasional short story. Finally, one glorious day, I received my first acceptance; a magazine would be putting my words to paper, for everyone to read. After the initial We are happy to inform you, I came to the line that gave me pause: “Your writing is so weird, so complicated, you must know what you are doing.” What was that supposed to mean? Had I, with my potential lack of brilliance, baffled them with bullshit*?
My first taste of imposter syndrome
Was I a writer or had I hoodwinked the editors of the publication? Would casual readers feel the same way? The comment tarnished the experience of “getting published.” That feeling eventually evaporated when I held the physical object in my hands, thumbing through the pages to find my poem. Evidently it didn’t totally evaporate since I still think about it.
Weird & complicated is good
Looking back, I now take pride in that comment, especially in this age of boring, repetitive slop. Yeah it was weird, and yeah it was complicated, but more importantly, hell yeah I knew what I was doing. There were layers, subtleties, connections that maybe one or two percent of the readers caught; but it was mine, and it sounded like me. Sure my style has changed over time, but my ethos hasn’t. Literature, poetry, art should be challenging, different, complex. If the creator knows what he or she is doing, and a few astute readers or observers get the point, I call it a success.
There is a place for escapist books and easy summer reads, but there should always be a place for the weird, complicated stuff. Without it, the artist and the writer stagnate while the viewer and reader get bored, and dumber, more susceptible to the barrage of easy, simple slop that echoes all around.
* Attributed to W C Fields
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