A Place for Worth
Progress on the next Substack short story, plus the commencement of a journey of meaning.
If you write, you are a writer. That is a simple fact of life. Your name on the bookshelves of your favorite store or in an online market does not take away the fact that you are a writer if you write stories.
Yet if you ask anyone, if you ask that person in the mirror, what you’ll often come up with is someone asking, “Where can I read your work?” or “Are you published?”
Saying that you are something feels like a true statement of identity. To type the words “I am a human” and “I am a writer” is simple in its symmetry and effort. To be something is so important and valuable to our experience here.
I am a father, a husband, a writer, a brother, a son, and more.
And nowadays, the concept of worth has never been more meaningful. What will you mean to the human experience? How can you contribute to society, how can you help?
What are you worth?
Take a look at any published author on a bookshelf and know there is so much I would do to be among them. To have one book published and ready for readers, to put my name among the echelons of those other writers you may not have ever heard of…well, that’s it, isn’t it?
It’s an arbitrary one, that’s for sure. Nobody is relying on me to publish or write. Until college, when writing was what I had to do for school, I wrote in my free time. It’s similar to how things are now, except now I have the tools to understand the publishing landscape and world. Now, I’m an adult, not some kid spitting words on the page hoping it’s something someone would read.
And, for many of those years, I was isolated in that world. I didn’t know anyone else who wrote as voraciously as I did. And then school came along. Then I met others who had their own voices, dreams, and stories to tell. And the pool of writers expanded, while at the same time, I was told that not everyone could make it. And once I hopped into the social media game, I was a guppy in the ocean. And there are thousands, millions, of us, all trying to fit in the same space: a reader’s attention span. It was then that our modern society’s message finally rocked my brain:
These people, these peers, these artists…are the competition.
It’s a funny old thing, competition, in regards to creativity. We’re all making art, we’re all doing our thing, but who can do the thing that makes the money, pays the bills, and helps you dodge the cubicle? Ah, now that’s the ticket.
But only the best can get there. And you want to do this forever, right? Yeah. So you have to be the best. But those other people are doing exactly what you want to be doing. In fact, they’re doing it better than you. They’re doing it so much better than you that they’re able to make more connections and friends. Oh, look at that, you don’t have anyone to write with, and you don’t have any critique partners.
Maybe if you were a better writer you’d get there, maybe if you knew how to write you could be worth their time. Oh, right, didn’t you hear that? You’re not worth their time, and if you're not worth the time of other people in the grind just imagine what agents, editors, publishers, and the millions of readers out there will think. They won’t even know you exist. They won’t care that you call yourself a writer, because writers publish stories, and you can’t even tell someone about a story without tripping over yourself. So, if not a writer, what are you?
Why do you matter if you can’t be the thing you say you are in the eyes of the market?
Every night, I put my son to sleep. It’s a routine we’ve established: my wife takes naptime, I take bedtime. And we’ve established a good cadence (for now) for bedtime:
We brush his teeth (a WWE match) then zip him up into his sleep sack. My wife delivers him three kisses and heads out of the room as I turn the lights off. I hold him in the rocking chair for a few minutes, finally taking a moment to catch my breath while he does a few wiggles.
Then, he lurches forward, leaping up to rest his head on my shoulder. He nuzzles into my throat with his big head, ruffling his hair around, then pushes away, considers how he wants to be held, and finally tries to dive out of the chair into his crib.
“Okay, I’ll put you in your crib, little man,” I say as we stand up. “You have a good night, okay? Holler if you need me. I love you.”
I lower him in, check to make sure his pacifiers are around for him to snag when he needs them throughout the night, and head out of the room. If I’m lucky, that’ll be the end of it, and if he doesn’t get that last squeeze or cuddle he wanted, he stands up and makes a fuss until I can make it back to the room to send him off to sleep.
To be honest, I think this may be one of the most important things I do. It’s something I do every day, something I cherish. Sure, as a parent, we love to put our kids to sleep. Finally, a chance to breathe! But, as this little guy’s father, it means the world that we can spend the final minutes of our day together. I typically don’t get to see him for too long throughout the day, so it’s like this is our chance to catch up, just the two of us, after we’ve had an incredible afternoon as a family of three.
But I never consider this in any amount of worth. I consider it my responsibility, this is what I’m here on this Earth right now to do: take care of this boy. I feel the same way about being a husband, a brother, a son, etc.
And it’s not that there’s no value in these things as opposed to being a writer, because the value there is far more important than someone reading a story. It’s the value of an improved life for my loved ones, it’s the value of happiness and safety.
If I am a writer as much as I am those other things, where does this weight of worth come from?
Like any good husband should, I spoke to my wife about this. And what she said paved the way for me doing a total revision of my upcoming Substack exclusive short story, and doing that revision in one day. To paraphrase:
Reconsider where you put your worth. Not everything about writing is within your control.
So, I relieved that pressure. If I can’t publish, I’m not a worthless person. And maybe I’m not meant to be there yet.
I’ve used that phrasing as an excuse before. “I’m not ready for this, I’m not meant to be at this stage yet.” But this time, I mean it, because I’m meant to be with my family right now. I can’t just go off to a writing convention or seek out others all the time to write. I can only improve myself with the little time I have left because there’s a family that still needs me.
And if I don’t publish today, tomorrow, or next week? So what? Unless the world capsizes (not out of the question), the publishing world isn’t going anywhere. And the future of my having more time to write is not far away.
Plus, she’s totally correct about the more professional side of writing not being in my control. I can’t tell an agent to represent me, or an editor to choose my book. I can’t magically create the funds I’d need to self-publish, and regardless of the route, I can’t appear everywhere to get a potential reader’s attention. I can work toward that, but those things are always a dice roll, and the sides of the dice only increase with time. All that is in my control is writing to the best of my ability and seeing the story out to its full potential, per my estimation.
For now, I put my worth not in my work or myself but in the simple truth of my presence here. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about my writing, or that I’m not looking to be published, but that the outcome won’t batter me down. This isn’t an overnight fix, nothing as complicated as this is, but I can already feel myself on a better path forward.
Read The Quiet Ever After HERE on Inkitt!
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