la_marquise | The confidence trick: skiing and writing

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The confidence trick: skiing and writing

So, I'm most of the way up a French mountain, watching the cloud come down and the wind make waves in the snow, and I'm thinking about confidence and courage and technique. We're here, the marquis and me, to ski, but I am not skiing: I'm here in the hotel room with my tablet while the marquis skis out there in the wind and cloud.

Because for me, skiing is all about confidence and courage and, yes, technique. I'm an okay skier. I'll never be good: I started too late and I don't ski regularly enough and I don't have the confidence and only sometimes the courage. The marquis, who *is* a good skier, says I have the technique to cope with most of the conditions I might meet. Several ski instructors have said the same. But the thing is, I don't believe them. I've skied steep runs and icy ones, moguls and unpisted runs; in mist and thick cloud, in strong winds and in snowstorms, in flat light and, once, in almost no light at all. I've skied narrow tracks which are full of people. I've found myself alone on steeps and bumps and coped because I had to.

None of that killed me. None of that left me with anything worse than bruising (so far, touch wood). In that sense, I suppose the marquis is right: I have the technique I need. But the thing is, you see, I don't do any of these things perfectly -- and if I'm not perfect, then my head knmows for certain sure that I am not good enough, insufficient, wrong and not allowed.

And then there's other people. Ski runs are full of other people. The rule of the piste is that you look out for and ski to avoid worrying, inconveniencing or harming those who are downslope of you. Those who are upslope are not your responsibility. But I can't make myself believe that. I have to be the perfect skier to avoid inconveniencing anybody, up- or downslope. I have to be neat. I have to ski well enough so as not to cause the marquis to be ashamed of me and not to look too stupid in front of others. I have to be perfect in order to avoid causing harm, or doing wrong. And in my head, any failure of perfection is a potential wrong.

Writing is the same. In my head, always, there is a perfect book, the book of my dreams, the book I am writing towards, reaching towards, hoping to write. It's shaped just right: it says and does all the things I want to say in precisely the right way. It feels right -- and feel is a big thing for me in writing. If the words on the screen, the paper, give me that same tingle I get from my favourite parts of my favourite, most-admired books (the 'Place Royale chapter in Vingt Ans Apres; the death of Porthos; the end of Dying of the Light or of Ancient Light), then I know I've got it right. But it almost never happens. Like skiing, most of the time, the words -- the turns -- are not-quite-there, not shapely enough, not neat enough, not perfect. And the book -- or the properly skied challenging run -- remains something that, in my head, I essentially failed at.

And then, when it comes down to it, people do judge. And -- in the case of published work, at least -- that's fair enough. It's irritating and sometimes hurtful when strangers call out comments about my skiing (or my face or clothes or age or body). Reviews are fair game. But the art is avoiding inintended harm. One reviewer labelled Gracielis a Mary Sue, which irritated me, because a) how to suppress women's writing 101 and b) hello, reviewer, *Thierry* is my darling. Another however noted that in , the womenn suffer more than the men. I hadn't noticed that nor intended it, but the culture that made me taught me that women with power are at greater risk and I reproduced that. Right until the point where I started writing in the hope I might produce something publishable, I had always written female characters as the main protagonist. But first Valdarrien (in a drawer) and then Ghosts placed men at the centre. Aude was harder to write than either Valdin or Gracielis, because with every page I was fighting the script that told me she didn't belong in the limelight. (Aude herself disagrees profoundly with this statement.) Women's writing is policed and judged at every turn, and the definitions of perfection change all the time, vary between cultures -- but women, in particular, seem sometimes to be expected to satisfy everyone while simultaneously removing themselves from sight and hearing because public writing space remains gendered mostly male and women's work is inferior, imitative, irrelevant and, of course, much more likely to be failed and broken and evil. It would take a perfect writer to avoid that -- and I am not, never will be, a perfect writer. And then, this kind of perfection -- the perfection that satisfies others, avoids harm, does not take up space etc etc -- is closer in type to that perfect skier I cannot be than the author of the perfect book I sometimes glimpse. The perfect book is in my head, after all, but these other perfections are all about the needs and wants and demands and angers of others.

All this is, frankly, a pain in the rear. The marquis doesn't expect perfection and I've only met one ski instructor who did (and he was more interested in lunch than teaching anyway). Those upslope skiers have other things on their mind. I know perfectionism is a bad habit. But I can't break it. I can't break it because I have never yet in all my too many years managed to work out how I can possibly ever allow myself to be good enough, imperfect, without that being deadly wrong. (And it does sometimes feel like it's about life and death.)

I don't have these standards for others. Other people are allowed, most definitely, to be good enough. They can be rubbish, if they want (they usually don't). It's only me. And mostly, it's so that I won't be in the way, inconvenient, in someone else's light.

I'm told, over and over, the trick is to be more confident. That solves everything, it seems. A confident skier says, 'I have the technique, I can handle these conditions.' A confident writer says... Well, they say something. It just that, well....

What do people mean? What is confidence, anyway and where is the border with entitlement? And if I'm supposed to be confident for my own good, how come the request that I be so is so often phrased in ways that suggest it's really all about others. "You need to be more confident. It makes the department look bad." "Your underconfidence is really annoying." "Why can't you be more confident, then, if you don't like it when you get overlooked?"

And if I do speak up, things are inclined to fall (metaphorically) on my head. If I was perfect, presumably, they wouldn't fall; I'd have done confidence right and all would be well. I might never reach the perfect book (I don't think that's possible) but I might get to be that good enough skier who wasn't inconveniencing *everyone* just by being there and feel permitted to write without too mkuch fear.

But confidence, like perfection, is just out of reach.

SKirt of the day -- blue wedgwood (of course a skirt has come with me.)

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*grins* I like this one. It's not something I always do but sometimes I recognise that worrying about what something will be like is stopping me doing it, and the size of the fear gets somewhat reduced even by noticing it's that type of fail, and then it's probably only a matter of time until I go 'right, then,' and have a go at it. (A few weeks ago I even wrote myself a list of some things where I could see that fear of doing them was getting in my way, complete with scariness scores from 1 to 10, and I've now gone and done at least half of them, I think. And absolutely none of them were as bad in practice as they seemed in my head beforehand.)

I did it once. I fell into a snowdrift and couldn't get out.

Snowdrifts are, of course, the nesting sites of snow hedgehogs, which like to grab passng skiers using their spines.

I think you're just very much more honest than most of us about fear, and I envy that strength. Speaking as one of life's natural cowardly kittens, I think 'confidence' is doing the same job as make up: a very useful veneer that helps negotiate an unforgiving world. Having spent 5 years of my life in a state of acute dread, I can testify that nothing but nothing feels more horrible than fear. Better to squeeze it up small and keep smiling I guess. It works ok(ish) dealing with people (people are so bloody scary!) but I've never managed so well with the physical terrors you describe, which is why you're still skiing in middle age :) and I've not even had the guts to try it once. :( I've only faced down a physical terror once, and then only because the alternative was something worse. (so definitely doesnt count!). I think you do bloody well actually - still skiing and still (thankfully!) writing. And a really good post btw, it resonates. Thank you.

The main reason is that I think perfection is dull, and makes people dislike you.

There's a video by Ze Frank called "An Invocation for Beginnings," which is one of the few motivational things I've ever found actually, y'know, motivational. One of the memorable lines from it goes something like: "Perfection may look good in his shiny shoes, but he's a bit of an asshole and nobody invites him to their pool parties."

Confidence is also something I struggle with, personally. I've had good results in creating things despite the fear of not being good enough by being very angry and determined at it. Just going "I will write my [number] of words/draw my one-thing-with-colour today, even if it's all crap, even if it kills me, end if it kills me it will be a good death and damn all y'all who think differently".

Thanks for writing that.

I don't know what confidence feels like, but I know it when I see it in others. I think the smackdowns for women of a certain age and older are so ingrained that confidence feels like danger, as in what my dad said before he got the belt out, "You're cruisin' for a bruisin--and proved it to be true.

And then there are the snow snakes, which hang out in corn snow and mashed potato snow.

For me when it comes to skiing, the fitter I am and the better my boots fit, the more confident I am. Also helps how crazy stressed I am as I'll take more risks when under stress in real life (gee, just like my character Melanie, can we say partial "Mary Sue"?). These days I'm a bit timid. In fact, we've not gone up at all this year because Mt. Hood is very short of snow and neither of us cares to ski on less than five feet of snow.

But. Fear is a very healthy emotion when used appropriately. It can paralyze, or it can energize, depending on how the emotion is directed. Given the conditions cited, I think you're well within reason to say "nope, not in my comfort level."

On the writing front, the only way I can get around perfectionistic fear is to daily throttle my critical editor voice when working in first draft. And the other piece is that I have to say to myself "I'm just telling a story, just telling a story..."

I know I am a good writer. Great? Probably not. But I'm working at it, and I view it as a work in progress. I think going to a couple of horse shows actually helped me develop a sense of perspective about my writing. A lot of horse show classes are subjective, and many times I won't place despite the two of us doing well, because we aren't what the judge wants to place. However, when we get a judge who trends toward the particular subtype of Quarter Horse my mare is, we do well. I've decided that selling writing is like that, and no matter what, I'm gonna go out there on either the horse show front or the writing front and do my best. It's all I can do, and if it doesn't appeal to that particular audience? Well, perhaps another time.

(note, I say this as a hybrid author type who is still building an audience)

I have that need to be perfect, too. One thing I discovered not too long ago though, is if I trust my inner writer, then more things will appear in my work than my conscious mind planned. The work won't be perfect, but it will be a heck more interesting. These days I work towards perfection and do what I can, but I also cede control when it's time. It's harder to tart a work now, but when I've started, the whole process is far less worrying.

Once I was called "More aggressive than Napoleon" because I wasn't backing down all the time in polite discussions.

All I know is you DO ski and you DO write. To me, both of those are impressive things that I don't manage to do at all.

Don't let the pressure to be perfect stop you! On the other hand, I think there's also a lot to be said for allowing yourself to decide when you feel confident enough to enjoy it and when you're rather do something else.

For what it's worth, I tried to learn downhill skiing as an adult and never mastered it. So while you may be judging yourself by the runs you don't take, I look at you and am impressed that you do it at all.

I wish that confidence was something tangible, something that could be passed along like a magic wand or a bottle of the good stuff. There are days when I have trouble believing in my own writing, but I believe in you, and would cheerfully send a box of confidence that you could use to banish your self doubts.

Headdesk.

Snow snakes are evil!
I don't know if I'm a good writer or not: it always seems rather pushy of me to claim so, while at the same time there are things about how I write that I do rather like. I'm glad you can view yourself that way: that seems like a very positive place to be in (*and of course, you *are* a good writer -- but feeling allowed to say it is another matter.)

Yes, that's a good strategy. I can do it for some things -- like skiing (the knowledge that you are going to have to get down somehow does help, there) but not with everything.

Oh, you are so right about that -- there are many different perfections depending on viewpoint!
You are dead right about the book, too!

:-)
I shjall look for that: thank you.

Now me, I'm impressed by cross country skiers. How do you balance on such narrow skis? And getg uphill without sliding backwards?
I was lucky with the books, in that Sheila thought they were good enough to puiblish, and supportive friends like Lisanne Norman and Ian Watson and Geoff Ryman encouraged me to try and sell my work. I don;t know if I'd been brave enough without them.

Oh, I so hear you on the being looked at thing. Apart from academic stuff -- I have a persona for that and I know I know my material -- I shudder from being looked at.
I think of you as incredibly brave. Your ability and willingness to do really scary things -- MMA! Maths degree! astounds me, and you are so honest and opne in your writing, too.
And yes on thin sklns. Being an 'author' -- where that is the public person whose work is, rightly, examined and critiqued -- and being a writer -- meaning the person who stares at a keyboard and writes about imagined lives -- are almost antithetical in some ways.

Oh, yes on that alternate world.
Or at least that there was some kind of demon net we could drape over our notebooks and computers to keep the writing demons out.
I think you're right about bluff, too. I'm just not very good at it and I tend to assume everyone can see that.

Oh, yes! I empathjise. It's a trap and a very hurtful one. I keep a toy shark over my desk whose job is to bite the writing demons for me: I find this works quite well at least some of the time. Someone I knmow has a tiara which she puts on when she wants to tell herself that she's doing well, and she says it's very construcitve for her. Good wishes!

I figure one doesn't earn a Writers of the Future SemiFinalist placement their first time out by writing junk. ;-) And to why I've never gotten higher...I decided I could not support Scientology any further. But I've been part of anthologies up for awards so even if I'm the crappiest writer in the book...still makes me think I'm semi-decent, at least. Plus I've gotten praise from editors who've bought my work within the editing process, so that's worth something.

However, I'm also adopting Margaret Mead's attitude toward cronehood and embracing the crone in me--which means I feel confident enough to say "yes, I am a good writer." At the very least, I am a workmanlike, competent writer, and that's good enough to be a good writer in my book. Again, good but maybe not great. Though I'm not done growing as a writer yet.

Weirdly, I'm better at dealing with real world, now-this-minute fears -- like steep skli slopes, or dentists or first day in a new job -- than I am with the nebulous ones, like 'what if someone is hurt by my writing' or 'if the plane is late will people be angry'. The former *have* to be faced; the latter are in the realm of magical thinking -- I should have been able to avoid them by being a better person or some such.
I'm sorry you had those 5 years: I hope they're over now.

I like that strategy! That's very constructivbe and imaginative. I worry about being angry, but really it can be a positive and useful emotion sometimes.

Oh, yes, absolutely this. In all details.

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