On Self-Flagellation

I’ve been doing a lot of running and cycling recently, writer-friends. (That, incidentally, is a partial explanation for the lack o’ activity on the ol’ blog, but we’ll leave that alone for the time being.) Why have I been doing this, you may ask? Well...I’ll try and unpack that for you, eh?

Sure, there’s the fact that it’s simply beneficial for my health. It feels good to be able to drop a 5k run or 20 mile bike ride on any given day. But, as with most things when it comes to my psychology, it’s not that simple.

So let’s talk body image, shall we? Yup, I’m going there. Y’know this constant bombardment we’re all subjected to from TV, movies, the internet, and magazines? Those oft-photoshopped images of bodily perfection? Well, you ladies in my readership may or may not know this, but we men are susceptible to their influence too. (Some of us, anyway.) How can we not judge ourselves when the covers of men’s magazines all too often promise the secret to chiseled abs and a sculpted body, as if that were the sole measure of masculine worth?

Also, I’m getting old. Yeah, sure, 35 isn’t old, per se, but it’s moving in that direction. Every trip to the hairdresser shows the years in the sprinkle of grey on the black plastic shawl. If I train hard enough, drive my body mercilessly enough, can I defy time for a while?

On an intellectual level, I can see these hidden motivators, and even understand the unhealthy thought processes that feed them. Yet they’re still powerful.

And I think many of us do the same kind of thing with writing.

We make unrealistic comparisons (OMG, I just finished Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, and how much do I suck!?); we buy the media’s messages about our work (OMG, I heard vampires are SO last year! Why am I writing UF anyway? Every agent I query’s going to personally come my house and punch me in the kidney!); and we—even those of us who’ve been at it a while—often receive critiques of our work as though each flaw in our manuscripts is indicative of deep flaws in us as human beings.

We intellectually understand that these attitudes are both wrongheaded and unhelpful, yet they still hold power.

Yes, exercise is healthy, but six-pack abs and triathlon-caliber cardio fitness won’t make me happy in the long run if those are my primary criteria for self-worth. Similarly, an agent, a publisher, and a six-figure book deal (ha!) won’t buy me long-term satisfaction either, because that public...she’s awfully fickle; heartbreak’s only a single failed book away.

Ultimately, a balanced perspective is healthiest. Exercise for fitness, but don’t judge yourself according to the impossible standards beamed into your brain by the media. Write because you love it, but don’t “mount your merit on the masses” (as J.S. Chancellor says, and Michelle Davidson Argyle likes to quote).

I’m still going for a bike ride tomorrow morning, though. >.>

(What? I never said I was consistent....)

(Also, do as I say, not as I do.)

(Now where’s my vodka?)