One Foot Out the Door . . . a cautious guide to commitment

The Discomfort of Success

Last week a very welcome letter came in the mail: “I am pleased to announce that you have been nominated by a member or members of our Board of Contributing Editors for Pushcart Prize XXXV: Best of the Small Presses, to be published in November 2010.

Wow! Achievement of the next milestone, I thought. I let that sink in—for about five minutes. Then came the questions, the doubts, the take-aways. (If you’re a writer, you know what I mean.) Then I picked up Pushcart XXXIV and read Kim Addonizio’s personal essay, “How to Succeed at Po Biz,” recounting the glamorous (tongue in cheek) steps to fame in my chosen field. (Her book, Tell Me, was a finalist for the National Book Award.) It was gratifying to read this particular “step:”

“Feel anxious because you are basically a private person and can’t live up to the persona that is floating out there in the world acting tougher and braver than you. You are a writer, after all, and prefer to be alone in your own house with your cat.”

That’s what a persona does—it stands in for the writer and allows her to become a character in her first person story. My persona may seem a lot like me, but not completely. Every successful first person writer creates a persona, from Charles Bukowski to Frank O’Hara to Anne Carson to Mary Karr.

A few months ago, an acquaintance read my blog and reported back that I am different here than on email or in person. Ah hah! Success, I thought. I’m doing it! Building a small space between the personal me and the “me” for public consumption.

posted by Karen @ 11:04 PM