Writing and Shame

One of the interesting points explored in Elspeth Probyn’s exploration of shame, Blush, is the connection between shame, interest, and exposure. Building upon the work of psychologist Sylvan Tomkins, Probyn looks at shame as an emotion that only arrives after an interest or joy has been activated:

When we feel shame it is because our interest has been interfered with  but not cancelled out. The body wants to continue being interested, but something happens to “incompletely reduce” that interest

Blush, 14

While it can be felt in private, it is often an inherently social phenomena as the reduction of interest is predicated on external influences demanding said interest be reduced. Probyn looks at shame as an eruption: the secret made physical through our skin and the sensations that accompany it. The body warning it cannot fit in, even though it wants too (72).

When we attempt to shame another, it is a demand they rise up and meet with the interests, ideals, and joy we feel, or that they feel lesser than us as a result. It’s why we are wary–particularly in geek circles–when someone insists we to explain our enjoyment of a show or writer, recognising the inherent threat of shaming that looms if we fail to explain our enjoyment in a way the other approves of. 

WRITING, ART, AND BIG SHAME

I’ve written about the connections between writing and shame before–the first time back in 2010, when I talked about the connection between shame, writing, and money, and more recently in 2013 when I pondered the narratives of shame that come with the gig of writing. I found myself hinting at it yesterday, talking about cohorts, and it comes up again and again when I start looking at my recurring anxieties. 

I often talk about the fear inherent in being a writer, but often it should be phrased as shame: so much of the fear is a consequence of being ashamed at what’s achieved, or more often, what is hoped for. 

It starts early, the moment you decide to start writing and the world conspires to tell you that decision is wrong. The terms by which your work will be valued are laid out for you in the rhetoric you hear as a constant refrain: There is no money in writing. Can i buy your work in a bookstore? You should try writing the next Harry Potter. Oh, what have you had published? 

It steps back further, into the myths of the muses, the belief that artists are blessed and special and ultimately not responsible for the creation of their work. That art is the result of the gods, not the work or talent of the creator, and therefore claiming the role artist is blessed and divine.

Every writer and artist I know has grappled with the consequences of those myths, consciously or not: the knowledge that their work will be devalued or written off; the assumption that success takes genius, not training and practice, and being seen as someone who works for their success is somehow undesirable. To produce art and insist it has value–particularly monetary value–is to invite the prospect of being shamed.

To make a career in art means grappling with the big sources of shame right from the beginning: to know that you are not being productive, in the capitalist sense; to fight for right to believe in your own skill and value as a practitioner.

You battle through shame to make the time to work, the courage to produce, and to make your work public. It means being judged for saying you write or produce art, without physical evidence of being the kind of genius we believe to be deserving of that role.

LITTLE SHAMES

I like to think I’ve conquered the big shames of pursuing a career in the arts, but in truth they’ve simply metastasised. Now I can point to publish work that has value, I feel shame about the quantity and quality of it, or my inability to replicate past successes with each new thing I write. 

These days, when I look at the way I’ve set up my life to focus on writing and PhD research, I feel ashamed that I have not done more with it to capitalise on the opportunity. The recurring refrain in my head is driven by should be doing:

• I should be working harder.
• I should be doing better.
• I should have more work finished and out there.
  
• I should be writing something productive, instead of this blog post.
• I should be finishing my novel; my thesis novella; my exegesis chapter; a book. 

These seem like they’re aimed at the present, but they’re not: they are driven by the shame felt about past decisions. The things I did not do yesterday (ignoring what I did do on those days), which have delivered me to a present that does not match with my hopes and dreams.

Which is where Probyn’s framing at the top of this post gets interesting. 

NOT ASHAMED, INTERESTED

I cannot change the past, nor can I achieve all the things I’m telling myself I should have in the space of the next few hours. What I can do is trace the feelings of shame back to their roots: interests that I have afforded a level of importance, which now feel like exposure because I’ve failed to meet them.

When I take my list above and reframe everything through the lens of interest, there’s an interesting lightening of the pressure: 

• I’m interested in working harder and doing better with the opportunity afforded by my PhD scholarship.
• I’m interested in getting more work finished and out there.
• I’m interested in writing something productive, but also in this phenomena I’m blogging about.
• I’m interested in finishing my novel; my thesis novella; my exegesis; a new book.

I cannot change the past to do the things shame tells me I should have done; that’s a conversation that’s predicated on failure, engendering an immediate response rooted in fear. There’s no way to be proactive with the things I should be doing. 

There are plenty of proactive decisions to be made when I think about the things that interest me–decisions that are considerably easier to get started once I no longer have to travel through time to make them.

More importantly, framing them as interest makes it get down to the core of what I want:

• I’m interested in doing good work (although the definition of good may vary from work to work).
• I’m interested in being read.
• I’m interested in making a living from my writing because that’s the reality of being a citizen in the capital-driven world, but only in as much as getting paid helps with my first two interests. 

Everything after that is really just figuring out next steps, and it’s not something I get to do once and declare success or failure.