Creative Writing's a Beach(ball)

Beachballs and creative writing have a lot in common . You can shove a beachball underwater — out of sight, out of mind — but it will inevitably escape its watery dungeon and shatter the water’s surface like a breaching humpback whale.

I wish I’d kept my first rejection letter. Among writers, that’s like framing your first earned dollar bill. But no, the letter threw me into the depths of a teenaged writer funk. My writing career was over ... why would I keep the letter?

Hey, I was thirteen years old at the time. Puberty is notable for a couple of things: (a) myopic self-absorption and (b) less-than-stellar  thinking skills.

The letter was a gem, too: photocopied crooked on a machine low on ink. I suspect the editor’s signature may have been photocopied, as well. A keep-sake if there ever was one — on so many levels. Alas.

I started high school a year later. Despite the Department of Education’s cruel practice of adding Grade 13 to the mind-numbing purgatory known as high school, there were exactly zero — ZERO — classes offered in creative writing. So, after a dubious attempt at one (1) short story in grade nine, my only notable output during five years of high school was a single haiku:

School really bugs me
My freakin’ English teacher
Makes me write haikus

(My teacher laughed out loud and gave me an “A.”)

After high school, I enrolled in a Radio, Television, and Journalism (RTJ) program at college, but not for journalism. I went there with a vague idea of emulating WKRP’s Dr. Johnny Fever, and I had a blast as a DJ on our college radio station. The television courses were fascinating; I enjoyed the  technical director role in the production control room.

The creative writing beachball remained incarcerated in Davy Jones’ locker — I submitted weekly articles to the college paper only because I had to.

Yet despite my lack of interest and work ethic (compared to my radio & television classes), guess where my best marks kept showing up? I felt like Lady MacBeth: “Out, damned spot beachball! Out, I say!”

Fast forward a couple of years, to a different college in a different province. Without planning to, guess who ends up writing an article or two for the college paper? And the following year, becomes the editor?

You’d think the sight of a neon-colored beachball punching its way to the surface — repeatedly — would qualify as a “sign” of some kind. And yet, after graduation, I managed to submerge the beachball again.

Looking back, it’s both fascinating and a little disturbing to realize how much influence my first rejection letter continued to have on me.

Years later, the beachball resurfaced with a splash when I began blogging. Things went well for the first little while — I was even “discovered” and signed a book-publishing contract. Then the marketing department torpedoed my book, and my blogging audience tapered off shortly after.

That was it. Beachball malevolently spiked by a lawn dart dropped from orbit.

In hindsight, I should’ve recognized the symmetry between my original rejection letter and this latest set-back. But I was again in a writer-blocked funk. I tossed the deflated beachball into a pile of rotting kelp, to be carried away by the cold and heartless tide.

Fast forward to 2012: Another unexpected beachball ambush explodes to the surface, like a saltwater slap in the face. And this time — despite my fears, insecurities, and that nagging voice in the back of my head — I surrendered. And I’ve been writing ever since.

Your gift may not be creative writing. But if there’s a beachball of creativity/passion that you keep squelching because of (fill in blank as needed), take it from me:

Give up. Surrender. Embrace it. Don’t fight the beachball. It’s relentless and will not be silenced.

And should I ever miraculously find my first rejection letter ... I'll pin it above my writing desk and use it as a dartboard.

Write on.