Reflections On Endless Self-Promotion
Featured, The Donald Miller Syndicate — By Donald Miller on October 21, 2009 at 12:20 pm
[Editor's Note: As we were ramping up to launch Burnside, Donald Miller suggested we syndicate any of his blog posts we deemed appropriate. In all likelihood, our readership is already familiar with Don's blog, but how could we pass up that opportunity? Plus, now you can read his posts without the first sentence of each paragraph strangely bolded. (Seriously, what is the deal with that?)
Don's latest post is an reflection on memoir-writing, and the problems with self-obsession it brings. I don't think it's just memoir-writing, as I'm sure most writers deal with this on some level.]
If writing a book about writing a movie about a book you once wrote about yourself isn’t the ultimate act of narcissism, then doing a 65-city book tour promoting said book must be. I’ve never been more tired of any human being than I am of myself these last few weeks. It’s endless talk about why I wrote a book and why it’s important. Each night, I give a presentation and two days each week are filled with radio interviews in which I explain why this book matters and why people should part with twenty bucks to read it. It’s a sad existence, but the truth is, with blogs and Twitter and Facebook, it’s just a commodified life most of us are already living, which is to process our lives to be openly praised and criticized by neutral onlookers. So, why do it?
Here are a few confessions and observations and justifications regarding the act of writing about yourself:
1. Confession: There is something in me that wants to be known by others. I share my life to have other people read about it, put down the book, look me in the eye and say “you exist.”
2. Confession: Half the time, if not more than half, I am full of bullshit. I share what will make me look good. If I am vulnerable, I share just enough vulnerability to be perceived as vulnerable, rather than to actually humiliate myself so that others can talk more openly about their own insecurities. I also leak in my accomplishments, and I’ve become a master at it. I don’t even know I am doing it half the time, and the other half I strategically list my accomplishments so they come off as dismissive or “in passing.”
3. Justification: By exploring my own feelings about life, I am actually exploring the human condition, and in writing I try to find something interesting about “us” rather than “me,” and som by reading about me, people are actually reading about themselves. I believe this is actually true of the memoirist. If they really wrote all about themselves, nobody would care.
4. Justification: More people can engage a first-person narrative than a preachy sharing of principles.
5. Justification: I didn’t make myself, I’m not taking credit for my existence, so what’s the difference between talking about myself and talking about somebody else?
6. Observation: I’ve actually known a few memoirists, and I’ve found them to be very humble people. Usually. And I’ve met even more people who write preachy books, and I’ve known them to be arrogant. Maybe if they talked about themselves more, they’d realize they’re just grunts like the rest of us. Also, I think some of these people are actually afraid to have you know about their real lives.
Anyway, I will keep this list going. Feel free to include your confessions, justifications and observations as you process why you write about yourself. It’s fun to be human, I think.
8 Comments
I’ve felt so full of shit after a radio interview or speaking gig that I wanted to vomit. This is especially true if I know there’s stuff going on in my life that doesn’t line up with the image or message I present. I can be really “vulnerable” in front of a crowd, while being a self-preoccupied jerk in my personal life. And Don is right on about being just vulnerable enough. I can be self-effacing to the point where it’s funny and inspiring without making anyone too uncomfortable. I wonder what would happen if we could publish real memoirs for Christian folk, telling the truth as Anne Lamott says. Not just confessions and testimonials either, but stuff that would start an honest conversation about the human condition.
I want to talk about living in tension with all these contradictions instead of feeling like I need to suppress, confess, rationalize or justify. I don’t want to have a take home message all the time. I want to stop giving talks and begin having conversations. Maybe all of us who are sick of ourselves won’t get sick of each other. Thanks, Don, for making it a little easier for Christian folks to tell the truth, even if you are full of shit.
Touring as a memoirist is akin to living the movie Groundhog Day.You wake up and repeat the same ten lines over and over and over again. The only way to stay engaged is to realize it’s not about you — it’s about that person who is hearing the story for the first time and finds something sacred thing about themselves in your story.
But any good novelist is as equally full of dookie. That’s what enables them to do what they do, do. hehehe.
I’m still working on monetizing being full of dookie. Haven’t gotten there yet.
I have the raw resources. Can’t convert it to bling, though.
It seems everything on the web, in one form or another, is shamelessly self-promoting. Even comments in and of themselves. We’ve lost the art of expression for the sake of expression. Everything needs to be trumpeted.
Michael: Ahh..cynicism. I remember it well. Spend some time reading the blogs of breast cancer survivors or those of the men or women who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. (or of their families who are serving on the home front) Not everything on the web is shamelessly self-promoting, though agreed, there is too much of that. But there is also much art still being created for sake of self-expression.
i’m more of a blogger than a writer, the difference being that writers know how to use comma’s and stuff, but anyway:
Confession: After I post something, I embarrassingly and obsessively check my email for comments telling me how clever/cool/funny/smart/pretty/amazing/original/brave I am. (This almost never happens.)
Justification: I am desperate to hear that I am loved and that I am worthy, but mostly, that I am “normal”. And I’ve noticed a few other people are too. I write about myself because, when I really spill about my own deep-seated ridiculousness, usually somebody can relate, which fills us both up with a sense of community, or hope, or…i dunno…something good.
The truth is, your readers can relate to your bullshit…that’s why they keep reading.
Confession: I write because I’m afraid to speak.
Confession: I write to prove to the mean boys in middle school and the teachers who suggested I was too shy to get ahead in the world that I don’t buy into the lies they fed me and their system.
Confession: I seesaw between being the same insecure little girl I used to be and becoming too self-assured as a coping mechanism.
Justification: In telling my story, others may be relieved to find out they’re not alone.
Justification: Maybe someone who isn’t like me will understand people who are like me better, and learn how to treat others with more openness.
Observation: The memoir-writing trend seems to quite accurately reflect the “Me Generation” and the reign of “Trophy Kids.” By the time we’re in our 30s we already are accomplished enough and believe we have enough wisdom to write about our lives. I wonder when we have the perspective of old age, what we’ll think of our youthful memoirs.