Courage Is Not the Absence of Cringe, but Feeling the Cringe and Doing It Anyway

Or: The Only Thing We Have to Cringe About Is Cringe Itself

You know what’s really cringe? Taking headshots in public!

I have a bad habit of making myself the exception to my own adamant compassion. If you’ve read Navel Gazing,¹ you might have seen this with my attitude around body size: everyone else who’s fat is worthy and good and even attractive – just not me. And I’m afraid I do the same thing with publishing. I genuinely believe that a writer is not defined by how much approval she’s gained by industry benchmarks like traditional book deals, big-name bylines, and fancy awards. A writer is defined only by her work, and how worthy that work is is defined individually and anew by each subsequent reader, so one reader’s love of a book doesn’t preclude another’s dislike, and vice versa.

Except when it comes to me.

For me, not landing a traditional – or even small press – contract for my second memoir is black mark on my career. A reason to feel inadequate, to wonder if I should really be teaching people about writing and publishing, or if I should just give in to the corporate grind and never set foot in the creative world again. It means I’m a failure, and worse, I can’t even accept my failure and move on; I just keep trying and trying, first changing the title (thrice) and reframing the overall theme of the book, then pivoting to small press submissions, and now, finally, deciding to publish the book myself.²

Yes, you read that correctly: I’m taking my own advice, as terrifying as it is, and believing in my writing. Even when all the powers that be have chosen not to believe in it (or have ‘loved it, but don’t know how to package it’).

God, I need a shower to get off all this cringe.

But you know what? Vulnerability is my whole game. So why not add this to the pile: I've written and rewritten and read and re-read my second memoir so many times, and every time I'm pleasantly surprised by how good it is. I think it's a really good book. There, I said it. And while I now want to crawl into a hole and die in anticipation of people jumping up to disagree, I'm going to do something brave instead: I'm going to prove my self-belief by investing more than blood, sweat, and tears into my own writing career. I’m investing my own self-image, tossing aside my preference for ‘aw shucks’ and ‘you don’t need to buy it!’ in exchange for raw, uncomfortable self-promotion. I hate it already and I’ve barely started, but in order to keep going I’m trying to dissociate, to pretend I’m shilling someone else’s memoir, just spreading the word about a book I happen to really love, on behalf of an author I think deserves my support.

How could I not want to support her?? Look at those adorable smile lines!

I’m investing money, too – plenty of money – to make sure that the end product is just as polished and sits just as beautifully on a shelf as its traditionally-produced counterparts. Maybe even more so, since I’ll have direct control over things like the cover image and jacket copy. I’ve had new headshots taken (you’ve seen a couple but there are SO MANY), and I’ve also hired a crack team, an editor and a messaging/PR/get-the-word-out guru. Every time I communicate with either of these women I’m more convinced that I made the right choice, that they can help me make this book into its best self. Plus, paying them keeps me accountable to myself; I don’t want to waste their time and my own money by being shy about promoting this book, the way I was (and have always regretted being) with Navel Gazing. If any potential readers think I’m too immodest and get turned off, I can survive that. What I won’t survive is another decade of regret at having let myself down.

So, to bring it back around to the title of this post, I’m determined to push through my fear of being ‘cringe’ or showing pride in my work. After all, I don’t believe in an afterlife, which means this is all I get – how sad would it be if I spent my one wild and precious life waiting for someone else to tell people about my writing?

A Random Joy

Look, life has been hectic lately, what with losing my voice and reworking my manuscript for the umpteenth time while simultaneously juggling a big birthday and lots of family visits (oh, and my day job), but it’s also been full of good things, when I have the wherewithall to notice them. Safe bets for joy are always my husband and kid, especially when they’re being silly together, but last week I got to experience a much less common joy: a date with my husband, sans kid. Our daycare offered a “parents’ night out” evening pizza party where they watched our kids for a few hours, and instead of going to a restaurant (which we would do with our son anyway) my husband and I opted to order in and watch Conclave on our new projector screen in the basement. It was almost like our movie dates in the before times, down to the red vines and me falling asleep at the very end. (Also I predicted the twist but I was sure I was joking…it was a wild moment for both of us.)

1. As part of this whole process, I’m also going to be re-releasing Navel Gazing as a US edition, so if you haven’t read it and want to, you’ll get your shot!

2. It’ll be out in 2026 – exact pub date TBD but obviously I’ll keep you posted!