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I was thinking a couple of days ago about my various experiences of writing, and my mind uncorked a long-buried memory from the back of my mind. I may not have all the details straight, but this is the gist of it:

I was in school (not sure what grade), and my class was given a homework assignment (or maybe extra credit)–to write a play about Paul Revere’s ride at the Battle of Lexington and Concord. This particular class was where I had fallen in love with history to the same degree that I was in love with writing, and now I had a chance to combine the two! I couldn’t pass this opportunity up.

I remember coming to the assignment with the utmost seriousness. I wanted it to be as accurate and honest as I could make it from the version of the story presented to me in my class history book–I populated the play with farmers, churchmen, soldiers, and Quakers. I had Paul Revere complaining to his horse about the weather and about being tired and about how he hoped he didn’t get saddle sore. I went all out.

So the due date came, and I turned in my play. I seem to remember only one other girl did a play as well. My teacher decided to have the class read both the plays and hold a vote for who the class thought had the best one. So she called on people to read mine aloud first, then the other girl’s.

The other girl had not taken the pains to be historically correct. The characters were all named after her friends in the class. The narrative didn’t have much to do with the American Revolution at all.

But the girl was popular. And she had name-checked most of the other people in the class. I had a sinking feeling as I heard the class talking among themselves how much they liked hers more then mine. I just sat in my desk and started at the floor. The teacher had us vote with a show of hands. I held up my hand for mine and didn’t even look up to see if anyone else did. The silly play won.

I was left with this takeaway: my play had lost because I was the one who wrote it.

Silly, yes. Naive, a bit. But anyone who has spent time in writing spaces has seen this happen before, even among grownups. Literary merit doesn’t always bring success to the creator.

However.

My mistake was to turn this incident into a flat statement about my abilities: That my work could never be “good enough” because I would never be “good enough” because I was too smart, too show-offish, too unattractive, too too too–whatever.

My work is as good as it needs to be. And the more I work, the better it will get with practice. And the more persistent I am, the more opportunity I can create for myself and my work. That’s the bottom line.