Genius isn't rare

Closely allied to the question of taste is the question of genius. Taste is the ability to appreciate works of genius. But what is genius?

Most people would agree that someone who produces a work of genius is a genius. There can be no definition of literary genius that doesn't encompass Kafka, Melville, Tolstoy, and Hawthorne, for instance.

But these people are quite different. They led very different lives. Melville was antinomian—he deserted one whaling ship and led a mutiny on another. Tolstoy was a soldier and then something approaching a religious prophet. Kafka was one of these geniuses who said 'no' to life. He kept Felice Bauer dangling for years because he simply couldn’t commit to the idea of getting married and starting his life. Hawthorne, in contrast, was extremely bourgeois. He was happily married. He worked as a Customs clerk and then a diplomat.

What connects all these people? There are no similarities in their lives. The only connecting thread is that they all produced works of genius.

When I was a younger writer I used to mine the biographies of writers, looking for information about their lives, their habits, their writing routines.¹ But eventually I realized that there are no reliably-recurring elements. Geniuses wrote in a variety of ways. Some wrote very quickly, while some agonized over their work for years. Some read widely, while some read relatively little (or at least claimed to). Some worked in established traditions. Others blazed new forms.

Even the connection between worldly acclaim and genius is quite unclear. Many geniuses achieved wealth and fame. During his life, Tolstoy was widely regarded as the world's greatest writer. Dickens was the best-selling English novelist of his time. Victor Hugo was similarly popular: Les Miserables was the only 19th-century novel that outsold Uncle Tom's Cabin in France.

But other geniuses were not popular. In America we specialize in these figures: Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe were not particularly popular during their lives. The only one to achieve notable significant commercial success with a work of genius was Hawthorne, with The Scarlet Letter, but his success was minor in comparison to many other novelists working at the time.

A genius (Hawthorne) who was uncommonly fond of his wife

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Most writers want to be geniuses

We were all raised on this cult of genius. Even the writers of thrillers and young adult novels—they aspire to genius, the same as anyone else. I still aspire to genius. I still hope that someday my tales will be hailed as bold, innovative, something truly new—a rejuvenation of the short story.

I think it's good that we have this cult of genius. It's good for writers to aspire to more than merely-adequate work, and to aspire to live on after their death.

A lot of rhetoric about contemporary writing assumes that people no longer have any ambition. That people no longer want to be great.

This is not true. People still want to be great. They are still obsessed with the idea of greatness. This whole prestige economy wouldn’t exist if people didn’t hunger for greatness.

Every article about MFA programs, for instance, starts with the presupposition that these programs encourage bland careerism. But...the rhetoric within creative-writing programs isn't careerist—instead, all the talk is about potential greatness.

Courtney Sender

and I were laughing recently about how, in our graduate program, the professors always used to say "Don't worry about publication. When your work is ready, publication will come." They told us to develop our own unique voice, and to trust in that voice. The whole idea of the MFA program was that we weren't creating commercial fiction—we weren't just creating a product—we were attempting to produce something that was genuinely distinctive. And the corollary was that there existed an industry of editors, agents, critics, and writers, that was hungry for distinctive work. That if we achieved something great, then that greatness would be rewarded.

Our professors' mental model of the industry was that if you worked hard and produced something great, then editors and agents would come calling.

And that is still the model that many people in the industry are working with. If you talk to agents, talk to editors, they all say they're looking for a distinctive voice. They want to read something that makes them ‘miss their subway stop.’

To say that all these people are lying to themselves, and that in reality they don't want distinctive work—they actually want work that's plain and bland—well, it might be true, but it's not a critique that's going to resonate, because it's so very much at odds with their own conception of what they are doing.

I think it's a beautiful thing that we have a system which raises so many young writers to think that if they produce great work, then the world will come knocking. This system allows young writers to work with confidence. I don't think many people would spend five years working on a novel if they didn't think something good might happen for them at the end.

Of course everybody knows success isn't guaranteed, but, paradoxically, the low quality of the books on the shelves serves as a kind of inducement. It doesn't seem that hard to produce a book that's better than the average book. It seems like a very manageable goal.

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How to preserve your genius

At some point, most young writers will produce their masterwork. And by 'masterwork', I mean they’ll write a book they're genuinely proud of—a book that seems to come from somewhere authentic.

When you produce the book that's real and true, then I would say that this book comes from your own particular genius.²

For me, my first published book, Enter Title Here, really seemed to come from somewhere different than the three (still-unpublished) novels I'd written previously. The voice of the protagonist, Reshma, arrived one summer evening, and I lived with that voice for a few months, and then the whole book just came out of me in a rush, over the course of about 21 days.

I knew that whatever art was supposed to do, this book did. And, luckily, the book got published.

No other book has come to me as easily as Enter Title Here—which, to be clear, was my first published novel, but it was the fourth novel that I'd written, and the second novel to be sent out to publishers by my agent.³ The novel did not succeed commercially, but my faith in the book has not been shaken.

In my case, I was lucky that Enter Title Here came to me in a superficially-salable form: the contemporary YA novel. At the time Gossip Girl was popular, so it was reasonable to believe that a novel about a rich, conniving girl might do well in the marketplace, which is why the publishers of young adult novels were willing to publish my book. They thought it was plausible that this book would succeed.

After Enter Title Here, the same thing happened again. I sat down and, in a rush of feeling, wrote a 9,000 word beginning to a new novel, about a girl who had a crush on all three of the guys in her weekly D&D game. I knew instantly that this book was something special, because it was told in a brisk, fast-paced way that was distinctly different from anything else I’d seen.

I had a two-book deal with my publisher—they were on the hook to publish another novel by me—so I sent them this fragment. And…they turned it down. They did not want another protagonist who was difficult and unrelatable, like the protagonist of my first book.

That’s when I learned you can feel like a book is completely right, but the internal rightness of a project is often not apparent to people in the industry. Indeed, part of my cynicism about the industry comes from my first agent and editor, who, during the long process of attempting to fulfill the second book on this contract, would always say, “Don’t give us the book you think we want; give us the book you really need to write.” But I had attempted to do that, and they had rejected it.

Over time, I learned how to produce books that were both artistically successful and commercially viable. None of these books came to me with that rush of fluency that I experienced from Enter Title Here, but…I’ve realized that this fluency, this divine inspiration, is only possible if you think it might actually be rewarded. If you don’t believe that, then you learn to distrust it, and the channel slowly closes. Luckily, you don’t need this kind of inspiration to write a salable book.

It was only when I started writing my tales last summer that I experienced that sense of magic again. And this time I knew enough to protect it. I knew that if I subjected that inspiration to the traditional channels—journal editors—and sat around waiting for their approval, then eventually I would lose that living connection to this inspiration. I would poison it for myself, just like I’d poisoned the inspiration that’d given me Enter Title Here.

I won’t make high claims for all my tales, but with some minority of these stories, I've had that feeling that the story arrived of its own accord, and that it was delivered to me complete and perfect.

My most important duty, as a writer, is to preserve whatever genius created Enter Title Here and my tales. Although my other work was good and certainly deserved to exist, my best work feels like it’s on a completely different level. I honestly feel quite lucky that this genius came back to me. Most writers, when they lose that living connection to their genius, find that it never comes back. You keep writing, because it’s what you know how to do, and you convince yourself that the work is good, but you forget that unearthly power that it’s possible for your work to have.

Most importantly, I’ve realized that this genius doesn’t necessarily get rewarded. I’m lucky in that I've had good experiences when it comes to the reception of my own writing. Enter Title Here sold at auction. I had the experience of producing something I knew was special and seeing that specialness get rewarded. Similarly, some of my very first tales went viral on Substack—it's extremely rare for a story to go viral, and I knew that I had bottled something. That my tales were doing something that resonated with at least some subset of readers.

But my first novel, Enter Title Here, also underperformed both commercially and critically. And that 9,000 word fragment was turned down by my editor. And I’ve also had plenty of tales get rejected in the last year by journal editors. I know that just because something feels good and perfect, that doesn’t mean it’ll succeed in the marketplace.

I really feel my job, as a writer, doesn’t end with the writing of the novel or the story. My job is to make sure that the work is published in some form. The writing is the easy part. The writing is free. The writing comes unbidden, as a gift, from the divine. What is difficult is to be a worthwhile steward of that gift. And if you don’t use the gift you’re given—if you allow editors to turn it down, so it languishes forever on your hard drive—then the gift doesn’t come again. You only get the gift if you’re able to use it. When that editor turned down my 9,000 word fragment, I should’ve gone ahead, written it, and found a new editor. Instead I accepted their judgement and doomed myself to ten years of feeling like my imagination didn’t belong to myself anymore.

Now I don’t do that. I’m not against traditional publication and traditional presses, but I don’t take no for an answer. If I think something needs to exist, then I create it, and I publish it.

But it’s easy for me to say that, because I have had these positive experiences, both with Enter Title Here and with my tales, where I was rewarded for following my own vision.

Other people, unfortunately, have had very different experiences. They've written novels that, to my eyes, were very good. They've described the experience of writing these novels in terms very similar to the experience I had with Enter Title Here. And then these novels have not sold. Perhaps they’ve even gone on to self-publish these books, and then…nothing has happened. It’s just a second way of being ignored.

These people have learned, on a deep, intuitive level—learned deep in their nervous system—that true artistic creation isn't rewarded.

And that's a lesson that is difficult to unlearn. If you drink from a pure mountain spring and come down with dysentery, you're going to be a lot more cautious in the future. You're going to think, "I thought this water was fresh and pure, but actually it was bad. My intuition about this water was wrong." And that caution is going to prevent you in the future from accessing the wellspring of inspiration.

This is a problem without a solution. People can only judge by their own life. Either they exist in a world where inspiration means something, or they exist in a world where inspiration can be false, can be wrong. In my world, where I live, inspiration means something. In my world, when you unleash your imagination and write a work that's purely what it needs to be, then you are likely to produce something that's meaningful for other people as well.

But at the same time…many of my tales are clearly written in response to market conditions. They’re often about discourse topics—stuff that people actually care about. I’ve written plenty of stories that I thought were great, but because they were didn’t have some kind of hook, they haven’t caught on with my audience.

So what am I saying really? Am I saying that my genius can produce a story about frustrated male novelists just because that's the thing people are talking about this week?

Well…kinda, yeah. All I know is the process. I write continuously. I write so many more stories than I can possibly post online. Many of my stories will perhaps never be published. I am continuously trying things out, refining the form. I have faith that even failed attempts are somehow worthwhile, so long as they felt correct at the time I wrote them.

It seems to me that a lot of people are able to give a lot of great advice on how to capture your creativity and produce something that’s worthwhile, but the end result of this advice is just another literary novel or literary short story that nobody reads. In that way, this system that claims to mint geniuses has become the enemy of genius.

I am happy that so many writers are able to keep believing in this prestige ecosystem, underwritten by MFAs and big publishers and the like, but I’ve now seen so many people crash against the rocks of that same ecosystem and lose their voice, lose their vital energies. Anyone who’s creative should surely give the prestige ecosystem a try, yes. But if you’ve had a round or two, and you haven’t been picked, then the way of retaining your creativity is to do literally anything you can to reach a reader who actually exists, instead of holding out the hope that some big publisher might conjure one for you.

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Great writers can’t exist without great readers

The central problem of being a writer is, "Do you believe in the reader or not?"

I do not think genius can exist unless the potential genius believes in the possibility of being understood. I think the reason some writers refuse to publish in their lifetime is that they're protecting that sense of possibility. They know that if their work isn't appreciated, they won't be able to create anymore.

When you're still unpublished, it's relatively easy to believe in the reader. But the more contact you have with the industry, the harder it becomes. In some cases, authors protect themselves through cynicism. If you believe that agents, editors, critics are uniquely-terrible readers, then you preserve in yourself the idea that there's some other reader who's good. That these gatekeepers are keeping you from another readership who would appreciate you.

What's extremely difficult, in practice, is to just "try again". That's the standard advice, no? Just try again—just write another book.

But why would it be different the next time? If you've really felt that magic—if you've really felt it reach down through your throat and take control of your pen—then you know that you can't necessarily guide the magic. You can't necessarily force the magic to produce something that's more marketable.

In my case, I can write about a marketable topic, but I’ve realized that my style isn't really what publishers want, and I feel very demoralized by the idea of trying to convince them to get excited about me. I know I could write a novel that a big five publisher could get excited about (it would probably have to be a thriller or sci-fi novel), but it would be such a slog. In reality I would just be producing the kind of thing that I thought could sell. And that's no way to spend your life.

To be clear, I am not saying the writers of thrillers and sci-fi novels are just producing books they think could sell. I am saying that if you're a professional writer, like me, it is possible to write a book that you're not necessarily into, just so it can sell. It can be done.

Or, alternatively, I could put my heart into a passion project and hope it’ll hit, but I just don’t think that channel is open for me anymore. I cannot make myself believe that a publisher would truly be interested in a novel that I believed strongly in.

That's why I don't write novels anymore, essentially. It's just hard to make myself believe that something good could happen.

But, luckily, I have my tales. And the feeling of writing this work is so special, so unique, that I can't imagine doing anything less than this.

Not everyone is a genius. Not everyone can write a work of genius. Most of you probably don't think I am a genius, and that is fine. But I think that I have experienced the thing that geniuses experience. I believe that most works of genius are produced using this divine inspiration that I'm describing. And that if you produce a work using that inspiration, and the work isn’t rewarded by the marketplace, then that inspiration becomes harder and harder to access—a process that we can see occurring in the life of Melville, amongst others.

Unfortunately, this is a hard thing to talk about, because not every writer has experienced this divine feeling, and most critics and most readers certainly have not.

Anyway, as a working writer, striving for genius means working to achieve this divine sense of rightness. Sometimes, works produced under the divine feeling actually achieve success and are acclaimed as works of genius. But, most often, they're rejected or ignored. In the case of my Substack tales, I write many tales (particularly my science-fictional tales) which I think are exceptional, but which don't particularly excite my readership. The same is true of many other divinely-inspired novels and stories. I cannot say why some things seem right, but don't get a readership. God works in mysterious ways.

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I don’t know if this post has any practical implications

Honestly, I feel a bit exhausted by the idea of trying to explain this, because I know many of my readers are writers themselves, and they will anxiously assess everything they’ve ever written, thinking, “Was this the divinely-right book?”

And I could even imagine some world where this feeling of divine inspiration gets commoditized and now you have to perform how inspired you felt about writing the book, the same way writers of literary fiction nowadays have to perform how many years they spent writing it and how much they futzed with every comma.

I don’t know. I don't know how to make inspiration happen for people. I don’t even know how to make it happen for myself. I tried for many years, after Enter Title Here, to make it happen. I tried everything. For me what worked best was to stop waiting around for it. To learn how to show up every morning and write something, no matter how good. Then, later on, I learned to stop taking no for an answer, and to pursue publication in whatever form I could find it.

And those things, combined, led to the rebirth of my creativity. But that’s not necessarily how it’ll work for other people. The wellspring of literature is a mystery. I would say…a divine mystery. Like, a divine, ineffable, woo-woo mystery.

Every saccharine thing people say about writing is true. It really is a gift. It really is about reaching outside yourself. Every cliche, it's all true.

I mean multiple times now in the past month, people have asked me something like, “So is it true that when someone’s writing a novel, the characters just come to life and start acting on their own?”

I think people somehow expect me to say, Oh no that’s not true. That’s B.S.

Instead I’m like, “Yes of course they come to life! That’s what writing is!”

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Further Reading

My thoughts on this subject were formed many years ago by Nick Mamatas's book of writing advice, Starve Better, where he answers a question on the subject of "How To A Great Writer".

The issue of greatness in what you are trying to do—popular fiction in the early 21st century—is a matter of mental training. Ronald Sukenick, in a different context, spelled out what one must do in the form of this warning: “If you don’t use your imagination, somebody else is going to use it for you.”…The trick is that one of the most popular ideas in other people’s imaginations is that greatness is a matter of some inner spark, a pilot light that is either on or off. No, it is always off to start, but may be turned on through dedicated practice.

The practice of which I am speaking is not the usual shit of reading widely and writing daily and revising with vigor—that’s how one becomes a good writer, not a great one (and it is best to be both, of course). Instead, one needs a certain mental discipline. One cannot just run around thunkin’ up gunks; if you want to lick thirty tigers today you need to be in a tiger-lickin’ frame of mind. That discipline is oriented toward a single thing:

You have to stop caring whether you live or die.

This is not just apathy about life, but a more active denial of the social world. You have to get comfortable with the idea of walking around without skin, with not caring at all whether or not your parents ever speak to you again, with not stopping after your lovers all leave in teary huff after teary huff, whether your book sells two thousand copies or two million, whether or not everyone knows exactly what imagery you masturbate to. This doesn’t mean merely being confessional, but simply ready. If your imagination suggests that the best solution to some problem you have is the insertion of your right arm into a wood chipper, you must eliminate the social, personal, and autonomic buffers that would keep you from doing just that.

This will not make you a great writer—it will turn on that pilot light, though. Only accidents of history make people great writers.

Nick’s book was so influential for a certain kind of sci-fi writer in the aughts. I am not alone in being inspired by his example. He is also a well-known internet curmudgeon, but at this point he’s surely even better-known for being encouraging to younger writers. He launched the career of one writer, Catherynne M. Valente, by finding her a publisher. She’s gone on to write best-selling books. He taught me a class when I was 25, and I workshopped my MFA application sample in that class. He’s great. Highly recommend. He is definitely a curmudgeon—a famous curmudgeon!—who probably still engages in long flame-wars with people online, but he’s also helped a lot of people, which is more than most curmudgeons can say, I think.

And, luckily, Starve Better is coming back into print soon! Pre-order a copy from Lethe Press.⁴

1. I remember, when I was in my twenties, poring over this book, trying to see an image of myself in some of these writers. I cared so much about the process. Was I doing the things that geniuses did? Was I educating myself in the way they had? At some point I set up a timer, trying to estimate if I’d reached the 10,000 hours of practice that Malcolm Gladwell recommended in Outliers. I’m sure young writers do these same things today, and…I think those things are good! They were certainly good practices for me, so it would be silly to decry them in other people. But it should also make you happy to know that at some point, that stops. I don’t worry anymore about whether my life outwardly resembles that of a genius.

2. This conception of genius is somewhat-inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert’s mega-popular TED talk on the subject. I thought the talk was quite accurate. And I’ve watched it many times over the years. I read her book, Big Magic. I liked that book too. I’ve never read any of her other stuff though.

3. Enter Title Here was the fourth novel I completed. My second published novel, We Are Totally Normal, was my tenth! In between, I wrote five novels that, for various reasons, were never published. In two cases, my agent wouldn’t send out the book to editors. In two cases, the agent put the book out on submission but it didn’t sell, and in one case I never showed the book to the agent.

4. Nick’s stories and novels are good too. I’ve probably read as much of his work as I’ve read of any contemporary writer, and if you care to dig into his oeuvre, then the best book of his that I’ve read is Under My Roof, which is reprinted here.