The Kindness of Enemies?
A few Thought’s Day ago, I asked you to unsubscribe if my letter was not the content you signed up for. I wanted you to be interested enough to open my letter. The less you open these letters, the more the Internet Service Provider assumes they’re spam and redirects them to your spam folder or prevents you and other people from getting them. You didn’t unsubscribe and I felt good-ish.
Last Thought’s Day, I got my first unsubscribe notification, just after I sent out my Birthday Thought’s Day letter “Surrounded by Love”. It made me sad, but also curious, why do you still read me? What makes these letters [special] that you read, write back and share with your friends?
Roxane Gay is right when she says, “You can read a hundred compliments but what stays with you is that one person confirming your worst fears about yourself.” What’s stayed with me is that one unsubscribe notification, confirming that perhaps, I’m just a fraud.
Last weekend, a couple of fellow writers/editors and I were having a Twitter conversation about rejection letters. There were opinions (which I implied to mean) that large journals (and even companies) were allowed to be as callous (or as impersonal) as they wanted in sending out rejection letters to people who didn’t meet the cut, with no room for feedback. I’ve never worked with a large journal/magazine—the dream is the New Yorker!—but one of the things I’ve learned over the years from working with Arts and Africa and Ouida Books is that rejections need not be harsh; they should be aimed at improving the writer’s art and not tearing down the writer’s art and person.
“Let your aim be to come at truth, not to conquer your opponent. So you never shall be at a loss in losing the argument, and gaining a new discovery.” - Arthur Martine.
The first thing I learned from my “editor-in-chief” as the new managing editor of the publishing arm of Ouida Books was, “The point is not to break [the writers].” Going by this, my standard rejection letter is kindly worded. It’s not always specific since it’s a ready-made template, but sometimes, it has a line or two of feedback — What can the writer do better? What did she do wrong? Why isn’t her manuscript fit for Ouida Books? Sometimes, I get my readers to prepare comprehensive reports which I compile and send to the writer. I recognise that writing is hard work, and that sending your work out to the world is the thing courage is made of.
The day after the conversation, I got a rejection letter from a large-ish journal and was, ironically, excited by it. See below:
“The key to writing a good manuscript rejection is really the same as for a job rejection: be as kind as you can be. (Actually, it’s hard to think of a situation in life for which “be as kind as you can be” isn’t a good rule.)” - Stephen Heard. Read more here (includes how to read a rejection letter for writers).
Rejections almost always hurt. However, they can be a learning experience if they are honest and kind. It’s not a reach to apply this theory of honesty and kindness to other life experiences like conversations and specifically, arguments and debates. This week, a young man asked Wole Soyinka to move from his allotted seat on the airplane. The tiny exchange between the Nobel laureate and millennial found its way to SM and spiralled into a chain of reactions and meta analyses with memes and gifs, leading to insults, clapbacks etc.
Maria Popova has described this form of “criticism” as a menace of reacting rather than responding.
Let’s term it moral outrage. Like most arguments on Twitter, both sides of the argument (mostly an older generation vs. a woke younger generation) didn’t want to listen to what the other side had to say. Everyone seemed set in their ways, assuming they were right. In situations like this, a lot more than kindness is necessary. Slowing down and thinking, can considerably change how we hold conversations. It can bring meaning to our conversations. This event with WS could have led to a conversation on “respect and tradition in 21st century Nigeria”, but alas.
(Disclaimer: This is not to invalidate anyone’s anger or preach for an exclusive approach to holding arguments or sending rejection letters etc.)
Ope's Reads
One of the more important essays I read this week was this essay on how not experiencing everything can make you happier. The power of high heels reminds me of the time my mother wanted me to stop wearing heels “as I’m already too tall” (and perhaps this could scare men, I don’t know). This podcast on R Kelly’s new charges was very insightful. Why do we always forget good things and concentrate more on the bad? Like rejections? And pain? In this personal essay, we are reminded that the body holds the memory of pain forever. Pleasure, it forgets. Here’s another personal essay on how much grief takes from us. On Arts and Africa, Lanre Apata writes about the expectations we often have for artists. Sad that women are also foot soldiers of patriarchy, but it is what it is: Fatima Mirza for Granta.
I’ve come to the end of two interesting journeys. I’ll write about them soon, but first, read this from my editing mentor, Helen Moffett. And this is a music video from my fave Nigerian band.
Three things I learned this week: Beans is almost 75% carb, Yorùbá has its etymology in Hausa (h/t Kọ́lá Tubosun), Oshomah went on an amazing trip, so we're definitely never going to hear the end of it.
Did you learn something new? Share with me.
xoxo/bisous bisous.