What is Your Dunning-Kruger Blindspot? - Mickey Hadick the Writer

When I first decided to become a writer, at the age of 17, I suffered from Dunning-Kruger Effect about writing. If you’re not familiar, Dunning-Kruger means your ignorant about, or bad at, something, but you think you’re excellent at it. It’s a cognitive bias that twists your self-assessment about a thing.

I was ignorant about all the important aspects of writing. I didn’t know what constituted good writing; I didn’t know how to learn how to write well; and I didn’t know anyone who knew anything about good writing or becoming a writer.

Yet, I thought I could figure it out.

For the record, I was also ignorant about sex, love, and relationships, but at least I didn’t think I was good at any of those.

But with writing, I thought, “Write a good story, and success will surely follow.”

During college, where I studied engineering, I wrote a story about a guy in a bar befriended by a talking rat. Did it have the charm of Ratatouille in which a rat who can cook helps a kitchen worker to cook, and also fall in love? No. The story was about a drunk loser having an existential crisis and there’s not much the rat can do to help.

Yet, I thought this story was so good that I entered it into the Hopwood Awards, which is a prestigious competition for U of M students. It has been won in the past by Arthur Miller, along with several other students who went on to successful careers in writing. I didn’t win.

I was stunned and baffled, but undeterred.

For the next ten years, I wrote a few dozen stories, submitted them to various publications, and was rejected. The good news was that I had finally realized I needed help, and had gotten some. By then, my stories were better—much better—but I was still going up against the best competition.

I pivoted and began writing short humor in the style of The New Yorker’s Shouts and Murmurs section. Back then, it was the best place for such humor; it still it is, for the most part, but there are many other humor publications nowadays.

In the 90s, before magazine submissions were electronic and over the interweb, you’d print a copy of your piece—following precise formatting standards—and send it in a 9×12 envelope. Then you’d wait one, two, maybe six months to hear back. And that’s what I did for a couple of years: write a humor piece, submit it to The New Yorker, then wait.

Each time, the rejection came back on a pre-printed slip of paper that said something like, “Sorry but we can’t use this. Thanks for thinking of us.”

Until one time, the slip of paper had a hand-written note: “Articles for Shouts and Murmurs are supposed to be funny.”

Ouch.

That one stung. I set aside writing humor for the next twenty years.

In my defense, there weren’t a lot of avenues for becoming a humorist back then. Maybe I could have tracked down a college program that specialized in it, or found a coach in New York. Six years ago, when I returned to writing humor, I read several books, took several courses online, and have worked with coaches and in workshops to improve.

I’m not saying my stuff is the height of hilarity, but it’s good. More important, I know when it’s bad.

Anyway, all my belly-aching aside, given where I started forty years ago, it’s not a surprise my writing career didn’t happen. I’m really not belly-aching. I think I’m bragging about how awful was my writing. Really, I’m grateful that I stuck with it.

Now I’m thinking of writing short stories again. When done well, they’re among the most amazing of works of art. My one regret is not chasing down Stuart Dybek in the early nineties. Stuart was a brilliant short story writer with a wicked sense of humor. He taught at Western Michigan, and I had just moved to Lansing, about an hour drive away. I should have made that happen and figured out how to learn from him. Anything I learned from him would’ve been gold.

But enough of that. I’m still writing and I may yet figure it all out. The lack of success feels like failure, but it isn’t.

In a moment of synchronicity, I took a break from writing this Picayune and came across a Facebook post from a theatre actress lamenting how hard it is to audition for Broadway shows. There’s a ton of competition, the casting directors don’t offer feedback; in fact, they don’t say anything if you’re not called back. It’s dead silence and it can feel like failure. She started to journal about auditioning as a means to cope, and added:

I’m trying to focus more on the process and less on the outcome. I [journal] things that I love about myself. I write everything I can remember about each audition: who was in the room, what was said, things I did well, things I could have done differently. But once it’s on the paper, I let go of it. It helps … remind me that the whole reason I’m acting is because I love it.

From Humans of New York, Sep. 19, 2019

I love that sentiment and I love the synchronicity of hearing those words. Writing about my writing struck some nerves. I know some fairly successful writers and I still want that level of success. You can’t just pull a bestseller out of your ass, though.

A lawyer, maybe, but not a bestseller.