I was planning on writing today about women’s soccer, the U.S. Women’s National Team and how joyful it was to be in Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego on Sunday to see the U.S. capture the inaugural W Gold Cup.
But I am going to change lanes and write about insecurity instead. Please join me for a short therapy session.
Here’s what I think about insecurity: it stinks. It stokes doubt, robs contentment and fertilizes Imposter Syndrome, wherein you convince yourself that if the world found out how dumb/weak/lost/overmatched (fill in your own adjective) you are, then you would be exposed as a total fraud.
Writers may not be the worldwide leaders in the Insecurity Sweepstakes, but they are a serious contender. The writing process for me isn’t always fraught with anxiety, but it often is. What if I have nothing to say? What if can’t come up with a good opening, or worse still, what if I am tapped out of words? I’ve written millions of them over the decades. Couldn’t it be that the well has run dry?
When my insecurity flares up, the result, almost inevitably, is that I overwrite. I try too hard and use too many words, concocting overly complicated constructions. As a young writer, I took it almost as a badge of honor to use as many words – especially big words – as possible. I didn’t keep a Thesaurus on my lap, but it was close by. If I could find a way to use 40 words to say what required only 20, I would go for it. I would regularly flout rule No. 1 of The Elements of Style, Professor William J. Strunk Jr.’s 43-page classic that he first distributed to his students at Cornell in 1918. “Omit needless words,” Strunk wrote. (In 1959, Strunk’s former student, E.B. White, published and edited an expanded edition of the book. It cost $2.50 - hardcover - and has sold over 10 million copies over its various editions.)
In my senior year in high school, I wrote a history paper that described someone’s “ubiquitous lethargy.” I could’ve – should’ve – simply said this person was tired. But I wanted to show off, max out my syllables. My teacher wrote in the margin, “Wow!!” He should’ve written, “Yuck!!”
Strunk and White, sultans of spareness, would’ve been appalled by so much of what appeared under my early bylines. Sentence by sentence, I am getting better. A shoutout also needs to go to Roy Peter Clark, author of Writing Tools, another seminal text about the craft. It’s full of reassurance and practical strategies to mitigate the fallout of your insecurities.
As for the soccer game on Sunday, the young me might’ve written, “In a stirring triumph of substance over style, of unflagging effort over intermittent spells of soccer brilliance, the U.S., playing in its first tournament since the colossal and historic disappointment in last summer’s World Cup, emerged victorious over Brazil in the W Gold Cup championship game, much to the delight of an exuberant, full-throated sellout crowd of almost 32,000 in Snapdragon Stadium.”
The new me would write, “Seven months after their unceremonious exit in the World Cup, the U.S. women gritted out a 1-0 victory over Brazil Sunday, winning the W Gold Cup championship before a boisterous sellout crowd at Snapdragon Stadium.”
‘
Bravo