this Cliff, Above The Tide
ambition as it Relates to Time, Shame & Cowardice
“Ambition is not a dirty word. Piss on compromise. Go for the throat. Write with balls, write with eggs. Sure, it's a harder journey but take it from me, it's well worth it.”
― Steven Erikson, ‘Gardens of the Moon’
How to define Ambition, this polycephalic beast of a thousand forms and limitless outcomes? This remote grail for the enterprising and curious individual looking to achieve greatness in their lives?
The way it is used most commonly nowadays is in referring to individual effort. Most define it as the ability to break free of mediocrity and create something of substantial worth, whether that be monetary or for public good (or public ill, I suppose. I live in Ontario.) However, it can also be something more community-focused; to improve the community, local or more expansive, that one is a part of.
But I will not be talking about the sort of people often termed as being ambitious, such as your dollar store billionaires and missile-mauling mango monarchs. I’m writing about ambition as it pertains to you, me, and others whose work is yet to come. Those on the path, whichever path that may be. Those that are trying.
May this embrace you.
Ambition and Momentum
I don’t run marathons. Well, I don’t really run much save from sprints on the treadmill. Cardio has never been my strong suit.
There’s several ways losing momentum can kill you. In my previous post, I mentioned briefly what happened with Olympus in the Dark. I’ll illuminate that experience here.
On one fine, windy evening in 2022, I decided to write my first novel. It was the first day of November and the traditional kickoff for NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, in which most folks would aim to write 50,000 words over the course of a single month. I opted instead to write 80,000 over 2 months, a more relaxed pace but a more ‘ambitious’ outcome.
The plan was simple: I was used to writing short stories, so my first novel would be written in the structure of a short story collection, but in chronological order and featuring a central character that appeared in all but one story, which was instead focused instead on two of his companions. Each story would have its own themes and supporting characters, but together they would form a central narrative for my protagonist and flesh out the overarching themes.
I was inspired by The Witcher series by Andrej Sapkowski, in particular his first two collections. It seemed like a good idea, and as the starting gun fired, I was off to the races.
The pace was good. I completed roughly 60,000 words by the end of December, completing the first 3/6 stories. It was going to take longer than I’d originally anticipated, but I was halfway there and I’d only needed two months to write up such a storm! What’s another two, right?
I never returned to the 4th story. The holidays came, I took a break for about two weeks, and when the first week of January had passed I realized, cold dread in my gut, that this was it. It was as far as Felix Shaye would drive across the Outer Provinces surrounding the umbral city of Sheolam, the titular Olympus in the Dark.
Grieving momentum, the loss of definite conviction, is an arduous task. It requires you to accept that you cannot simply return to the work at any given time, even when at the start of a brand new story and with a strong foundation. It feels as though it should be simpler than beginning something new, but the context fades away in time. The little ideas that buzzed about like flies have perished and left no successors that might scavenge their corpses.
I realized only months later that, despite how well-planned my plot was, and how much I enjoyed the characters and setting, and the praise from those that have read the three completed stories, it was all transient. None of it stirred me to action. In fact, the only feeling left was shame. And this is where one might expect me to say, “But that’s okay! It wasn’t the right time, it wasn’t the right subject!”
Nah. It was a fuck-up, if only because it was not completed and pushed to the end, whatever end that may be.
It doesn’t need to be good. People say this a lot, but just because something is repeated ad nauseam doesn’t make it inherently trite. It is the kind truth: something that exists can be modified, can be cut and culled and rinsed and lathered, until it gleams. A great painting was once a canvas you bought at the local arts store. The brushstrokes that might one day be ogled by gallery visitors were once paints you’d forgotten in a small box next to your desk.
For a time, I felt great shame at my inability to finish that first novel. It was all plotted out, it had such a great and deeply emotional climax, I knew how to resolve all of the character arcs… I ever had all the best callback lines that I was gonna use! And yet, unless someday inspiration seizes me and I decide to finish the damn thing, we’ll never know how it ‘might’ have ended.
Now I just feel something different. Some spectre, crouched upon my back with its talons massaging my shoulders. It is a kind presence, it speaks quietly, it is there. It is there to remind me of perhaps one of the only things that truly matter in the creation of art of any significance: Keep going.
Don’t do it to meet some arbitrary deadline. Don’t do it just to make yourself feel like you belong. Don’t do it because someone told you to — even me, as contradictory this is.
Do it so you can see a completed piece of work, a great work, and know that this is only the first of many. Do it so you can see all the cracks and learn where the resin must go. Do it to find out what you are capable of.
Do it for your own sake. No one else will.
Ambition and Penance
There’s a very sad man sitting at the cafe today. We will not bother naming him.
Imagine him a moment, this creature hunkered over his laptop, caffeine-laced eyes furtively glancing between conversations at different tables. There are two large finished cups on his table. Each contained at least two shots of espresso apiece. He is tapping his foot as if communicating in morse code, and his left hand is currently grasping at his scalp, pulling at sparse hairs to elicit an intimate sort of pain.
Before him there is an empty document, save the title. He hasn’t typed a single word in the last forty-three minutes, when he’d first sat down at this table. And the worst part?
Dear god, I think he’s nearly thirty!
When I was doing my undergrad, I remember one day noticing that there was this undercurrent of ‘achievement-based expectation’ that eroded everyone’s perception of time. To explain: for most people going to school these days, I think life is split into three especially important ‘achievement-based expectation’ chunks, though depending on familial and societal pressure, people feel them at different stages in their lives:
🏫High School 🏫
Prior to this generally 3-4 year span in their lives, most people in the West aren’t really worried about achieving anything of note.
This is the first instance in people’s lives where they start thinking about clubs and scholarships and other things their parents can loudly brag about at dinner tables right in front of my friend’s parents so of COURSE that just breeds resentmen—🎓 Higher Education 🎓
The big one, but not at first. It’s funny because once you get into university, your achievement-based expectations often reset at first; if you’re at College X in Program Y, you’re at a similar theoretical starting point as all the other students in the same program when the semester starts.
From there, the race begins; get the better GPA, join and eventually lead good student groups, get the best internships or co-op’s or whatever it’s called, win awards often named after morally onerous individuals. Basically just get yourself puffed up like a fat, juicy hen that industry professionals or academics are interested in plucking when they see the pretty little CV stamped to your forehead.💼 Work, Work, Work 💼
The rest of it. Your career, your research, your whatever. This is this the part I’m going to focus on today, since I think it’s the only one that actually matters.
I’ve seen all sorts of people achieve all sorts of things. God knows I still keep in distant touch with some wildly successful people from my high-school, though I suppose that’s if you’d like to count success as a product of lifestyle and income.
And I know those that aren’t doing too well and have sadly fallen on hard times. I wish the best for them, even the ones I didn’t necessarily get along with in the past. But that’s the point: These times don’t last, and people can find themselves called to great purpose and create their masterpiece when they least expect it.
The comparison problem starts early, and for many of us from immigrant households, it’s fed early as well, by way of family or teachers or other figures of authority comparing our achievements against those of others. Small wonder, most parents see the successes of others (only the successes, mind you) and then they turn to you, flawed homunculus you are, with the scornful question of “Why can’t you be more like so-and-so?”
It makes sense, at least logically. We are a competitive society and what we perceive in our social circle impacts us greatly by providing us with the standard we believe is being set. The problem nowadays is that circle has widened by an incomprehensibly wide margin via the introduction of social media.
If you are like me and an aspiring author in your 20’s looking for related content online, you end up seeing those ahead of you (published, famous, controversial — which is the same as famous — and so on) far more than those in your position.
But we don’t celebrate those that make it older the same way. We are all people of the hourglass, watching the sand fall from above and terrified of being crushed under the weight of the grains. Young authors, young entrepreneurs and industry celebrities (who cares about Forbes 40 Under 40, really? It’s only the first one that actually counts, until they decide to make 20 Under 20...)
And yet people do succeed. For instance, here’s some examples just in the past two decades of older authors who’ve ‘made it’ in literature and their age when first making it big:
Naomi Novik, author of the Temeraire series (at 33)
Ottessa Moshfegh, author of Eileen (at 34)
Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere (at 34)
Tamsyn Muir, author of Gideon the Ninth (at 34… I’m sensing a trend?)
Min Jin Leeb, author of Pachinko (at 38)
Andy Weir, author of The Martian (at 39)
James S.A. Corey, authors of the Expanse series (at 41 & 42)
Martha Wells, author of the Murderbot series (at 53)
Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry (at 64!)
Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing (at 69!)
Time is immaterial. Although most folks want to blow up in their 20’s, as I once did, look how many do it in their mid-to-late 30’s! And then after that, 40’s! 50’s! Even 60’s! One of my favorite authors, Andrej Sapkowski (mentioned earlier), did not gain acclaim until he was 38 with the first story of The Witcher series.
Priorities change and there is always a reason for why you did or didn’t do the things you perceived as your priorities when the world passed you by. One day, hopefully soon, you will find the will and the discipline to work on the creative pursuits you deem most valuable. Then someone else will sneer your way and give themselves with excuses for why you are making good on your goals and they are lagging behind.
I hope, when this occurs, that you have the good grace to tell them the easy truth: It doesn’t matter if you start late. Just start.
Do it in pieces, do it wrong. If you know what’s good for you, do it so wrong you start doubting yourself. Pace around the room, toss old work in the incinerator, whatever works so long as you don’t forget what I said in the prior section.
It helps no one, least of all you, if you shame yourself for what you missed. That disdain is better served by channeling it into passion into the future.
The only clock that matters is the one hanging on the wall.
Ambition and Fear
I do this self-deprecating thing called being on Twitter (Or ‘X’ I guess). This decision is believed to have many negative consequences for the developing minds, yet unfortunately I get as much silver from that dark place as I do sludge.
One thing I do appreciate about it is the culture of ambition that some communities on there seem to promote. Though I am not a visual artist in any stretch of the imagination, I often find myself following art accounts not only due to the quality of their work but also because of the way those artists actually carry themselves. There is a great trend (commonality?) I’ve seen where artists will post the art piece of a different artist and then their own attempt at the same artwork in their personal style. And the results are often beautiful, of course! But what really got me is the way they talk about it.
They do not compare their art to the original. They simply say: Here, this is an opportunity to showcase what I can do, the distinction in my style from yours. Here, a challenge through which I can further improve my craft. Here, a way to connect what I do best with what you do best. Both of us, craftsmen, growing separate but together.
I am firmly of the belief that any work you do is constructive to your growth so long as there is genuine challenge in completing it. For a little while, I was berating myself for continuing to focus on short stories and participating in competitions that saddled me with length limits, especially while my long-term goal was novels. There was some part of my brain that was telling me “If you want to write something lengthy and complicated, then you’re flexing the wrong creative muscles right now.”
Which is true, but only somewhat. I think you do end up flexing at least some of the same muscles along the way, even if for instance the point of a short story is focusing on fast-impact, efficient prose vs. the more expansive way of getting a point across that is typical for long-form content.
Is an artist wishing to be known for their original works someday wasting their time if they attempt to draw a fellow artists’ work in their own style? Of course not; it’s practice. It’s all practice. Even your first published, famous work is likely only one step of many towards your eventual magnum opus. The most important thing is to just keep creating things.
Now then, to the other side of this, the part that is afraid of truth. If you are following your own path without a clear delineation between what is ‘good’ and what is ‘unoriginal’ or, worse yet, ‘average’, how do you know if you’re doing better than others? How do you know if you’re good?
This is where I think I tear away from the usual rhetoric. My opinion, which I’ve espoused to many who know me, is that you should be fighting to create the greatest version of your work that you can. This means comparing your recent work against old work more than comparing yourself against others, and only ever comparing yourself against others when you see something of worth you can gently borrow to improve your craft.
I’ve seen many people bemoan when they see that their idea for something — say a book — already exists in the world and has taken over the common mindspace of the avid readers they’re looking to target. Their fear is well, this has already been done, ergo what is the point of my work?
To that I say two things:
Get ahold of yourself. If you are writing with conviction, there is no way your work can be so similar to another’s in character, theme, setting, motifs, thesis, and more.
I bet the average reader will look at your book and at the competing book and go, “Holy shit, two cakes?”
No one says this about artists painting the same thing. How many different skilled painters have created their own renditions of the Eiffel Tower? Is it right to say that each subsequent painting is nothing but imitation? Please.
Create whatever you want to create and do not worry about the rest, the naysayers and those whose opinions are of little worth. Believe in what you are doing and the truth you wish to tell. Regard only lightly the tight constraints of genre and style — in fact, build your own, no matter how tough the going might be.
Because to shirk away from difficult and complicated work is something we leave to the ideological cowards.
And we are not in the business of cowardice.