Deep Dive: On disappointment

I’ve missed the unfiltered vulnerability of speaking to my friend and co-host Katherine Collette on the podcast (side note: you can listen back or listen now to Katherine’s excellent spin off series The Next Step!). Of course we could go back and edit what we said, but for the most part we didn’t. We accepted that part of the reason our listeners loved our chats is that sometimes (often) we overshared, said the first thing that came to mind, wore our hearts on our sleeve. It’s harder to do that with the written word, I reckon. There’s that gap we give ourselves between the brain and the fingers and the words we see forming on the page or screen, and then there’s editing, second-guessing, that space where we turn back at our words and think - oh god, but what will people think of me if I write this?

So here’s me trying on some unfiltered vulnerability on the nature of disappointment. Already I’m second-guessing your possible responses - more navel-gazing (insert eye-roll emoji), there are more important things right now!, get over yourself!, eww - put your feelings away! - but in the hope that sometimes the things that make me squirm might also make you squirm and thus be of some use - I’m going there regardless.

My big kid at sunrise on Yuin country over Easter. Not a particularly pertinent image for the subject, except, I guess, that the sun comes up again tomorrow, and sometimes you’re lucky enough to swim in the sea with your kids in it x

Why this, why me, why now?

If you’re a subscriber from book world (and most of you are!) you might have seen that The Hummingbird Effect was longlisted for 2024 The Stella Prize. When I received this news there was a lot of fist pumping, some dancing in the hallway with my daughters and that strange and delightful and deep contentment (often short-lived let’s be honest!) that comes with getting something you really really want. It’s hard but important to admit to our deep desires: and the validation of a nomination for The Stella Prize has been one of mine since before my first book was published.

And I know, I know, prizes are subjective, artists can’t afford to put their eggs in the external validation basket, there are countless examples of brilliant books that never get recognised through prizes - we know this in our brains and yet we want what we want, and the thrill of prize recognition or the crush of missing out is a whole body feel that lingers.

I was in bed alone in a hotel in Delhi when I read the email to see I wasn’t on the Stella Shortlist*. And yes, even though I was just delighted to be recognised on the longlist, and even though I knew the probability and ALL THE THINGS, I still felt the crush. Despite the embargo I messaged my besties (sorry, Stella) and they said all the right things and I reminded myself I was in INDIA going to a writer’s festival and I was lucky and grateful and HOW good to even be in the mix - but still - that sneaky wench disappointment was bruising.

There’s a sweet spot though (and a shout out to those orgs who give applicants or those in the running a heads up before public announcements!) when you can nurse that disappointment in private. And if it’s a long enough lead time (and particularly if you’re swanning about Assam with writers from around the globe) you might have processed your feels before you need to rehash them for public consumption.

No one wants a pity party. I remember, as a teenager, that visceral feeling of bracing myself for the plastered on smile as the whispered gossip of someone preparing to ‘dump me’ surged across the school yard. That desire to say ‘I don’t care’, ‘I didn’t want that anyway’ and toss the hair and laugh loudly with friends - the want to appear unfazed. And yet - the gut punch of it.

A dear, experienced writer friend messaged when the shortlist went public. They sent love and camaraderie and hit the nail on the head when they wrote:

It’s so superb and affirming when we got the nod, and so miserable when we don’t. It’s got that public aspect too, which just makes it harder.

Dealing with disappointment in public is a trickier beast - we want to have grace and humility and show our support for those who have got the nod ahead of us (and can I say for the record that those books on the Stella Shortlist are exceptional!) and yet we feel that everyone is side-eyeing us, some feeling our hurt and some potentially getting out the popcorn and waiting for us to misstep with our feels.