On Burning Resentment

good morning it's tuesday i really liked your video on friday about burnout and motivation and the various fuels we use to keep our engines running and it made me think about how beginning just after my 24th birthday i spent most of my nights and weekends working on the novel that would eventually become looking for alaska i worked all day for book list and then after work would usually read the books i'd been assigned to review for a couple hours and then i would write until 11 or midnight every night and this was possible because i was burning in the smithy of my soul an extremely efficient but dirty fuel called resentment like despite the fact that i'd benefited from all manner of privileges and good fortunes i somehow managed to imagine myself as a plucky underdog who'd been the victim of grave injustices these injustices included being dumped by a girl i loved not being as handsome as i wished to be and not having had any breaks in my nascent publishing career now in actuality i'd had many breaks like i happened to have an editor at book list and eileen cooper who mentored me through the writing process also i had a job at book list that paid me albeit modestly to read books and write about them but whatever you can have 70 million youtube subscribers and still imagine yourself as a plucky underdog the human capacity for self-pity is truly endless and for good reason because no matter how fortunate we are our condition is kind of pitiable even the most powerful humans are fragile and mortal creatures in a very large universe that is indifferent to their needs but i digress right so i was 24 and i was able to work more or less constantly fueled by this overarching resentment and here's the thing it worked like i got a lot done and some of it was good or at the very least impressive which is what i really wanted of course i wanted to impress people i wanted to show them how clever i could be about narrative structure about the distance between the story and the truth about precipitation metaphors etc and for me that's the problem with resentment as fuel it makes your work entirely about you like the story i was writing had no guts its griefs grieved on no universal bones to borrow a faulkner phrase the narrator in that story could look hard at everyone except for himself and the story felt distant and cold as if it was being recounted when it needed to feel like it was being revealed to steal line from shakespeare resentment is a fire that burns with more light than heat i haven't read booking for alaska in almost 15 years and to be honest i don't remember that much about it but from what i can gather almost none of what people like about that story was in those drafts that were fueled by the effective but toxic fire of resentment i think i needed to write all that stuff to understand what was wrong with miles's way of looking at other people and also what was wrong with my way but to finish the book miles needed to grow up and so did i i had to find a fuel that burned warmer if less bright and that took years but eventually looking for alaska did become something i worked on as a gift for other people rather than as like a document of my attempted cleverness that said i still find myself returning to resentment as fuel and having to learn again and again that while it can make me productive it doesn't produce much i'm proud of three last things first rosianna and i are hiring someone in indianapolis to help us make the things that we make if you're uncommonly organized and really good at calling strangers which is to say nothing like me then please check out the link in the dooblydoo two speaking of things rosianna and i are making if you're part of the life library book club our q a with author jacqueline woodson will be january 31st at noon eastern time more info below and lastly if you are in need of some excellent valentines nerdfighter sharon has you covered you can get these at dftba.com hank thanks again for your video i will see you on friday

Channel: vlogbrothers

Views: 246,250

Keywords: motivation, self-help, vlogbrothers, resentment, writing, books, publishing, nerdfighters, john green, looking for alaska

Id: jSGbdO17vb8

Length: 3min 42sec (222 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 15 2019