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In College English, Nancy Sommers writes the following about what happens "between the drafts":

It is in the thrill of the pull between someone else's authority and our own, between submission and independence that we must discover how to define ourselves. In the uncertainty of that struggle, we have a chance of finding the voice of our own authority. Finding it, we can speak convincingly...at long last.¹

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Yes! Yes! Yes! And how does one find that "authority" to set oneself against? I find it here:

• The prescriptive rules found in some craft books and writer's talks and conferences.
  


• The critical feedback from writers' groups, including online ones.


• The response of editors to submissions.


• The response of the audience at readings.


• A general sense you get of how your writing is perceived.

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The danger of seeing these "authorities" as what one needs to rebel against to discover one's true writing self/voice is, for me, this: they might indeed have some suggestions that should be taken and (worse) they might be right about me. In other words, I way too often think, "What if I'm indeed that crazy American idol contestant, certain of a talent that isn't there?" Do I really need something that might create more self doubt? Ugh.

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But instead of going down that road for this therapy session, I'd like to go down this one: Rather than filled with the desire to be validated or the desire to find out the "truth" of good writing, seek out authorities with the need to find what standard of "good writing" they want you to submit to. Collect these standards somewhere. Call it "This Is What They Want." Maybe make that the title of a story. Either write to that title or against it. Look at "authority" not as an either/or--either I must submit and lose myself or I must rebel and discover my self--but instead as an ongoing process of submission and rebellion, of giving in and setting out, of discovering boundaries and figuring out how to break them.

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Each craft article I read, each talk I attend to, each comment on a draft or finished (as if such a thing exists) piece, every editor's mark, every note that comes back in a SASE provides the opportunity to experience that thrill of being defined and defining. To me, it's about engaging in that struggle. And I can only engage in it, if I am willing to submit my writing to some authority, yes as a defining act. But I'm engaging not only to find out what the writing is (or what they say it is and should be),  but also I'm deciding what it is not and what it, because I've made a particular, conscious choice, will never be. In short, I'm figuring out what they want-- and then deciding how to define myself: with it or against it or some odd combination of the two.

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Endnotes

     1. Nancy Sommers, "Between the Drafts," College English 43, no 1(1992): 23-31.http://www.jstor.org/stable/35762.

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