Cortez is reported to have burned his ships in order to destroy in the minds of his crew the possibility of retreat. (Historians still debate whether he burned them, scuttled them, or simply ran them aground.) Whether he did or didn't, Cortez didn't invent the idea of burning your ships. In the 3rd Century BC, Chinese general Xiang Yu burned his ships at the River Yangtze. He took it one step further. He destroyed his troops' cooking pots, as well, as a motivator for conquering their enemies. There was no way back and they had to win to survive. You might expect mutiny after something like that, but Xiang's ploy worked.
A professor in behavioral economics at MIT recently conducted an experiment in decision-making that mirrors the aspect of burning ships. Participants in the experiment played a video game in which they could earn real money by being willing to destroy other opportunities for earning money. The problem was that most participants in the study couldn't bring themselves to destroy those opportunities, even if it diminished their returns. They couldn't burn their ships.
What does that have to do with writing? Today I'm convinced it has quite a lot to do with writing. Yesterday, in keeping with the theme of the week, I received another rejection on a short story. Looking at the rejection, however, I didn't feel my usual set of frustration and sadness. Instead, I had a little epiphany. The story, honestly, wasn't one of my better ones, but I'd gone on putting the energy into submitting it, because I couldn't let it go. It was downright silly to waste any more time on it, when I didn't think it was that good. I just had some sort of sentimental attachment to it, because I wrote it. So, I simply pulled it off my submission roster. I felt better immediately and I can put that energy into preparing to submit a different story.
At the risk of sounding like I believe in this sort of thing, I'll note that shortly after I made that decision, I got an acceptance for another story in the mail. I don't believe the two are related, but I do believe that sometimes you have to burn a manuscript to move forward.
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