LOSING'S REWARD

I wish I didn’t care about awards, but I do, very much. I understand from a purely rational perspective that awards don’t matter in the grander scheme of things; I get that winning an award (or not winning an award) doesn’t change the words on the page; I know that an incredibly small percentage of the world even has any idea that writers sometimes win trophies for their writing, or that people are still writing at all. I’m sure more people care about who caught the year’s biggest bass.

Last year, I went out for drinks with a new hire at Esquire and one of his friends from Vanity Fair. They asked me if I ever thought I might win a National Magazine Award. I told them, as quietly as I could, that I’d won two, including one less than a year earlier. That’s when I realized, No one gives a shit about these things except for you. No one else is keeping score.

But I've always kept score. I don’t know why, exactly. I just know that Gary Smith has won the most National Magazine Awards, with four. I know Tom Junod has won two. William Langewiesche has also won two. I like the validation of their company. I like being able to think, late at night, that maybe I belong.

And that’s why, this morning, when I found out that I hadn’t been nominated for a story I’d written on Roger Ebert, I first took to Twitter to spit the dummy—always a wise and prudent course of action—and then retired to my day bed for an afternoon of dizziness and spells.

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t think it was a given. It’s really, really hard to win a National Magazine Award. So many things have to break the right way, from the inception of the idea to the panel of five like-minded people reading the entries. Never mind, too, that there are so many great stories written every year, including the stories that did get nominated this year. I could write the story of my life, but if David Grann got a burr in his ass and decided to write a story that year, I’d be totally fucked. So much of it is out of your hands.

All of which is why, when you think you have a chance, as I did with Ebert—when you’ve enjoyed one of those rare instances when everything seems to have worked, when everything feels as though it might fall into place for you—it’s particularly devastating when you find out that you didn’t have a chance all along.

After I got the news this morning, I called my editor, Peter, who said all the right things. It must have been hard for him, having to prop me back up, the little bitch on the phone, but God love him, he did it. We said terrible things. He made me laugh. But really, essentially, he asked me if I would have traded the experience of writing about Roger Ebert for an award. Did that piece not already have its own value to me, independent of hardware?

Of course it does. I wouldn’t trade that story for anything. As hard as it is to write a story that will win a National Magazine Award, it might be just as hard to write a story that changes how you look at your life. I’ll probably never write another story that catches the way that Ebert story did. I’ve worked harder on pieces that earned one-tenth the audience. It was, in every possible way, a perfect experience. I’m happy and grateful to have had that chance.

Philosophy, though, doesn’t take away every last drop of the sting. I can look in the mirror and speak gently to myself all I’d like, but would I still love to be sitting at a table in New York City on May 9^th, waiting for someone to open an envelope with my name in it? You’re goddamn right I would.

But I’m hoping that just maybe today’s rapid-fire bolt through the stages of grief—now I’ve reached anger, surprisingly quickly—will make me a better writer. I’m hoping that those sad, disappointed people are right when they inevitably say that everything happens for a reason.

I’ve never met much adversity in my life or my work. I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve been nominated for two National Magazine Awards, and I’ve won them both. I’ve never had that feeling of deflation I had this morning, that venting of jets. Maybe, in some strange way, I needed that.

Maybe I needed to know what it’s like to feel that sick elevator drop in my stomach. Maybe it’s good that, right now, I’m still reeling a little bit, that I’m still pissed off, the steam coming off the top of my head. Because it’s been a long time since I’ve felt so ready to get to work. Suddenly I want to write better than I’ve ever written before. I want to work harder. I still want to win another National Magazine Award, but maybe not quite as much as I did early this morning. Now I want more to be the guy who keeps David Grann awake at night, wondering what’s coming down the chute.

Until today, I always thought that winning was the greatest motivator. I had no idea the fucking gas that comes from a loss.