Measured chaos

Should I measure my success by the 'Best Writer” Hamlet-Grammy I won this past summer?

Hamlet-Grammys aren't real awards - it's something a few of my relatives thought up for our family reunion. 'Hamlet” being the family name on my dad's side.

But there I was - back home in Grand Rapids, Michigan - accepting this award which I was very honored to receive.

It just feels a little empty if you're not beating anyone, you know?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not chomping at the bit to beat my family members, I'm really not that competitive a person. But when you get an award from your family of any sort (whether or not that award is made-up) you find yourself wondering: Did I earn this?

I know of at least three or four other solid writers on my dad's side and I know why they weren't considered. It's because back during my last semester of high school in 2013, I self-published a 130,000 word novel - made mostly of ambition and typos - and forced pretty much every member of my family to buy it. I don't see that side of my family a lot since they live in Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Chicago, and a lot of other places so that $20 they spent on a person they don't see that much was bound to make an impression.

Still, it would have been nice to be considered in other categories: 'Most Entertaining,” 'Best Looking,” or 'Most Likely To Be Annointed King of the State” - 'Best Writer” is good, too, though.

I still accepted the award, of course. I still have it hanging next to my desk at home just so I can look at it, see the words 'Best Writer” and think to myself ‘yeah I am.'

Yet this award that would have excited me to no end as a kid seems a little hollow now since I know there are better writers out there than me. Just like going back through that 130,000 word book I wrote feels a little hollow since I know I can do better now. Or how majoring in English feels hollow the moment you tell someone off campus about it since they assume you're going to go into teaching.

At the time of this family reunion I had just graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in English and creative writing with minors in journalism and Latin. But when I told a family member, I told them 'I'm getting my degree in English AND Journalism,” trying to sidestep the inevitable 'So are you going into teaching?” (which they'd still ask.) My hope is that at the next family reunion that by telling people 'I have a job working at the Washington Journal and Mt. Pleasant News” they'll stop asking me 'But are you going into teaching?”

Before this I was an arts reporter at the Daily Iowan and a student at the University of Iowa. With the DI I'd write stories about bands playing at local venues, comedians coming into town, and plays being performed on local stages. As a student I did most things that weren't my English degree on accident.

I knew I wanted to get a degree in something else to supplement my English degree (after all, the only thing you can really use one of those for is teaching) so I thought I'd get a second major in business. This went disastrously. It was bad. I'd try to better explain how badly this went for me, but I didn't get far enough in the degree to take the class which would teach me to quantify that level of failure. At that point I was already working for the Daily Iowan (which I'd only done at the recommendation of one of my high school English teachers) so I decided to look into it.

I have no idea how I minored in Latin.

I was going to try to minor in theater and was only a few classes away from that, but I took a class on Latin and then a class on mythology and then Roman art and now I have a degree in that. Omens viae Romam ducunt, I guess.

To a younger me all these things would have been huge bench marks. But right now they just feel like things that aren't as nice as I think they should be.

This column doesn't end on a grand thesis statement of the nature of success, but the fact that I'm writing a column to be published feels like a good indicator I've met my personal mark for success.

Maybe it becomes easier to lose track of what success is when you're always aiming for the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. But here I am, having self-published a novel in high school, graduated from a college known for its writing program, and in a job where I get to write for a living.

Even if it was just to my family, even if it is superficial - that someone would take the time to put my name on an award 'Isaac Hamlet for Best Writer” made from cardstock paper has got to be some measure of success, one I'm proud of and thankful for.

That they misspelled my name 'Issac” is a little less uplifting, but we'll get there.