Productive losers for the win
In which I share the secret to winning and losing. Hint: it's the same thing.
This summer I wrote a young adult novel called Hamburger Hamlet. It’s about a seventeen-year-old Jew-ish boy who inherits his father’s hamburger stand, along with a side of family drama, mental health issues, and some deep existential angst. So… Hamlet, but with hamburgers, better jokes, and zero violence. I serialized the novel—one chapter per week—on Wattpad.
What’s Wattpad? It’s a social reading platform where millions of writers and tens of millions of readers, from all over the world, build community around stories. Every year, Wattpad honors the best novels with the Watty Awards. This year, there were 40,000 entries, and a few dozen winners. The odds of winning aren’t great.
I’ve won twice. Both wins opened up professional opportunities for me and earned me a lot of attention on Wattpad. They also paved the way for me to join the Wattpad Stars program, which means my profile has that ubiquitous stamp of approval all social media platforms bestow—the verified profile badge. 😲
This year, The Watty Awards were announced on Friday, December 4. I marked the date on my calendar months ago, right next to the reminder that December 4 is Christina’s birthday. No scheduling conflict there, but I saw an emotional conflict, regardless of the outcome.
Goal: be present to help Christina celebrate her birthday.
Obstacle: my own bullshit.
The first time I won a Watty, I wasn’t prepared. The news came in the morning, and it went straight to my head, derailing a day of writing. I am an unproductive winner.
The first time I lost a Watty, I wasn’t prepared either. Once again, the news came in the morning, only instead of swelling my ego, a bitter cocktail of self-doubt and with a shot of envy knocked me on my ass and derailed several days of writing. I am an unproductive loser.
These days, my typical Friday goes like this: I wake up, walk Morty, write until about noon, make lunch for me and Christina, then do the laundry and clean the house. Friday, December 4 was no different, except I added a few more items to my to-do list.
Pick-up cupcakes at a local bakery (curbside because plague)
Drive Christina to Hollywood to pick-up dinner from her favorite restaurant (again, curbside because plague)
Set-up the big computer monitor in the dining room for Christina’s Zoom birthday party (once again, for the people in the back, because plague)
Meet my Watty fate
I didn’t sleep well on Thursday night. I blame item number 4. I also blame Morty, who is a notorious pillow hog, as well as the howling Santa Ana winds that spread pollen, wild fire, and low-key madness throughout Southern California.
On Friday, I woke up early, braved the Santa Ana winds to take Morty for a walk, then came home and discovered that we were out of coffee.
I muddled through an outline for a new novel. But after an hour or so, I found myself checking the clock more than I was typing. After two hours, nervous anticipation and a lack of caffeine were clearly conspiring to ruin ruin me. Thankfully, I know the secret to leveling out emotional highs and lows: laundry.
The Watty Awards were announced during the spin cycle of the second load of laundry. Spoiler alert: I didn’t win.
Was I bummed? You bet. I poured my heart and soul into Hamburger Hamlet. I wrote the novel because I wanted to share something personal about the universal theme of grief, de-stigmatize mental health, show young readers that Shakespeare is still relevant to their lives, share my identity as a secular Jew, and with any luck, say something profound about the meaning of life that would resonate with princes, jesters, and gravediggers alike.
But that’s some lofty shit for a guy who needs to get the laundry in the dryer, make avocado toast and tater tots for a birthday brunch, and get thee to thine errands and chores.
Which brings me to my point. Winning is a distraction. Losing is a distraction, too. The former sends your ego to the moon, while the latter sends that same ego crashing through the floor. Both of these mental states are counterproductive.
Turns out, chores and errands are the secret to productivity, and maybe happiness too. By the time I finished my to-do list, I had put the Watty news behind me. But I suppose I could’ve said the same thing if I had won a Watty; after all, there’s nothing as grounding as cleaning a toilet. Win or lose, the way you approach the work has to be the same. Because if you’re going to get anything done, you can’t afford to fly too high, and you can’t let yourself sink too low.
Obstacle: my own bullshit
Goal: be present to help Christina celebrate her birthday ✅
If you enjoyed this story about the emotional highs and lows of awards, how chores are the secret to winning and losing, and showing up to celebrate life with the people you love, please 👇
And if you want to hear the story of Christina’s birthday, a Zoom tarot carrot reading, and how I went “undercover” to test the veracity of the tarot card reader, make sure to 👇
Thanks for reading!
❤️ & ☕️
Michael
It's a damn shame you didn't win.
As always, I love your wit and humor. Are those the same things? Anyway, I'm sorry for your loss, but I'll bet your story is amazeballs. Gotta get to reading it. Wish Christina a happy belated birthday from that weird Wattpad writer you met in New York City.