6 Simple Tips for Surviving as a Writer (We Need to Talk About BRATS)
By Julianna Baggott | June 25, 2024 |
Credit: ABC Studios
My fellow writers, we need to talk about the new documentary by Andrew McCarthy, BRATS. It’s not just a nostalgia trip. It’s about criticism and rejection and survival as artists.
The film is instructive because it’s not about how criticism landed on one person and their career. It’s a research study about how criticism affected a group of people, each reacting in their own way. This is what gives us options.
(It’s also about a writer with his own bruised ego. We’ll get to him later.)
Here’s the back story — a group of young actors were enjoying huge success when, as NPR puts it, “journalist David Blum wrote a story in 1985 for New York magazine titled ‘Hollywood’s Brat Pack,’ centered on time spent partying with Estevez, Lowe and Nelson, that cast shade on the group — lumping them together as unprofessional and over-privileged, while sticking them with a moniker which would follow them all around for decades.”
We follow McCarthy as he tracks down as many members of the so-called Brat Pack as possible to find out, thirty years later, how the nickname affected them, professionally and personally.
What might be astonishing for non-artists is how heavily being lumped into that group weighed on McCarthy, disastrous to his career and to him, personally. But this is not an unusual story for creatives. I see storylines like this—albeit not usually at this level of fame—and openness.
Let’s take a beat to be grateful for McCarthy here. One issue facing creatives is that so few people are willing to talk about failure, real or perceived, so our narratives are skewed and our models for how to deal with rejection and failure go missing.
As we move through the film, we watch McCarthy realize that his reaction was specific to him, and not a foregone conclusion.
There’s a slider scale, one might say, of reactions here. Rob Lowe and Demi Moore on one side, having forged on. Emilio Estevez and Allie Sheedy are somewhere in the middle, having struggled with the name in their own way.
But it would be a mistake to see McCarthy as sitting on the other extreme. We don’t hear from Molly Ringwald. Judd Nelson remains elusive. Anthony Michael Hall is never even mentioned by name. It’s possible that the hardest hit aren’t visible to us on the slider scale and that McCarthy sits dead center.
Meaning, McCarthy’s response, though he seems doomed in retrospect, was actually pretty damn healthy. He’s thoughtful, introspective—sober, alive—and seems to have a full, happy life. But he can’t help but look back.
And, for all of the buzz around mindset, this is such a fascinating deep dive.
Demi Moore emerges as a brilliant gift. It’s Moore who quickly breaks it down for McCarthy. The nickname had value because he gave it value. It became what he feared it was.
In an earlier segment, while talking to Sheedy, McCarthy talked about how, in his auditions, everything felt different. With Moore, he talks about his fear, before the article, that someone was always going to stab him in the back. With Estevez, he hints at his troubled relationship with his father, with whom he could never make things right, but, in the end, could be present for. At another point, he discusses his dual feelings about that early era of huge success: half of him was enjoying it, the other half wanted to run from it.
Moore talks about “againstness,” that the article typified againstness and that usually sparks againstness as a response. But it didn’t have to be that way. He decided what the Brat Pack meant from the first moment he saw the magazine cover. This was the back-stabbing he’d been expecting. It arrived and that was the immediate value he gave it.
Moore also gives context because she really looked, with empathy, at the writer. She saw him as probably a clever guy just looking for his next job. At another point in the documentary, someone floats that the writer was probably just jealous. And with Sheedy, McCarthy talks about how everyone seemed so ready to take them down a peg. He uses the term “glee.”
And that brings us to the writer whom, out of everyone we’ve met, seems to be the least evolved. It’s painful to watch. McCarthy gives him opportunity upon opportunity to offer some kind of apology or even a bit of regret.
But it quickly becomes clear, at least to me, that Blum has been dining out on this story for a long time, that he was just a clever guy trying to get his next level gig, that he was definitely jealous, mostly of Rob Lowe, and that he did want to take them down a peg. You can almost still see the glee in him, deep down.
McCarthy, as he’s leaving, tries one more time to offer him that chance to make things right, but he can’t. And a little bell goes off, as the audience might remember that, with his own father, McCarthy could be present, could be connected, but couldn’t get the full cycle of forgiveness and peace.
What does any of this have to do with the work we do? How does any of this become 6 Simple Tips to Surviving as a Writer?
Let’s give it a shot.
Credit: Columbia Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection
1. Consider McCarthy’s ‘backstabbing’ anxiety.
My own version of this fear takes many forms. If you can get rid of it completely, please leave a comment in the box below and let me know.
Let’s say you can’t get rid of that fear. It just is. This is what I suggest: Assume it. Prepare for that moment. Make it a foregone conclusion. Then when it arrives, you’re only surprised by the form it takes. “Oh, huh. Interesting.”
You’re prepared because you’ve already decided that it’s not fatal. Criticism and rejection are inevitable. Even being knocked off your feet completely. What if you presume that at some point you will feel that your career – as you know it—is over.
What if you expect that? What if you’ve already decided: I’ll reinvent. I’ll figure it out. This might be an awful ride, but I’ll land somewhere better, surer of myself and who I am.
2. Figure out the enemy and then decide they probably aren’t the enemy.
Demi Moore and others had mused about the reviewer. They saw him as just a person, like everyone else, trying to build a career. He actually confesses that, on the night out with the trio, he was getting the least amount of attention at the table. He quickly recovers saying that he was fine with it, but, wow, noted.
He even goes on to try to position himself as the victim, getting his feelings hurt by something said about the article on the Phil Donoghue Show and that his career didn’t take off from the article the way he’d hoped.
He is, by far, the person who has done the least introspection, who is the most stunted, the saddest character of all. While McCarthy is full of graciousness, he’s got almost nothing.
If McCarthy had figured out Blum earlier, realized that he was just a guy with his own insecurities and weaknesses, it might have helped.
3. Change the value.
Moore told Andrew that the nickname had the value he gave it, only that. It’s the ruby slippers moment—you had the power all along. If he’d decided it meant nothing, could it have meant nothing? Could it have meant … less? Could he have walked into those auditions and changed the air?
Could the actors themselves taken the piss out of it? What if the Brat Pack had leaned into it? What if they made fun of it? What if they did photoshoots making it more absurd? All of this is easy to say in retrospect. In the moment, there were real consequences. Acting, at this level, is especially precarious.
McCarthy talked about losing control of his own narrative. Could they have reclaimed it?
McCarthy is doing that now.
4. Get in touch with Againstness.
Instead of drilling down into the particulars of a rejection, criticism, or even a minor insult, what if we labeled them as: againstness. That’s it. “I just experienced some againstness.”
As artists in American culture— a culture that enjoys lifting up and cutting down artists—we have to expect againstness. As people who create art that becomes commerce, we have to expect againstness.
And then we have to refuse to meet it with our own againstness.
Art requires openness, vulnerability. Or, at least, my favorite kind of art does. And if we are walking though our lives projecting Me v. Them, we’re building walls – to protect ourselves but also insulating us from our own deep, raw emotions, which we have to offer up. We have to be willing to be raw, even though we know it may be used against us.
Label againstness as againstness. Acknowledge it. Then let it go. Easier said than done. But you have to track it with as much neutrality as possible in order to move on. Someone else’s againstness is theirs, not yours. It’s about them and their relationship with the world. Not you.
5. Use the fuel of Againstness.
Againstness creates energy. But if you can take that energy and use that energy to fuel yourself and your own work, do that. Don’t let that energy burn you up.
6. It’s your narrative. Always. Don’t let anyone steal it.
I’m not suggesting that you respond, publicly. You don’t need to give criticism or rejection any airtime. But how you choose to tell the story is critical to how you perceive what’s happened to you and to find yourself and your strengths.
What McCarthy does here—in the act of reaching out to others—is collecting the scattered narrative, getting lots of views on it, and then changing his own narrative. He finds scholars and writers who explain the incredible impact of the Brat Pack films, putting them into historical context, and, in the end, he finds a deep appreciation—maybe even an affection—for the term.
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I spend a lot of time wondering about my generation of writers, the ones I came up with, having glided past each other on panels, shuttled amid publishers, publicists, in reviews, and on tours. How, like actors, our work demands a deep level of vulnerability. We’re the sensitive ones, doing emotional labor so readers can, hopefully, excavate their own lives. And McCarthy gave insights and language around damage and survival. Embedded in the storyline, there’s a lot to mine—as fellow artists and human beings.
Have you seen BRATS? How did it resonate with you?
What is your experience with againstness, especially if you’ve found a way to use it to fuel yourself forward?
If you’ve dealt with fear, share what you can so we can marry your strategies with our own biologies.
The floor is yours.
Julianna Baggott is the author of over 20 books, including two New York Times Notable Books of the Year, PURE and HARRIET WOLF’S SEVENTH BOOK OF WONDERS. She runs a film and television production company, Mildred’s Moving Picture Show,. Her latest book I’D REALLY PREFER NOT TO BE HERE WITH YOU is a collection of stories, many of which are in development at places like Netflix, Paramount, and Amblin. The feature film WHICH BRINGS ME TO YOU, based on the novel she co-wrote with Steve Almond, is currently streaming. www.juliannabaggott.com
I have not seen the Brat Pack, Julianna (beautiful name, btw)… yet. Love the term “againstness.” It draws a more realistic view of rejection and/or criticism. I checked my ego years ago, which helped me develop rhino skin. Fear, I doubt I’ll ever move past. Even after 23 books, every new release tosses me into an endless pit of anxiety—akin to standing naked for all to judge.
I haven’t see the documentary, but I’m going to hunt it down and watch it. Great article — thoughtful and with some unique points made, too. Well done.
Thanks for this thoughtful post. My take-away is not what the actors have experienced, as much as what I have…what we all have….rejection. Against-ness. Sometimes we step into the creative world with eyes shining bright, hopes high. A few positive experiences (someone really liked your blog post; you published a story on a site and had great feedback) just cannot carry you along. There is always rejection ahead…small and large. Some you understand. Others make you want to quit. But writers are inspired…stories beat in their heads and cannot be ignored. Your post underlines that even those on the heights can feel the pain of rejection. Maybe they get a new agent. Maybe they become a singer instead of an actor. For us writers, we never stop. And we should not. The novel might become a short story; the essay might not be accepted, so we just blog about it. But no matter who you are and what your creative direction is, rejection is painful. Is there an answer? Yes. Don’t give up. NEVER GIVE UP.
FEAR is easy. You just acknowledge it, record it, USE it, and wrestle it to the ground every single time it comes around.
I’ve kept a FEAR Journal since I started working on Pride’s Children, in 2000.
It took me a while to realize FEAR is FUEL, and FEAR is the cause of Impostor Syndrome, and FEAR is like depression, in that it LIES.
And the answer has been, every time so far, to DO the WORK. FEAR is a signal I have something to worry about, and it’s not finished, and I can’t quite defend whatever writing it is that’s causing the FEAR.
For me, it’s often FEAR of assuming I know what I’m doing. Possibly before I do.
FEAR makes me want to not write what I have to. Which is silly, because I know I’m going to. Eventually. When I get it figured out. And SOME of my readers may thank me for walking it with them, and others will have the reaction I fear – disapproval, disgust, disbelief – but the latter aren’t MY readers.
Writing it down and acknowledging it and then working through it is what I do. FEAR likes being acknowledged.
But FEAR has no agency I don’t grant it.
Alicia, I’ve been pondering the power of a FEAR JOURNAL since reading your comment. Thanks for planting a potentially powerful seed.
Thank you for your article. I appreciated your insights, very much, about the Brat Pack situation. I was a huge Brat Pack lover at the time, and I still admire Andrew McCarthy, who has carved his own career mainly as a writer, but also as a director and sometimes-actor. He was great in the Resident, for example! I also love Ally Sheedy. I agree very much about the writer, Blum, and his lack of enlightened evolution. What a complete waste of talent – someone who can write, but instead not only ill-uses that talent, but glories in berating others with his talent. Indeed begs the question whether he is actually very talented…
This article inspired me to watch BRATS, which — as a child of that era — I enjoyed. I missed seeing Judd, Molly, and Anthony, and did a little digging after the viewing. I found an interview with Anthony about his absence in the doc that I wanted to share because it speaks to another way to cope with get-in-your-head static.
It’s an enlightening, textured interview for anyone interested: thewrap.com/anthony-michael-hall-andrew-mccarthy-brats-doc/
Thanks for the post and conversation, Julianna! I’m sure this piece will inspire many a writer to watch BRATS and think about the long tail of criticism.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
For better or worse, I have lived my life according to that principle.
Now, I would love to say it has always worked out for me, that bravery in the face of daunting odds is a virtue–but it isn’t. It is, however, a great way to learn how to take a punch.
Despite a long mythology in this country about manifest destiny, bootstraps, rugged individualism, America loves nothing more than to elevate a chosen few…and then smite them. This smiting comes in various forms: snarky observations on a celebrity’s appearance, especially her weight; unqualified speculation about her mental fitness; how “overexposed” she has become because, like any actress, she is frantically churning out movies before her death knell at forty.
How celebrities handle this cynosure is clearly the subject of BRATS, and thanks to your terrific essay, I will be watching it. But I would posit this: The most effective way to overcome fear of rejection or criticism is to purposely subject yourself to a whole bunch of it.
In other words, the only way out is in.
Fail repeatedly–and feel those failures. Marinate in those feelings of shame. Eventually, you, in your woozy, punch-drunk state, will be forced to get in touch with exactly what’s so traumatizing about rejection.
One of the most helpful things I ever learned was that our brains are wired no differently than they were thousands of years ago. Back then, expulsion from our small bands of roving hunter/gatherers meant death. A bad book review, a scathing agent rejection (side bar: I had an agent once who told me the only reason she made it through my WIP was because she personally liked me–ouch!) makes us feel the same panic we did back in the forest primeval. We are being shunned, abandoned. We are about to die.
Knowing that changed everything for me. Now, I’m so battle-hardened, nothing fazes me anymore. Twenty years ago, I would have been inconsolable.
Head games won’t work in this arena. It’s kill or be killed, a raw Darwinian struggle that pits you against people who don’t wish you harm, per se; they simply don’t care. Rejection and criticism feel personal, but they aren’t.
So, I say let yourself be ripped apart. Repeatedly put your head on the chopping block. Be afraid. When you emerge on the other side–and you will–you are unfuckwithable.
And that’s a damn good feeling.
I might need to frame this entire reply and put it in front of my computer so I can read it daily. Thank you for your hard-won wisdom, and for introducing me to another wonderful quote from Eleanor Roosevelt!
Great post. So much to ponder. Many of the replies were equally thought provoking. Thanks.
I watched the documentary the day it first appeared on Hulu, and like you, Julianna, I was profoundly affected by it. This should be mandatory watching for all writers, particularly if you grew up with the movies featuring this very talented group of young actors.
I agree with all that you said, and had that same observations of each actor interviewed by McCarthy. My heart broke for him because that article seemed to have a huge impact on his career, possibly because he let it, however I can’t help but wonder how his life might have turned out if the article hadn’t been published. Unlike Lowe and Moore, who dealt with their feelings about it early in their careers. Estevez had strong feelings like McCarthy, but he managed to propel his career forward. McCarthy’s career never really took off.
I think Blum was a real asshole during his interview. Everything you said about him, in my opinion, is spot on. If you looked up “dick” in the dictionary, his photo would be staring right at you. I realize Moore and Lowe forgive him, but I don’t think I can. Like you said, Blum had ample opportunity to apologize for his part in maligning McCarthy’s career, but instead he took great pride in the havoc he wreaked on this talented young actor. Strong words, I know, but he pissed me off.
Everyone, go watch this documentary. It’s excellent.
I so needed this today. Thank you, Julianna!
Leave it to the wonderful Julianna Baggot to come up with such great advice! I saw the Brats doc last week, and I love this parsing of their experience in the service of all of us in the arts. It’s notable that the two people with the most wisdom to impart to the tormented Andrew McCarthy – Rob Lowe and Demi Moore – have been sober for many years. The work required for sobriety has a way putting things in perspective. Loved Moore’s “againstness” comments. And yours, Julianna!
I had to come back to this. My main thought, not having seen the documentary yet, is that being called the Brat Pack after those movies, especially The Breakfast Club, solidified the absolute coolness of being who you are and maintaining the boundaries that allow you to be so. On the surface, yes, perhaps the actors didn’t love that it seemed to proclaim the movie characters were in fact them as people. But …
The character arcs in their films also represented growth–showing teens a way forward. Perhaps he mentions this, but, if not, McCarthy needs to interview some cool-to-him and evolved Generation X individuals in which may rest his solace and ultimate redemption.
I haven’t even seen the documentary, but I am transformed by the meaning of it all again in this new example–how the answer to everything we need is right there, but we may only see what we see. Most Gen X kids weren’t reading Blum, I reckon! The power of someone else’s words? Only as much as we give them.
Them being called the Brat Pack reinforced at least in Gen X, at a critical time of separation from parents to being an adult, that things were also going to turn out great. The Brat Pack created a cultural fortitude amongst Gen X that would not have been the same without them. (Though I bet any of those screenwriters might also like to be recognized here. Thanks to them as well!)