Sugar the Zebra, and the Third Rodeo

Or, how it's perfectly fine to ask for what you want

When I read the news about the fourth escaped zebra to be located and brought to safety (captivity?) in Washington State earlier this week, I learned that the man who helped to devise the capture plan had once been a rodeo clown. I also learned that the Zebra, named Sugar, “who is also known as Shug”—which fact was not journalistically necessary at all, since no one quoted later in the article referred to the zebra by her nickname. Clearly, the NYT reporter just wanted us to know: this zebra has a cool alter-ego. It seems that the reporter’s tolerance for humor—or their sense of the reader’s tolerance for humor—ran out before they could speak of the rodeo clown’s experience with handling four-legged beasts by saying the obvious:

It was not this man’s first rodeo.

The Gray Lady instead went with, “This wasn’t Mr. Danton’s first time in the saddle”.

photo credit: Sugar, by Regional Animal Services of King County (via NYT)

This April, as I launched my third novel, LAST DAYS IN PLAKA, I noticed that I was going about my book launch in a way that was different—more assertive, more confident—than with the previous two novels. This is, in fact, not my first rodeo. This third time around, with this third rodeo, I have finally shed the timidity and almost embarrassment (more about that later) that can surround the experience of shepherding your creative work out into a busy, crowded, and noisy world of potential readers. This time around, I’ve posted the little ads and graphics to let people know when I have an event coming up. I’ve sent emails to people in the relevant areas with info about the events local to them. I’ve told virtually anyone and everyone I meet that I have a book out, or an event coming. I’ve posted links to the many pieces my publicists and I have placed in various online publications. And I’ve crowed about any of the kind words or accolades that have come my way. (Good Morning America Buzz Pick? Definitely!)

I wish I had done this with Rodeos One and Two. It might have moved the needle and secured me a few more book sales or book-club visits. (Not that I’m unhappy. Granted, in traditional publishing, it’s hard to know your sales statistics in a timely manner. But I’m very pleased with my experience with both the presses that published my three books.) Still, if I had been more assertive in those first rodeos, I would feel better now about those previous experiences. I did better on Rodeo Two than on Rodeo One, but there was still room for improvement, not only in how I performed, but also in how much I enjoyed the experience.

It seems odd, doesn’t it, for me to be saying I would have enjoyed the book launches more if I had gone forward with a persistence and assertion that I’ve also characterized as awkward and embarrassing? No one enjoys awkwardness and shame. We cringe at having to insist on our needs. Did the barista get your order wrong? You don’t really want to be the jerk who asks for a redo because the milk is oat not almond. Do you need to ask your cousins to buy your book? You don’t want to come across as needy or greedy, so you say nothing.

The thing is that there are ways to ask for something without being pushy or needy or greedy. We all know this. We might even encourage another person to go ahead, speak up for yourself! It’s much easier when you’re saying it to someone else, and much harder to get yourself to speak up. The key is to realize that it’s ok for you to ask for what you want. It’s almost ridiculous not to.

No one should be surprised now to see that I’m going to turn to sports for more clarity.

Imagine you’re playing a game—by choice, not because someone shoved you onto the court and you hate, say, basketball. The way to play is to move, and act, and do. You can’t play the game if you’re standing there (again, remember this is a scenario in which you want to be playing). Think about another sport, like, say, tennis. You want to hit the ball back over the net. So of course you’re going to move towards it, swing your racket at it. To refrain from doing those things would be—in the context of a game you wish to be playing—ridiculous.

It’s much easier for us to accept self-assertion in this sports situation. And, while it’s true that you can’t establish the correctness of a behavior in one context and simply carry it over as correctness in another, I think that this particular comparison makes sense. A book launch—and all the events, and interviews, and invitations, and emails, and posts that go with it—is a kind of game. You want to be playing it. It’s even true that people watching you play it are generally pleased that you’re playing it. It is, therefore, I decree, more than okay for you to assert yourself while going about it, without embarrassment or shame for asking for what you want.

We are not living in the era of the British amateur, where to try too hard or to seek payment for one’s efforts was seen as poor form. We are certainly no longer in middle school where to try too hard would relegate a person to the corner lunch table and the scorn of the mean girls. There is, in fact, no such thing as trying too hard. Yoda had it only partly right. Or, to quote another petite sage, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”—Wayne Gretzky.

What of Sugar, our bold and double-monikered zebra? Let’s not focus on the part where she was corralled and returned to her home in a petting zoo in Anaconda, Montana (yes that is the town’s real name). Let’s focus on how she spent a few days on the lam, surely telling all the woodland creatures she encountered to “call me Shug”, in the zebra voice of a pirate or an outlaw or a spy. Let’s say that Shug was living her best life for a while. Because she went for it.

zebra outlaw as generated by Substack

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And speaking of going for it, here’s an assertive request. I’ve co-founded a publishing company called Galiot Press (read all about it on our Galiot Press substack here). We’re running a Galiot Press Kickstarter to raise our startup costs and we have a little over one week left to raise the cash or we get none of it. Please visit our page. Please make a pledge. We need the start-up costs to get us up and running so we can bring bold new books into the world in an innovative way.