Embrace Your Failure
With the New Year, and a fresh decade, approaching rapidly, I thought I'd pause from my usual kind of stuff and reflect a little (please bare with me).
Like a lot of writers, I have this horrible habit of accumulating authorial paraphernalia. Pens, notepads, notebooks, books, and forests worth of loose sheets of paper--they accumulate in my workspace like dust bunnies beneath a bed. Much of the paper is leaves of notepad and scrape paper on which I've scribble something or other, and of course, I dare not through any of them away without risking the loss of whatever thoughts or lines I've committed to it.
I've developed methods to manage this tendency.
I've long-kept all my old notebooks and my yet-to-be-used notebooks in shoe boxes, so they're not cluttering up every surface. More recently though, to contend with the loose leaves of paper, I've taken up something of an old-fashioned hobby: scrapbooking. Any time I scribble something down on a loose slip of paper--whether I log the writing elsewhere, such as on my computer, or not--I've taken up the habit of trimming the paper down and inserting it into a scrapbook. (Actually, I don't use scrapbooks. I use photo albums because you can take stuff out and rearrange them more easily.)
Recently, while I was putting some new things into a new scrapbook, I happened to take a look at the one I'd filled and finished months ago. Among the items included in this book was a handwritten list of goals I wanted to achieve in 2019.
There's no date on it, of course (I never date random stuff), but I'm guessing I wrote this list sometime before New Years 2018. It's badly scrawled in my usual flair-filled and sloppy cursive handwriting, in black ink, on a leaf from a yellow legal pad:
Reviewing the list, it becomes painfully obvious to me that, despite my good intentions, I've fallen short of some of my goals. I do have to give myself credit though. I managed to achieve some:
I joined a gym recently in an effort to live a healthier life.
I've written some more articles for Tor.com, and I hope to continue that into this new decade.
I did manage to revise the story (whose' name I blotted out), but it still needs more work.
I have started yet another book, which I will get to work on after the New Year.
And, last but not least, I have managed to keep working for Ad Astra Magazine as a First Reader and maintain my blog.
Still though, I've failed in other ways.
My novel, the first item on this list, is not complete in the way I'd like it to be. It's certainly not ready for querying and therefore, no where near ready for publication. I certainly never managed to get around to one item on this, which was to write at least two new short stories, and I didn't get nearly as many articles written for Tor.com (or other venues for that matter) as I'd have liked. Also, despite my new "gym rat" status, I don't think I've managed to lose much weight yet, but I've heard it's supposed to be a slow process.
Why am I mulching all this over on here? The answer is twofold.
To begin, despite my failures, I did, as many of you I'm sure, manage to do something good in 2019. We are our harshest critics, and we often hold ourselves to a higher, often unreachable standard compared to the one to which we hold others. The result of this thinking is we often think more lowly of ourselves and fail to ever give ourselves credit for our successes, which we shouldn't.
Concurrently though, we all must acknowledge our failures. We must own them, for they constantly remind us of the truth that there is always room for self-betterment. Sure, we may fail here or there, we may stumble while heading down whatever path we wish for our lives; however, one stumble, one failure does not mean the end of all things.
It just means we have to take the time to dust ourselves off, heal any acute wounds we've acquired, and regather our confidence to move forward.
With a new decade to commence in a matter of days, we should all pause to reflect on and embrace our failures of the recent past. By doing so, we may begin to devise new goals for ourselves that, hopefully, will help us become better.
Like a lot of writers, I have this horrible habit of accumulating authorial paraphernalia. Pens, notepads, notebooks, books, and forests worth of loose sheets of paper--they accumulate in my workspace like dust bunnies beneath a bed. Much of the paper is leaves of notepad and scrape paper on which I've scribble something or other, and of course, I dare not through any of them away without risking the loss of whatever thoughts or lines I've committed to it.
I've developed methods to manage this tendency.
I've long-kept all my old notebooks and my yet-to-be-used notebooks in shoe boxes, so they're not cluttering up every surface. More recently though, to contend with the loose leaves of paper, I've taken up something of an old-fashioned hobby: scrapbooking. Any time I scribble something down on a loose slip of paper--whether I log the writing elsewhere, such as on my computer, or not--I've taken up the habit of trimming the paper down and inserting it into a scrapbook. (Actually, I don't use scrapbooks. I use photo albums because you can take stuff out and rearrange them more easily.)
Recently, while I was putting some new things into a new scrapbook, I happened to take a look at the one I'd filled and finished months ago. Among the items included in this book was a handwritten list of goals I wanted to achieve in 2019.
There's no date on it, of course (I never date random stuff), but I'm guessing I wrote this list sometime before New Years 2018. It's badly scrawled in my usual flair-filled and sloppy cursive handwriting, in black ink, on a leaf from a yellow legal pad:
 |
| See. I'm not Bullshitting. Pardon the Redactions. |
Reviewing the list, it becomes painfully obvious to me that, despite my good intentions, I've fallen short of some of my goals. I do have to give myself credit though. I managed to achieve some:
I joined a gym recently in an effort to live a healthier life.
I've written some more articles for Tor.com, and I hope to continue that into this new decade.
I did manage to revise the story (whose' name I blotted out), but it still needs more work.
I have started yet another book, which I will get to work on after the New Year.
And, last but not least, I have managed to keep working for Ad Astra Magazine as a First Reader and maintain my blog.
Still though, I've failed in other ways.
My novel, the first item on this list, is not complete in the way I'd like it to be. It's certainly not ready for querying and therefore, no where near ready for publication. I certainly never managed to get around to one item on this, which was to write at least two new short stories, and I didn't get nearly as many articles written for Tor.com (or other venues for that matter) as I'd have liked. Also, despite my new "gym rat" status, I don't think I've managed to lose much weight yet, but I've heard it's supposed to be a slow process.
Why am I mulching all this over on here? The answer is twofold.
To begin, despite my failures, I did, as many of you I'm sure, manage to do something good in 2019. We are our harshest critics, and we often hold ourselves to a higher, often unreachable standard compared to the one to which we hold others. The result of this thinking is we often think more lowly of ourselves and fail to ever give ourselves credit for our successes, which we shouldn't.
Concurrently though, we all must acknowledge our failures. We must own them, for they constantly remind us of the truth that there is always room for self-betterment. Sure, we may fail here or there, we may stumble while heading down whatever path we wish for our lives; however, one stumble, one failure does not mean the end of all things.
It just means we have to take the time to dust ourselves off, heal any acute wounds we've acquired, and regather our confidence to move forward.
With a new decade to commence in a matter of days, we should all pause to reflect on and embrace our failures of the recent past. By doing so, we may begin to devise new goals for ourselves that, hopefully, will help us become better.
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