How to fail better
This post includes photos of a zine I made during a Zine Lunch class led by Kristen Gentry. Zine Lunch is free and very fun, and Kristen's prompts and guidance were wonderful. You can watch the class for free here!
I think a lot about failure.
Too much, some people think. People who want me to be more positive, remind myself that I've "got this" every time the word darkens my door. Who tell me not to dwell, to visualize only success.
I can't help it though. I grew up in a family where not talking about ugly things was taken so seriously that the world was lopped in half, one-sided like a penny cemented to the bottom of a drawer by the dried syrup of a melted cough drop. When it was finally pried free, the reverse side and its unfamiliar shapes were fascinating to me: foreign and somehow familiar, somehow right.
Why, I kept thinking, didn't we ever talk about this? Why wasn't it required—essential—to learn that trying includes failing?
Sometimes when I'm presenting the evidence for why I shouldn't try to do a thing, I'll tell myself that my successes don't matter because they're outweighed by my failures.
A statement that's true of anyone with any success.
Anyone who has done something has failed at more than they've won. Even one-shot wonders who land a book deal on the first draft or take the gold on their first time in competition. They've failed in practice and training, in other areas of their lives, in all the attempts we didn't see — because we so rarely see the fails.
I've written before (and will again) about how I'm over success stories, and this is another reason why. Failure is either scrubbed out of the story or its a footnote. It should be the foundation. The fiber.
Even when we do talk about it, creatives and entrepreneurs and athletes describe successful failures. They failed but they never gave up. They failed but it was worth it because One Big Win was at the end of it all.
Sometimes I ask writers to consider what they do or have done that they never got better at. Why keep doing it? How did it feel to do something with success so far out of reach? Maybe it changes the meaning of 'success'.
By the time this reaches you, my 30 days of Write Start (a daily writing community I ran through January) will be over. I finished very little, even with twice-daily writing sessions and connecting with so many brilliant creative folks. I have shabby drafts and incomplete ideas and messy folders. My Notes app is as chaotic as ever. There's a way I can look at this and see 60 successive failures studding my calendar.
But how else could I expect to win?
Like I said above, Write Start ended in early February but Write On is kicking off and I'd love for you to join us. If you're thinking about how to approach your writing practice in a more sustainable and realistic way for your life, or you want to connect with other creatives, or you don't want to write alone — there's space for you here. Save $20 on your first month when you sign up by 2/9. Questions? Reply and ask me.