This is the sixth post in my ABCs of Writing series: Post F
Before we talk about writing and the somewhat depressing topic of this post, fear and failure, I want to take a detour to talk about those Mastercard Priceless commercials. You know, the one that shows a father and son going to a baseball game. As they buy snacks and make their way to their seats, items and their prices appear on the screen:
| 2 tickets: | $46 |
| 2 hot dogs, 2 popcorns, 2 sodas: | $27 |
| 1 autographed baseball: | $50 |
| An afternoon at the baseball park with your son: | Priceless |
A little too fluffy and feel-good for my taste, but a pretty great marketing campaign.
So what does this commercial have to do with writing and failure? Well, let me recreate one of these Mastercard commercials with some numbers of my own. Picture me, a writer, sitting in front of my laptop, maybe running my hands through my hair and looking frantic. Items and numbers appear on the screen:
| Years spent writing: | 6.5 |
| Drafts written: | 12 |
| Years spent querying literary agents requesting representation: | 2 |
| Agents queried: | 62 |
| Requests for partial manuscript: | 2 |
| Requests for full manuscript: | 1 |
| Rejections: | 54 |
| Offers of representation: | 0 |
| Books published: | 0 |
| A writer trying to publish one of her books: |
Not quite the touching moment of the father-son baseball commercial, is it?
This post has not been easy for me to write. Failure and the fear of failure have been constant companions (rather, boogiemen) for me throughout my writing journey, and I was afraid (I recognize the irony), that I wouldn’t have anything useful to add to this topic. I don’t have a story (yet) of working for years and sending query after query to literary agents before finally being accepted, published, and turned into a bestselling author. Who am I to talk about what it means to avoid failure in a writing career? All I know are the inspirational quotes that are supposed to help drive away the monsters of fear and failure:
“Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid to not try.”
“Failure is not the opposite of success. It’s part of success.”
“Giving up is the only sure way to fail.”
However, at some point, all the inspirational quotes in the world are going to desert you, and you’ll find yourself (if you’re like me) lying awake at night, staring up at the ceiling, wondering if you’re wasting your time, if you should just stop fighting.
I don’t know the magic words that will make those fears go away. I don’t have a secret recipe for landing an agent and becoming a bestseller. However, I do have this small suggestion: Maybe, just maybe, you’re focusing on the wrong numbers.
Imagine the same commercial of me sitting at my laptop. But this time, there are different items and different numbers that appear on the screen:
| Novels written: | 5 |
| Words written: | ~800,000 |
| NanNoWriMos participated in: | 3 |
| Writing days since December 2016: | 1,248 out of 1,489 |
| Characters created | 200+ |
| Fantasy universes created | 3 |
| The life of a writer: |
Failure and success all about definitions. Do I define success as being published? Making money from my writing? Or should my successes and failures be defined by something else? As I discussed in my previous post, when I write, I continually remember/remind myself of why I write. I write because I enjoy it and because I need to spill out the stories that are bursting through my brain. And when I’m feeling like a failure, I need to remind myself of these numbers, of these successes that I’ve accumulated over my writing journey.
Now it’s your turn. Go tally up your successes. Make a list like the one I made above. Refer to it when you’re feeling low. Redefine what success and failure mean.
So take a breath. Write something you enjoy. Be kind to yourself. And keep an eye out for my next ABC post: Glossaries: A Writer’s Toolbox.
THE QUILL & THE INKPOT 