A Writing Fail Is a Wonderful Thing

The Choice Is Yours How You Deal With It

As a writer, I have had my share of flops over the years. I’m talking big old hot steaming piles of stinky mess, failures.

It’s only now after a ton of water and words have flowed neath the metaphorical bridge that I don’t mind admitting it.

Way back when, at the beginning of my career, it seemed each time I experienced these failures, they literally derailed me as a writer. With my easily bruised ego and wafer-thin skin, the simplest rejection or negative comment about my work made it impossible for me to continue writing.

The brooding and sulking will continue until morale improves.

Even constructive criticism on any of my writing was hard for me to swallow. The nerve of these people to suggest I make changes! These works were my babies.

Ugly or not, I loved them all.

And yet as much as I loved my work, these failures and subsequent bouts of self-loathing made me want to chuck all the babies out with the bathwater; turn around and just walk off and never look back.

There was I time after finishing my first body of work, my first novel, I did that very thing.

I put the pen down and checked out.

For ten long years.

For ten years I never wrote another creative thing.

I probably wouldn’t be talking to you folks today had I not done the one thing I promised myself I would never do.

I looked back.

And I continued looking back, longing for the wonderful feelings I experienced when I created something.

As much as I didn’t miss all the failures, actually hated the fact I’d experienced them and would probably do so again, I discovered I missed the world of creative writing so much more.

But I knew if I was going to come back to it, this writing thing, I was going to have to learn how to deal with my failures. To survive, I needed to learn how to make my writing fails work for me instead of against me.

In the past instead of asking myself the most important questions, like why my attempts failed in the first place, I immediately started guzzling down a quart or two of self-pity and anger.

I told myself to succeed, I couldn’t do that anymore.

I told myself if I was going to get back into the writing game; if I was going to pick up the pen this time and never put it down, I needed to recognize when the work just wasn’t cutting it.

And do something about it other than make an excuse or worse, cop an attitude.

I realized I needed to start looking for ways to improve my writing fails, even if it meant cutting huge chunks out and starting over if that was what it took to improve the overall story.

No longer could I stamp my feet and pout like a three-year-old when the rejections came and readers told me my work smelled as bad as three-day-old fish.

As a parent of four, I know that pout.

Not fair, I worked my tail off on that piece and everybody that read it said it stunk? What the heck do they know? They’re not a writer.

Am i right?

Whose with me?

Hello, is anybody with me?

Evidently, at the time, although I was a writer, I just wasn’t a very good one.

It wasn’t until I learned the valuable lesson a lot of very talented writers learned that I was able to make any headway. Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not placing myself into the very talented deep end of the pool just yet.

But I am swimming along pretty darned well here in the kiddie pool. Without arm-floaties mind you.

The valuable lesson to learn is that writing fails will make you a better writer if you let them.

Yes, a better writer.

Listen, none of us came out of the womb able to speed walk, dance the tango or run a hundred-yard dash or a marathon. We had to crawl, then take those few hesitant steps, then fall and bust our noggin on the side of the coffee table.

Oh, that was just me?

Right.

We all learned from our flops when we started walking. Just like we need to learn from our fails in writing.

Writing a piece then deciding to submit it for consideration without editing both your query letter and your work a hundred times or paying to have them edited for you?

Fail.

Crafting a science fiction piece then submitting it to a niche human interest publisher?

Fail.

Making your characters so doggone perfect they seem more like androids than humans?

Fail.

Having the love interest in your romance story spewing nothing but cliches on every single page of a three hundred page novel?

Fail.

Each and every one of these failures will help you learn to be a better writer.

From them, you’ll learn to edit better or seek out the help of a professional editor. You’ll learn how to submit the right type of work to the right publisher.

These failures will help you build strong, believable characters the audience loves to read about. You’ll learn your characters need to be what we all are, Human. As such, your characters need to have flaws.

You know just like we all do.

You’ll learn how to make your writing lean, and the best ways to not assault your readers with nothing but cliche word porn.

And these four fails are just the tip of the iceberg folks.

Hate to be the one to clue you in on this, but writing professionally is one of the toughest, mindblowing careers on the planet.

Now for those of you who don’t fail from time to time, I know why.

You’re simply not writing.

You can’t fail if you don’t write.

For the rest of us who do write, whether a lot or a little, how we handle these writing fails is entirely up to us. We can either use our failures as vehicles for change and growth, or we can stamp our feet and pout.

Don’t know about you folks, but when my kids were young and they stamped their feet and pouted, I usually just ignored them, walked away and let them have their tizzy on their own.

You know, pretty much like what the readers out there will do.

Let’s keep in touch: [email protected]

© P.G. Barnett, 2019. All Rights Reserved.