Yet Another 2009 in Review Post.

[megwrites]

Seems like a lot of people on my f-list are looking back, either at the year or the decade and listing their accomplishments.

I can't say I have any to list from this year or this decade, especially when it comes to writing.

Because this year, friends and neighbors? All I did was fail. I wrote a novel, I polished and edited it the best I could, I shopped it around, and got rejected utterly. I promised a few months ago that if nothing had happened on the Tower!Guy novel I would put it in the trunk and be done with it.

It's December 31st, and nothing's happened. It's time to let it go.

Failure is not a good feeling. It's a tremendously cold feeling and it makes you so small in comparison.

It hurts a bit, reading as others list all that they've done, the stories sold, deals signed, sales made and knowing that I have nothing to show for this year or this decade. I don't begrudge these people their successes. I know how hard they worked for them, how much they deserved them. This is not about jealousy or resentment.

It's about not pretending that this was a good year for me. Because I think we tend to look back through rosy colored glasses, and sometimes you just need to admit that things were not okay, that you failed.

This year, I failed.

Maybe I needed to fail. Maybe I deserved to fail. Maybe the story was far weaker than I'm able to see because I'm not where I need to be as far as my craft goes. Some people said they loved it, but nobody loved it enough to take a chance on it. I don't know, I honestly don't.

I do know that I do not want to be in this same situation come this time next year.

That's the promise of a New Year. That's why around the world, wherever you mark the divisions between one year and another, there's always a celebration. You can stand at the end of a bad year, look into the new and know that whatever else happened, you have a chance to try again.

I'll get to try again.

So I'm going to put that story away and take my chances with others. I'm going to take chances with myself. I'm going to try again. I'm going risk that maybe next year I'll have to write another post like this.

Because worse than failing is not trying. Worse than failing again is not trying again.

Comments

[irysangel.livejournal.com]

I messed up something really big at work the other day and my boss told me that the important thing is not what you did WRONG, it's how you handle the situation afterward.

You keep going and you keep trying. It hurts to put away the novel that didn't sell (my favorite is still in my trunk too) but moving forward is key, I think.

:)

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

This writing thing, it's a long game.

I don't know if you play chess, but unless your opponent is a really raw beginner, it's impossible to win a game of chess in the first couple of moves. The most you can hope for is to start getting your pieces out there on the board and in good positions for the midgame.

I know you've been writing for a couple of years now, and it's not like you're one of those people who decides to write a novel and assumes it's going to get published immediately, automatically. But still, maybe this year wasn't a failure for you. Maybe this year was a year for moving your pieces around on the board and putting yourself in a better position for next year. What have you learned about craft, writing and polishing the novel? What have you learned about submissions, about writing query letters? Is some agent going to get a big envelope on her desk next year, open it up, and think, "Oh, her! I LIKED that other one she wrote before..."?

...Like I said, this is a really long game, nonwithstanding jerks like that guy who got a huge advance for Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.

I was talking to an acquaintance of mine last night, a wonderful editor, and mentioned to her that I was nervous about submitting my fantasy manuscript to my editor because I'd written five bad fantasy novels, and I wasn't sure if I knew how to write fantasy. "You needed to get those out of your system," she said. And you know, I don't think of those as failures, and the novel that sold as a success. They're just steps on the path. And some of the steps hurt, and some of them are steps you really wish you could skip over, but... it's never immediately obvious whether the part that looks like failure is just a necessary step on the path to success.

May the next year bring you success dressed in more obvious clothes.

[scififanatic.livejournal.com]

"There is a quiet, serene confidence in knowing that all things do not stand or fall according to one's own achievements..."

The measure of your worth is not in how many short stories you've sold or how many novel contracts you signed. Your worth is in your persistence and your drive. I'd say you're a winner and this new year is going to present lots of opportunities for you to show off your skills. :)