Epic Fail

A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.

37. What to do if you’ve failed at the goals you set

Have you ever heard the phrase, “You’ve just gotta get back on the horse”? If you have, you should understand what I’m about to talk about. If you haven’t, what rock have you been living under for the past hundred years?

Everyone fails at goals. Maybe not all the time, maybe some more often than others, but everyone at some point in time fails at a goal they’ve set for themselves. It’s the nature of the situation that even if we have all the best of intentions, things will go wrong, other issues will intrude, and any number of problems will arise to keep us from reaching the end of the line. Maybe it’s something we can’t control, like the fact that our new job requires us to work 70-hour weeks and we can’t work on our goal if we want to be able to eat and sleep as well. Maybe it’s something absolutely controllable, like being just plain lazy. It doesn’t really matter what the reason is. It doesn’t make you a better or worse failure. Failure is failure.

But failure is also just a chance to start over again. Failure shows us what we’ve done wrong, which issues we failed to take into consideration, and what we have to change to do better next time. If you’re a really optimistic type, failure might even be motivation to try harder. If you’re the pessimistic type, things might be a little more difficult, but the same points still apply.

And excellent example of failure and moving on from it is rejection in writing. An author can put their heart and soul – and a ridiculous number of work-hours – into a manuscript, only to have it rejected by the publisher…and then rejected by another…and another…and another. Regardless of how good a manuscript may be, it is almost certain that the author will receive multiple rejections before (hopefully) receiving a publication offer. This situation really defines the whole “get back on the horse” thing because if these authors were to just give up, where would we be? Were you aware that J.K. Rowling received 12 rejections for the first Harry Potter book before finally getting published? We all know now that the Harry Potter books are well-written, well-loved, and have ultimately sold bucketloads. So why did she receive so many rejection letters? There are any number of reasons, but the point is that she had a goal set (to publish that damn book!) and she didn’t let failure upon failure stop her from continuing to try and try, getting back on the horse again and again.

It’s definitely hard sometimes…humans are naturally depressive and easily-discouraged creatures…but if the goal you’ve set for yourself is something that’s important to you, something that you know you’re not going to be happy just giving up on, then you have to press on. If you’ve done something wrong, figure out what it is. If outside issues are holding you back, figure out a way around them. And if the problem is just timing, situation, or reliance on others to react the way you need them to, you just have to keep trying, trying, trying, until all the puzzle pieces fall into place. In the end you’ll be better off for having to have worked for it, and the end of the line will be that much more beautiful when you reach it.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself, and I hope you’re able to hold on to that hope as well. 🙂

Just the Necessities

A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.

31. I can’t sit down to write unless…

…I’m awake.

Okay, okay, I’m sorry; that was a little smartassish of me. But it’s more or less the truth. I don’t need any particular equipment, situation, reason, or emotional state in order to sit down and write. I just need to have some thoughts in my head worth writing.

BUT, there are a number of things that make writing easier and more enjoyable for me, so I’ll just go ahead and tell you about those:

– Obviously I need something to write on, and if necessary I can use pretty much any form of media, but if at all possible I prefer to use my laptop. I love writing by hand, but I find that it takes too long and a lot of times I’ll have lost the thought process I was relying on by the time I get around to actually physically writing the words down. I’m a pretty fast typist, so the same issue doesn’t apply when I’m on my laptop. Alternatively, using my iPhone or tablet doesn’t yield the same effect because I’m a traditional typist and holy hell is it hard to type with any kind of speed on a touch-screen.

– Silence is not necessary, as I’ve been known to write from the couch while my husband is killing video game zombies in the armchair two feet away, but some level of quiet is very helpful. I can, for instance, write while my daughter is watching Sesame Street, but I cannot write while she’s pitching a fit because she doesn’t want what I gave her for lunch.

– Some level of comfort is preferable. For instance, I’d rather write in pajama pants and a tank top than in jeans and a blouse. I’d rather write laying in bed, propped up by pillows, than at a computer desk. Comfort = happy = better writing.

– Just as a last little note, writing is always a slightly happier experience if I have a nice hot drink to sip on while I’m doing it. Coffee is nice, some kind of herbal tea is even nicer, and hot chocolate definitely tops the list. And while we’re at it, some kind of delicious snack doesn’t hurt either. 😉