Dining at the smörgåsbord of failure 😋
In my day job, I work in the marketing department of a software company. We’re on the third floor of our building, and the software engineers are on the second, and sometimes, when I wander downstairs to attend a meeting or visit a friend, I feel as if I’ve entered a completely different world. Our company prides itself on culture, but there are cultures within cultures, and marketing and engineering are different beasts. This provides an excellent opportunity to learn from one another.
For example: in software, there’s a concept called “fail fast”. The idea is that nothing we make will be perfect on the first try. Rather than hoping something will succeed or refusing to admit it’s not working, it’s better to fail fast, fail early, and fail visibly. After all, the sooner something fails, the sooner you can fix it. Or, to put it another way: the longer a flawed system goes on, the harder it is to change course.
This is an idea I try to embrace as a marketer. When I’m ghostwriting a byline, for example, I share a draft early in the process, so the person I’m working with has a chance to weigh in. If we need to switch directions, it's better to do so in the early stages, rather than at the end.
With my personal writing projects, failing gets trickier. When I’m drafting a novel, I’m not collaborating with anyone. There’s no one else to take into account, no compromises to strike. The only opinions that matter are my own, which can be terrifying! I don’t always make the right choices. Sometimes, I fall in love with an idea or a character, and even if it’s not working, I stubbornly refuse to let it go. While you can share works-in-progress with other people, it’s generally considerate to wait until the thing you’re asking them to read is somewhat cohesive. But by that time, you’ve already sunk days, weeks, sometimes years into a project. It’s a catch-22.
Once, as a teaching assistant in my MFA program, I spent a whole class discussing failure. (I was a really fun teacher.) “When you're a writer,” I told my students, “there are so many ways to fail! You can try to write a book and fail. If you write a book, you can try to get an agent and fail. If you get an agent, that person can try to sell your book and fail. If they sell your book, it might be a flop, and guess what? You fail! Writing is basically a smörgåsbord of failure. Welcome, and eat up.”
Which is why, after the book I wrote for my MFA thesis didn’t sell, the next book I wrote - the one I just finished - was about failure. Not literary failure, because that was too obvious, but about an artist that fails all the same. Having just failed, I had some questions I needed to explore. How does failure change a person? How does losing a part of your identity affect how you view the world, your work, your relationships? Can you bounce back from failure? What happens if you keep trying? What happens if you succeed?
When it comes to art, failing isn’t always fast, early, or visible. Sometimes it’s long, late, and hidden in a drawer. But that’s the risk of creative work, and the reward. The only way to avoid failure is to create something that matters to you, no matter what the rest of the world thinks. 💛
😍 Snack of the Week 😍
This week, I baked a box of Trader Joe's Truffle Brownies and drove them three hours to my husband. Not only was it Valentine's Day, but it is also his birthday, a fact that he prefers we ignore, except when there are brownies involved. If he's reading this (and he better be, because what else is marriage but subscribing to your wife's newsletter?): Happy birthday, Nathan! I love you more than these brownies, and that's saying something. They're really good.
Relatable Reads
Why People Get the Sunday Scaries, The Atlantic. "[T]he end of a weekend presents stressful questions about whether she has taken full advantage of having two days off. Those questions fall under two categories that seem to be in tension: “It's a mix of ‘Have I been productive enough?’ and ‘Have I relaxed enough?’” 🙃
Fast Fashion is Ruining the World (And Your Style), Sierra Club. "Up to 8 percent of carbon emissions are caused by fashion; a third of all microplastic pollution in the ocean comes from what we wear; and, a garbage truck’s worth of clothing and fabric gets sent to the landfill in the United States every two minutes." 👗
The Very Real Mental Ramifications of Extremely Long Elections, VICE. "If you're having a hard time extracting yourself from excessive news coverage, even when it makes you miserable, it could be time to take a closer look at why you engage with politics." 🇺🇸
This Twitter thread of writers sharing their day jobs is so relatable. 👩🏽💻
Finally, if you tried to click the link to Kara's article about how to start a habit last week, I apologize for sending you to a dead end. Here is the correct URL. On the bright side, the article is worth the wait! ⏰
A Tiny Challenge
I'm not going to challenge you to fail at something this week. (Let's face it - failure is easy!) Instead, think about the last time you faced failure. Did you move on to something else? Did you try again? Or was failure, perhaps, the point?
See you next Sunday! 💌
PS: Thank you to Nancy S. and Andrea P. for generously keeping my coffee cup full last week! 💖
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