Failure is an option

Last week's writing prompt:

"I think failure is inevitable and necessary. We should give ourselves permission to fail or we'd never write anything. You have to forgive yourself for failing. In the absolute sense, pretty much every piece of writing fails because theoretically it could always be better." Lionel Shriver

I began thinking about this in terms of times in my life when I have chosen to fail versus times I have failed at something, period. When I was 20 and living in LA, I realized that I did not want to do the things I needed to do, become the person I needed to be, in order to have success in the film industry. I chose to fail and it took a year to realize that choosing to fail and being a failure were not the same thing. 

More recently, I have failed to be fully myself. I've shrunken down and pulled inward so as to be what other's imagine as less offensive. I've also failed to fix the heartaches of people I love. I've failed to sleep enough and therefore failed to be as generous and kind as I strive to be each day. As I've been trying to punch up a chapter of a novel I wrote in order to submit it for a grad school application, I've wondered if that novel is a failure as well. Or is it enough to know I wrote it and that a few people read and it liked it well enough. 

Then I went to hear Neil Gaiman read some of his writing aloud and also perform one story with a quartet and illustrations (really great, btw, if he tours your way, GO!). Introducing one of his short stories, he mentioned that he wrote it for This American Life but they rejected it. And I thought, "What?!" You don't get much more famous as a writer, as literary rock star, than Neil Gaiman and someone said, "Nah, not what we're looking for, thanks." At no point did he say he felt he had failed, despite a commissioned story being rejected. He said he liked the story and then he read it to an audience which seemed to largely like it too. Gaiman said he was putting together a collection of short stories and it was fun to go back and read over, to collect and rediscover stories he'd forgotten about. Not failed things; forgotten, stuff in a notebook, in the back of a desk drawer things.

My lesson learned here is this, and damned if it shouldn't have been blatantly obvious given what's gone on just with this blog over the past month, but writing as a release of creativity from one's mind, when written to sooth the soul, written to express something real or imagined, really ought never have a label of pass or fail attached to it. Do you have a guilty pleasure book? One you love but it is a genre or author or story that you're embarrassed to admit you read and more still that you love it? Odds are high someone, somewhere has deemed that writing a failure. It fails to be smart enough or demure enough or simple enough or genre specific enough. But you love it. And you should. The person who wrote it hopefully loves it to. They birthed it. Writers should write because they have a story tell and they should love their work regardless of other people's judgement. 

Notice I didn't say regardless of critique. I'm not saying all writing is good because someone, somewhere loves it. I'm just saying that there's a range out there and if one writer's odd ball tale makes a few people feel more normal or feel more joy, that's important. A writer's work needs feedback and editing. I just don't think it all needs perfecting. We can't all write like that and there's room for the most beautifully chosen and arranged words along side the simpler writing that may seem base but can still tell a good story. Writing can't fail if it's loved and nurtured. It can't fail if it speaks deeply to even just a handful of people. Failure in writing can only come, I think, in not sharing it.