Have you ever tried so hard to make your writing right you snuffed the creative spark that got you going in the first place? Maybe reworking a dull dialogue exchange twenty times made you want to clean your closet, then bookshelf, then attic, rather than return to your novel. Or that comment you got about character arc in a critique session last month made you feel like an impostor and wouldn’t it be better to bake another batch of cookies for your nieces because they always say thank you even if the bottoms are a tad overdone?
There are a lot of writers and aspiring authors with whom Samuel Becket’s quote resonates: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Why? Because when we let failures get us down, sometimes we stay down, and don’t get back up again—and that means our writing gets pushed away for months, years, maybe even decades.
Writers who get stuck in a mistake-shy mentality often believe setting their writing aside is the best answer, because why take another risk when they fear they know what’s about to happen next? (More failure.)
Why try again? Because you don’t know what’s about to happen next. Because each time you fall, you learn how to get up. Because each restart means you get to see what you did before in a new light. Or try a new approach. Because the next mistake you make—or facing the mistake you just made—may be the next step you need in a series of steps you must take to solve a creative problem. Because avoiding mistakes can stifle your creativity and keep you from taking necessary risks. Because failure is normal—and without it, you’d get too big of a head anyway.
Writer Jessica Vitalis, whose debut novel, The Wolf’s Curse, came out this past September, wrote five unpublished novels over thirteen years before her sixth book landed her a publishing contract with Harper Collins. I asked her if she felt that starting new work again and again over all those years—rather than sticking with one novel and working to perfect it—was a mistake.
“I don’t regret anything about that. I’m so glad that my first five novels didn’t get published… If something’s not working, do your best with it. Learn what you can from it, and move on… There’s no quota on words. It’s okay. Write more. Because there will be more stories. There will be more words… So don’t be afraid of just writing more.”
(This fall at the Inlet, we’ve been talking revision in the Monthly Craft Intensive. An edited version of that conversation can be found on the website [link coming soon]. You can still join the Inlet Craft Intensive and watch the unedited conversation, with a Power Point craft talk—and participate in upcoming interviews, too. Contact me for details: angelarydell@gmail.com.)
So ask yourself, have you ever written anything that came out exactly as you wanted it to on the first try, from title to final word? Ever revised something so it was exactly as you wanted—and still felt that way after publication? Most writers will answer no to all those questions.
To succeed at writing, you need to give up on the dream of attaining perfection.
And that’s actually a good thing.