A Course in Failure? April 14, 2008

Last week I received score sheets and judges comments from the ACFW Genesis Contest. I submitted the first 25 pages from my current WIP (tentatively titled “The Same Old No Good So-and-So”). I wasn’t upset about not making the final round (of course, it would have been a pleasant surprise).

 

One reason for my lack of disappointment was another email I’d received the day before the Genesis email. It prepared me for the judges’ scores and comments and reminded me that everything happens in God’s time, not mine. Not winning contests, rejections from agents/editors, stinging comments from critique partners, etc. (or whatever may be going on in your life) doesn’t constitute failure. It just lets you know your ________ (writing career, new job, college acceptance letter) will take a little longer.

 

*******

 

My writing journey has been a short one compared to the writers listed in the email:

 

Jack London (The Call of the Wild, White Fang) received six hundred rejection slips before he sold his first story.

 

Louisa May Alcott

, author of Little Women, was encouraged to find work as a servant by her family.Emily Dickinson had only seven poems published in her lifetime.

 

 

 

Twenty-one publishers rejected Richard Hooker’s humorous war novel, M*A*S*H.

 

Twenty-seven publishers rejected Dr. Seuss’s first book, To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. 

 

 

 

In case my post hasn’t encouraged you:

 

A professor at MIT offers a course on failure. He does that, he says, because failure is a far more common experience than success. An interviewer once asked him if anybody ever failed the course on failure. He thought a moment and replied, “No, but there were two Incompletes. “