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When You Fail, Bigtime
Are you supposed to go forward in your failure?
I started this year with a plan: I was going to write a sonnet every day for a year.
I was hesitant to invest myself in something like that, to announce it publicly. If I failed at that, I’d have my ass out for the entire world to see. Look at me! I can’t even keep a simple goal!
But, I decided to do it anyway, and, what do you know, I failed. Not only did I fail, I failed hard. Today is day 171 of the year, and I’ve written 82 sonnets. That’s not a good fraction. That’s really not a good fraction.
And now, here I am, not quite halfway through the year. I’m debating whether or not I should continue the project, or give it up as dead.
On one hand, I’ve done something pretty freaking amazing. It’s not even halfway through the year, and I’ve written over 80 poems. Considering that I average somewhere around 30 poems a year for the last few years, that’s a pretty great accomplishment.
Some of them are even kind of good. Which is more than I expected. This entire practice was about writing more, creating more volume, creating a habit.
And I had that habit for a while, until it fell apart. While I missed a few poems here and there, and then I was in the hospital for most of a…
