Living Life
On the TV show Walker, the matriarch Abeline learns her husband has been keeping his cancer diagnosis a secret. He explains that he knows she’ll try to do everything she can but if the treatment doesn’t work, he doesn’t want her to think she failed. She replies: “The outcome of your treatment and my involvement in it… that could never be a failure. It would be our lives.”
I love that line because she could be talking about anything in our own lives where we fear failure, not just a cancer diagnosis for a fictional character.
We all know failure is a part of the writing life. It’s the part that sucks. When we don’t finish a novel; when we set our writing time aside for “life”, essential as it is; when we do finish a novel, but fail to get an agent. Or fail to get published. Or fail to become a bestseller.
I’ve learned that so much of the writing life is about reframing. Trying to look at the challenges of writing (failure, rejection, self-doubt, etc.) in a new light. It’s not easy and I don’t always succeed. And while I no longer get mad at myself if I fall back on traditional thinking (I’m a failure because I didn’t [fill in the blank]) I keep trying to keep my mind open to new perspectives.
“[fill in the blank]… that could never be a failure. It would be my life.”
I like the sound of that.
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