What Writing a Novel Taught Me About Failure

When I decided to write a novel, I genuinely thought it would take about six months, a bunch of coffee, and Bob Dylan playing in the background to get the job done. Looking back now, that was adorable. What actually occurred was a three-year descent into plot holes, horrible character arc's, and a lot of times shutting the laptop down. There’s been too many drafts to count, too many Google searches of “how do I know if my novel is terrible?” Spoiler: Google was not reassuring. My journey isn’t over yet, and neither is my recurring encounter with failure.

It should be so simple, right? Make a plan—execute the plan. Done. Unfortunately, that’s not how anything really works in life. But the struggle teaches us, evolves us into something greater more often than not. When I finally finished my first draft, I was psyched. I did it! I thought. I took a week break, and then read it over. It took everything in me not to smash my laptop and retch from reading that atrocity. It probably would’ve been better off if I paid a second-grade ghostwriter to write that than to keep what I did. Failure was knocking on my door.

So I just … kept going. I rewrote, restructured, re-edited it. The rejection, the failure, the qualms were creeping in, but I never let it fully take over, because discipline is a far greater asset than inspiration. And somewhere between draft seven and a full-blown identity crisis, I realized something: failing at this was actually making me better. Not just at writing (though yes, I did finally learn the difference between showing and telling), but at living. I had to sit through the unknown, push through doubt, and keep going when the outcome was uncertain. Failure stripped away my plan, my expectations, and left me with the only real reason I started writing in the first place: because I love it. 

Failure, it turns out, is extremely versatile. It happens in all facets of our lives. But here’s what I learned: Growth isn’t linear. Two steps forward and one step back is still moving in the right direction. You can’t really fail at something if you don’t give up. If you never stop, never in, then you can’t fail. Maybe it'll happen tomorrow, maybe it’ll happen in twenty years, but inevitably it will work out. Failure uncovers what matters. You find clarity of why you’re doing something when you continuously get beat to the ground over and over. And when your why is important to who you are as a person, you can’t fail, only learn, grow, and become better.

Keep going.

Thanks for reading.