Learning from Failure

I'm so pleased to be involved with an awesome group of folks in the DFW Ready Writers. They are a local chapter of the American Christian Fiction Writers. Last Saturday, I got to go to the January meeting of the group and the new president, Janice Olsen, suggested that we, as writers, can learn a lot more from our failures than we can from our successes.

Seems like that's true of anybody, though. When I taught elementary, we had a discipline expert come in with a discussion on empowering the students. Her focus was to teach them that their behavior is
a choice or a string of choices. The hope was that they would make a poor choice when it didn't matter so much - in a safe environment with a situation that wouldn't cause permanent injury. That way, they would learn from their mistakes and have a better chance of making wiser choices when the situations dealt with drugs, cars, and encounters with different people.

So when Janice gave her perspective, it resonated with me. Admittedly, I LOVE it when my crit groups have no major issues with my chapter. But I have learned SO MUCH from these folks on the nights when my sections were ineffective. When the meaning and motivation got lost in the words or when my characters stiffened into cardboard.

Janice is right. I don't LIKE to fail, but I can use it. And I can't be ashamed of it. Unless I use it as an excuse to stop trying. So even though I've failed in some areas this week, I'm NOT using shortcomings as excuses to blow off my goals. Speaking of my goals, here's where I stand:

• I've taken the plunge with Cat's Eyes. I don't expect to hear anything for some time, though so I must put it out of my mind. I'm not quite finished with the final polishing, so I'll continue working on that, but I expect to be done by February 1 and will start on Stone Cold Murder's revisions at that point. 
• Read craft series by SMW - I'm now a third of the way through Susan May Warren's From the Inside Out. Last week, I'd set up a premise for a new novel, but after I reported that I came up with another one that I like even better. I've settled on the second one and am currently setting up the data for that new story.
• Read and review 8 books - I've now read and reviewed two novels. One published on my blog last Monday about the book Cowboy by Staci Stallings and the second review went up this past Monday, about Songbird Under a German Moon by Tricia Goyer. I'm about halfway through Relentless by Robin Parrish. I'm hoping that will be my review for next Monday, although I'm getting really excited about some brand new books that will be out in the next couple of months. Might end up chatting about them instead.
• Blog 4 per week - Usually I set up six per week and I've been continuing that practice.
• Vlog 1 per month - done HERE!
• Add weekly article to medieval project - Best-laid plans don't always come to fruition. I added nothing to the medieval blog this week, but sent three emails to the collective group. (I'm not sure I've mentioned that this group is a huge homeschool prom. Every spring, we celebrate with roughly 1200 folks at what we THINK is the largest homeschool prom in the nation, but I'm open to correction on that. This year's theme is "The Kingdom" and we're focusing on the medieval era.) I hope to add the final two web pages before Sunday and then continue with the researched blog articles. The blog is HERE.
• Grading catch-up - YEA! I had a marathon session earlier and finally came to the end of the essay grading. It's a good thing! We start research papers this week. That's gonna be fun!
• Social media - I didn't visit blogs as much as I want to and I didn't visit Twitter and Facebook like I did before the holidays. That bad and good. I want to get connected there, but I need to maintain my priorities, so if I have to fail at a couple of goals, I guess these are the ones I need to release.
• Spend 1 1/2 hours in exercise - only got in a half hour last week. My volleyball time was cancelled, but I'll be playing tomorrow! Hoping to get this back (and backside) in gear!
• Eliminate fast food. Still working on this one. Had some great successes, then we took a road trip. Not much to do about that, and I relished every bite! :)

So even though I've failed to meet my expectations over the last week, I'm really not down. I've learned a lot about writing and balancing this week because of my failings and in spite of them. I'm hoping (Oh there's that word again!) that I can benefit from what I've learned in the coming weeks. 

When have you had blessings fly in the face of failures?