Useful Advice

[Wandering Author]

I was just reading an article over on Lifehacker, and the “equation” featured in the photo at the top struck me as a useful reminder for writers (as well as anyone else). The point is that failure is a very necessary part of – eventually – achieving success.

(I considered just transcribing the equation here, but felt it was enough of a grey area it would be better to just link to the article. Yes, the “equation” is a short quote – but it’s also the complete text contained in that photo.)

[Linda Adams]

I’ve been reading some books on people who are creative and successful — and a lot of those people had a lot of failures. The difference is they keep practicing and trying different things.

I think the internet is a huge problem for writers because it tends not to encourage practice or experimentation. I regularly see writers ask about something, and they’re often told, “Most beginners get this wrong. Don’t even try.” How do you learn if you don’t try?

[Wandering Author]

Linda Adams wrote:

I’ve been reading some books on people who are creative and successful — and a lot of those people had a lot of failures. The difference is they keep practicing and trying different things.

I think the internet is a huge problem for writers because it tends not to encourage p ractice or experimentation. I regularly see writers ask about something, and they’re often told, “Most beginners get this wrong. Don’t even try.” How do you learn if you don’t try?

That’s the point. How do you even know if you’re “most” beginners (assuming you are even a beginner) unless you give it a shot?

Sure, you want to at least try to get it right. And there are times when you might decide you need to step back and come back later. But you can’t possibly hope to do anything if you wait until you know you won’t fail. The important thing is to learn from failure. Repeating the same mistakes is an indication you’ve picked up the wrong lesson – but even then, how can you know that until you find out by trying?

Even for non-beginners, this is important. If you stick with whatever you already know, you won’t grow as a writer. Some of your experiments might not work out well – but you can’t know until you’ve tried them. Failure is – or should be – a part of every process. Not the goal, but a part of the road to that goal.

[Author]

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