Here's What I Know About Failure After Writing A 70k Manuscript That Sucked.

Let's talk about why you need to fail and what to do when it happens.

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Here’s a magic number my writing career will never forget.

73,294 words, give or take the title.

I even went to the Word document, one I haven’t opened in years, to check.

That’s how many words I wrote in the space of a few short months. A novel, a semi-biography of my life detailing my relationship with the people in my life. I call it a semi because names and places were changed because, at the time, I hoped not to offend anyone.

Like anyone was reading it. I convinced myself they would eventually.

But the draft sucked. Woeful. I thought it was pretty good, though. Enough to let someone read it.

I gave it to my first boss. He owned the corner shop, home of my first workplace. When I was fifteen, he would read my English homework and mentor me like an editor, giving me feedback before I would submit my work.

I assumed the novel was ready for publishing, but I needed his thoughts before slipping it into the mail off to the publishing houses. It was the least I could do, too, before my debut novel skyrocketed to the top of the NY Times best sellers list.

As you can tell, my delusions were real.

My former boss was kind in his careful assessment; as much as I had accomplished a worthy feat, my book wasn’t ready. Not even close. In short, my draft was a disaster.

What he said led me straight back to the drawing board. As I listened to his impressions of the characters and events, it was tempting to chalk this up as a writing failure. A big one, a waste of time for many people.

I had a decision to make with my ‘failure’.

It could have been another moment when someone didn’t like my writing. Or when I hadn’t done as good a job as I thought I had. I could’ve justifiably viewed my writing future as bleak. I would never get it right.

But that would be taking the easy way out. Self-pity and misery never made anyone a good writer or a published one, either.

There is something for everyone to learn from my failed manuscript.

Instead of letting my horrible manuscript defeat me, I see it as something far greater than “failure”.

Experience is worth its weight in…

I’ve often experienced success tunnel vision. I’ve either achieved what I set out to do, or I didn’t. I either won or lost.

Black-and-white attitudes only get you so far, especially in creative professions. There is far more failure than succeeding, purely from the subjective nature of what you offer.

I don’t know what type of writer I would be today if I didn’t have the novel drafting experience under my belt.

I mean experience in the true sense of the action; the copious amount of writing, arduous unrelenting consistency taught me about what we writers have to go through to be successful.

Successful writers actually write and write a lot.

Now, I know my observation is obvious, but sometimes, when in the throws of trying to make it, we forget about the fundamentals of the writing process. It’s like mastering any skill. The more we do it, the better we become at it, and the easier it is.

Writing seventy-thousand words was my training for where I am today.

I haven’t re-read my manuscript for about seven years, cringing at what I will find and what I thought was acceptable to send to a publisher. Logically, though, it can’t possibly be my best work because it was my first attempt at writing a copious amount of words.

I was an infant writer. I was inexperienced. Writers only get better with experience. But you have to have the experience first.

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