Writer. Contributing Editor at The Discarded Image. Digital Content Strategist. Here's where I publicly explore the books I'm reading, the projects I'm working on, and other current interests. L’Engle on failure and success
Success isn’t guaranteed. This delightful truism has cropped up in my ongoing reading of Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water (see a previous digest here). L’Engle discovered this when she had trouble selling manuscripts even after her first books had done well. Long before my existential questioning, she was intimate with what she called “false guilt†brought on by “spending so much time at the typewriter and in no way pulling my own weight financially.†She drew encouragement from a letter of Anton Chekov, in which he wrote: “You must once and for all give up being worried about successes and failures. Don’t let that concern you. It’s your duty to go on working steadily day by day, quite quietly, to be prepared for mistakes, which are inevitable, and for failures.â€
Well, thank you, Mr. Chekov, for your discouraging encouragement. Because, though it initially deflates the sails, it reminds me that, no matter the outcome, my daily working is of itself a worthwhile task; the faithful act of putting fingers to keyboard deserves a pat on the back, not just at the end of the project but also at the end of each writing day. As L’Engle comments in a later discussion, “I have to try, but I do not have to succeed.†Success, in terms of publication, is therefore a secondary joy.
But when it happens it is no less success—and if a day’s work well done earns a sigh of satisfaction, then it is also right to celebrate that secondary success. So though other projects are rather stalled at the moment, I am allowing myself to celebrate the recent news that both Monks and Mystics and Courage and Conviction are going into a second printing (following Peril and Peace, which was reprinted last month). I spent part of last week (and expect to do more this week) proofing revised layouts. A tedious task, but one to relish and then store away for future encouragement; Mark Twain wasn’t the only one who could live for a month on one good compliment! And, of course, the UK release of Hearts and Hands is now only days away.
So here’s to small successes and their disproportionate reservoirs of optimism.
