Writing and Failure

Making has its own meaning, so let's just enjoy it

Photo by Ashlyn Ciara

(This post is a four to five minute read. To listen to instead, scroll to the bottom of this page.)

I’ve spent the past year writing a lot more and agonizing a lot less over whether that writing is worthwhile. The trick wasn’t that I developed an airtight argument for the value of my work, but simply that I finally decided writing has value to me, regardless of who else reads it.

Creative work does not need a defence or a price tag. Beauty-making proves we are capable of beauty. So we’re allowed to stop apologizing for loving beauty and for the time it takes to create it.

If that doesn’t sound like a mind-blowing idea to you, then I’m glad. You might have escaped this particular form of neurotic perfectionism, where the work is only justified by the result.

But for those of us who do struggle to keep doing our creative thing because someone else is always doing it better, or because when we put our small efforts out into the world, no one seems to notice, let me share some gems from Stephen Marche’s On Writing and Failure.