Tech talk: Failing forward as a writer
Tech talk: Failing forward as a writer
Engineering tricks for creativity
Sometimes great things lie in the intersection of apparently disjointed groups.
We already tackled this concept two weeks ago, talking about creativity and how to improve. I’ll leave the link to the post here if you missed it:
In that article, I talked how embracing diversity fosters growth. Today I want to tackle a similar take, borrowing a concept from the engineering world.
Failing fast, failing forward
When I first started working as a system-engineer1, I quite didn’t get that failure is a part of the process. I lived each mistake as a personal flaw, to the very obvious consequences. Mini screw-ups would annoy me and chip my self-esteem, while the occasional, once every two-years major screw-up led to anxiety spikes.
Eventually, I learned the following syllogism:
Humans aren’t perfect. Any system should account for human error.
Systems aren’t perfect as well, because they are designed by humans.
Failures (the unexpected results of two imperfects elements) are thus inevitable.
In most modern engineering teams, the focus is not on avoiding failures. The focus is in incorporating failure in the process.
Failing fast means to be able to detect failure as soon as it happens and being able to remediate. Failing forward means incorporating failure as a stepping stone to success.
In other words, failure is a lesson.
The greatest teacher, failure is.
As eloquently told by Master Yoda in a galaxy Far Far Away.
Why is it important?
As soon as I adopted failing as a part of any endeavor, I de-fanged my anxiety. This helped me greatly in my engineering career. As soon as I understood (and I mean intimately understood) this idea, it started trickling into my writing as well.
Suddenly I didn’t have to be perfect anymore. When I sat to write, the nagging voice that kept whispering “this is not good enough” was less loud.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t try to improve your craft or that you can avoid revising your own work. Aiming for perfection, or rather for a high standard of writing, is still commendable. But it shouldn’t guide your action.
If you keep perfection as the only acceptable result, you’ll end up failing.
If perfection is your mind frame, failing is unacceptable. If failure is unacceptable, you’ll crutch yourself to an impossible standard and work more slowly as a result. Furthermore, in the likely even that you won’t achieve your goal, it will feel devastating.
On the other hand - if you accept that failure might be an outcome you’re less scared and less bound to the weight of perfection2.
What does failing forward look like in writing
When I was a kid I was obsessed with the myth of the young writer. If you google “young writer” you’ll find plenty of names - real names of real, published authors. I have nothing against them. In fact, I wanted to be one of them. After all, the marketing department loves that shit: sell the young author’s work to young readers.
The issue was feeling a ticking clock as time passed. Years would go by and I struggled to put together a book, start to finish. When eventually I did (way after my teenage years and into my twenties) I was crushed to discover my first completed book was almost unsalvageable.
Compare and contrast: most authors are adults. Some will also, if you catch them in a good mood, talk about their failed drafts and their early books.
So, how does failing fast look in writing?
If you’re writing your book, your focus should be on completion, not on perfection.
Completing a book will open up new opportunities for training and thus, learning. You won’t learn how to write the dreaded middle without finishing the first half, and you won’t learn how to revise your work without first having a full first draft. Each part unlocks a world of new possibilities.
Consider that you might have to scrap your work. Any piece you’re working on may never be published. This doesn’t make it a waste of time.3
You need not to be defensive. Criticism - provided it’s given in good faith - is your best friend. Seek advice. Seek your peers. In time, you’ll learn to understand which advice to follow and which to disregard - but start by listening to everyone.
In fact, you should be hungry for feedback.
Chapters, short stories and even books will fall flat. Editing and revising are there for a reason. Learn from your shortcomings to avoid them in the future.
Tell yourself that the area where you fail more is also where you can learn the most.
If your prose is already good, it’s hard to make it excellent; while if your characters are lacking, you can probably pick up tricks of the trade to make them more full-fledged.
Be reasonably skeptical of longer works and longer commitments. Hell, trilogies are everywhere nowadays, but it doesn’t mean you should start writing one. Especially if you never finished a single book before.
On the same line, distrust of anything that lasts more than 2 years4.
If you’re submitting your work, expect and shrug off rejections. You only need to get accepted once. Let your skin thicken on that.
Nothing trips up more writers than the unreasonable standard of “acing it” the first time.
Addendum: prerequisites to fail
I won’t act like reading this post will rid you of your fear, or aversion, to failing. It likely won’t. This is not a self-help book with a magic recipe. I dislike failure still, it’s human nature. We are failure-avoidant animals and there are good reasons for that.
However, assuming that:
I can fail safely (my life, livelihood, and health are not dependent on it)
I can get reliable feedback on why you failed, either from myself or, even better, from others
I strive to challenge myself and fail in new ways.
This is also why I pursued self publishing for some of my projects, like Reality and Contagion. This is why I founded a litmag, and in part, why I am writing here.
It’s normal to look back and cringe at our past mistake. But nothing beats being able to say that now, you know better5.
Was this useful? Maybe you’d consider clicking on one of those two buttons?
Wait - you’re asking - you’re not a writer as a main career? Outrageous! To this I reply: how do you believe I can afford to write a free substack?
Very related - as narrated by James Clear here, is the quantity vs quality experiment, led by Jerry Uelsmann on his photography students. Source: Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (And Rewards) of Artmaking
There are plenty of other valid reasons to write something aside publication. In here, I’m focusing mainly on the exercise part. Every word stretches your writing muscles, so the very act of writing is useful per se.
Rough estimate - your mileage may vary. I know I spent at least 4 years writing part-time on my first botched book, finishing the first drafts through several revisions. I know I’m not the only one.
Shoutout to Knowing Better, still one of the best youtubers around.