And then there are failures . . .
Lest it sound like everything is going my way, I had two rejections while on my “retreat.” I did not get a grant I’d applied for, and I also wasn’t accepted into a month-long writing retreat in the fall. How do I handle rejection? I focus on the FIVE MONTH period of hope and possibility that I enjoyed before the results came in. I think novelists REALLY need this hope as the time between starting a project and receiving any recognition for it is long. Applying for grants and literary opportunities keeps me hopeful. A life in the arts contains more failure than success, so “failing forward” is profoundly optimistic.
Soon there will be flowers in Edmonton.
I’ll have finished one revision of Dog Days of Planet Earth and will likely be waiting on notes for a second edit, which means I’ll hopefully be mucking about again in The Domestics (and in my garden!). I’ll be sure to share the pain and joys of the process. Wish me luck!
I’m sending this from Edmonton, where snow still covers my backyard, but these images of March crocuses and daffodils in Gibsons are in me.
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