I try to talk about failures contemporaneously. Just something like, “I tried for an award, but I wasn’t successful. Well done to the winners, very excellent people.” I now judge competitions and I realise (as I didn’t know when I was younger) was that so much of it was luck. Yes, you need skill. But it’s also luck in a certain measure: right time at the right place. I do think it’s important to talk about failure in creative industries: writing, academia and so forth. I had to try and try to get an ongoing job, I had to really try to get my fiction published a first time, and it wasn’t followed up by interest in the second novel. Which reminds me - I must read your work - maybe once I finish the hell that is online marking. Online marking saps my will to live (and gives me migraines).
I try to talk about failures contemporaneously. Just something like, “I tried for an award, but I wasn’t successful. Well done to the winners, very excellent people.” I now judge competitions and I realise (as I didn’t know when I was younger) was that so much of it was luck. Yes, you need skill. But it’s also luck in a certain measure: right time at the right place. I do think it’s important to talk about failure in creative industries: writing, academia and so forth. I had to try and try to get an ongoing job, I had to really try to get my fiction published a first time, and it wasn’t followed up by interest in the second novel. Which reminds me - I must read your work - maybe once I finish the hell that is online marking. Online marking saps my will to live (and gives me migraines).