Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Fail Spectacularly

One of my favorite quotes ever (and unfortunately I can't remember where I heard it, a movie I think) is:

"If you're going to fail, fail spectacularly."


And no, that doesn't mean do a crap job. It means go for it. Don't hold back, or play it safe, in the hopes that you won't make a huge fool of yourself if you get it wrong.

If you shoot for the middle, all you'll get is mediocre. That and the knowledge that you could've tried harder but you didn't.

So the next time you sit down to write, or work out a plot, or anything else in life, ask yourself. Am I doing everything I can to make this great? Am I trying to make my story fit in with what everyone else is doing?

Is there a crazy idea you have for a story that in your gut, you know it could work, but you're afraid to try it? Are you shoving it aside to write something more mainstream/"now"/generic? Ask yourself it that's really what you want to do, and if it's not, go for it. And even if you fail, it will be the kind of glorious failure that shows your heart, and what's wrong with that?

10 comments:

Shannon O'Donnell said...

I love that, Valerie. Thanks! :-)

Christine Fonseca said...

LOVE LOVE!!!

Anonymous said...

Dude, you *know* how I feel about this! Thanks to you, this was the bright red header for my last revision :D

Sara {Rhapsody and Chaos} said...

This is lovely :) And it's exactly what I'm trying to do with my WIP. To GO FOR IT. And it's exactly what YOU should be doing with words.

Ahem. I owe you an email, but YOU owe me some words. *cracks whip*

Valerie Kemp said...

Thanks Shannon and Christina! I really love this quote!

@Brenna Love that! I should do that to my wip!

@Sara *cough* um... Yeah. I have been working on a secret (writing um related) project, but I need to get back to making words. In the meantime you GO FOR IT! woohoo!

Meredith said...

SUCH good advice! Go big or go home. :)

Trisha said...

Love this advice, and intend to live by it!! :)

Monster of Books said...

Great Advice!! I totally agree XD

Anonymous said...

I never hold myself back content-wise, because I'm certain my book will never be published with that said, I need to stay tougher on myself as far as my consistency in determination. Motivation is a fickle beast.

Kathi Oram Peterson said...

What a great quote! I'm going to keep that in mind.