On Failure and Getting Back Up Again.

        So, I failed.

I’m not talking about Nanowrimo. Well, not exclusively. At this point we are about five days away from the ending, and I’m only about 4000 words in. Unfortunately, I failed in another, much more spectacular way. And I’m not going to lie, friends, it really took the wind out of my sails. I never really understood that metaphor until this week, when I did, in fact, stopped moving forward. In a bad way.

I was low, and it affected just about every part of my life. I couldn’t work out, I couldn’t write, I couldn’t do the things that I really enjoyed. I found myself falling into old habits that involved me clinging to my time away from what was really bothering me, staying up later than I should and sleeping longer than recommended because that meant I wouldn’t have to deal with my failure. My spectacular failure.

The thing about failure is that you can’t really let it get you down. You’re going to get knocked down. The important thing, the great philosophers in the band “Chumbawumbah” have told us is that we have to get up again. Ain’t never going to keep me down. Of course, they’re talking about drinking and later the song was adapted to refer to soccer hooliganism (who are notoriously difficult to keep down, and have a great outlook on life.) so maybe that’s not the best place to get advice.

The thing is, despite all the kittens hanging on branches with cute sayings, it’s really difficult to get back up again once you’ve gotten the wind taken away from your sails. Everyone tries to help - and trust me I’ve really appreciated all of the help I’ve gotten - but sometimes all the sayings in the world can’t really help. Particularly the fashion in which my wind was stolen from me.

But after some time, I finally have... well, me back. I’m getting back up on that horse and putting the wind back in my own sails. I don’t mean to be as cryptic as I’m coming across, but I’m still not fully ready to put out exactly what happened in blog form, but I will when I can write about it in a way that’s not overly needy or depressing. You come here to laugh.

However, as announced on my Facebook page, I WILL be restarting my own personal Nanowrimo. Not through the official scary counter, but I will be restarting in a new fun way, and it’s going to be for Christmas. It’s not going to be a Christmas story, but it’s Bad Shakespeare’s Christmas Present to everyone. A Very Bad Shakespeare Christmas Novel Writing Event! I plan on following the same guidelines, by December 25th, I will have written a 50,000 word novel with plans to edit it and self publish it by the new year. I will post some parts on Bad Shakespeare, and I will let you all into the process, starting this week as I resume my blogging duties.

Let’s get back up on that metaphor together, people. Let’s hear some cheering, and let’s not little things knock us down so badly that we never get up from it again. Failure will always happen. It’s time to kick failure in the teeth.