'There's no success like failure...'

They say writers should throw nothing away. Keep everything, even the pieces they don’t like. Maybe, they don’t say that, perhaps it’s just me. I never know when I might return to discarded passages and breathe new life into once, seemingly limp and lacklustre words. Sometimes an idea works but runs out of momentum. Sometimes a story will take me in a direction I didn’t plan. This can be exciting, but can also lead to dead ends. My style is not to plan, but to let the ideas develop and evolve. The story should have a life of its own. My job is to paint the pictures in my head. I don’t create the stories, my imagination does. I’m just the scribe, the conduit, the thesaurus. I find the right conditions for the words to emerge, and then capture the story as it unfolds. The story should be as exciting for me to write as it is for others to read.

For a few days now I’ve had an idea that has kept returning. It came from a dream, but has merged with a story I wrote a couple of years ago. It was one of my first serious attempts at writing a novel. 65,000 words I abandoned and locked in the cupboard called experience. Believe me that is difficult. No-one wants to admit months of hard work hasn’t gone the way it should, that it’s time to move on and try something new. I think you have to be hard on yourself sometimes, listen to advice from others and yourself. Discipline is important as a writer, but so are courage and humility.

Realising that old, discarded work might still have potential I’ve spent the morning playing around with it. Editing and reshaping passages, culling chapters, steering it in this new direction. The words are exciting again. I can see their lost potential. Who knows? Maybe this new direction will take me somewhere. Perhaps it will lead to another dead-end. This is the risk writers have to take. But it’s important to take those risks. Comfort is the enemy of creativity.

I know many of you believe you have a story inside you, but the nagging voice of indecision and self-doubt will be gnawing away inside. Ignore it. Have the courage to take the risk, the discipline to see it through, and where necessary, the humility to accept it didn’t work. Move on. Failure isn’t about not getting to where you want to be. Failure is not even trying to get there. Take the risk and enjoy it.