Sunday, March 07, 2010

Failure is not an Option...

I was wandering around over at Mark Terry's blog where he said something about NASA and that their code is "Failure is not an Option".
The post was mostly about Stephen Parrish and his new book The Tavernier Stones. (Quick! Everyone needs to order a copy right now!) and how he helped nudge Stephen to the place he needed to be to find success.
This toggled me over to Stephen's blog and how he got published. He's done more rewrites then I ever thought possible. But more than that...he never gave up.
Failure was not an option.
It was the push I needed.
It's time to get back on the horse and if I can't find the old horse. Maybe I'll just have to write me a new one. I think I'm going to take back my 20 minute rule (every time I have 20 minutes I write--something) and just write. Good or bad I'm just going to write.
I think when real life throws us curves it's easy to forget our motivation and what moves us forward toward our own successes. Imagine if Stephen Parrish had given up at one of his many rewrites?
I think sometimes we need to remember that Failure is not an option we're going to accept.
The dream you hold could change the world.

3 comments:

Melanie Hooyenga said...

I'm catching up on blogs tonight and also read Stephen's within the past hour. That terrified me, thrilled me, and gave me a nice kick in the pants.

Spy Scribbler said...

That was a great post, wasn't it? I need to keep repeating that mantra to myself.

Claire Farrell said...

His story scares me because I do a particularly poor job when it comes to rewriting. I know I would have given up, fair play to him. I'll have to read it again the next time I feel like giving up :)

Sometimes we have to force ourselves along, keep pushing ourselves because who else will?

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