Failure and success

I’ve always had this problem with failure, or perceived failure, in the sense that criticism gets deep down under my skin and causes me to rethink the path that I’m on. Sometimes, this happens for the better. Many times, I’ve lost my confidence and started something from scratch, only to have its quality exceed what it was before. For example, throughout middle school and secondary school, I was into music. For most of those years, I played the tenor saxophone. I really enjoyed it, and people told me I was good. I thought I was good, too. And then, my high school music teacher brought in some musicians to give us some pointers, and they butchered my playing: your embouchure isn’t right, and your phrasing needs a lot of work, etc. Don’t get me wrong; I’m fine with constructive criticism—when you’ve been bullied as much as I have, you develop a thick skin—but this experience had left so strong a mark on me that when I sat down to play the next morning, I couldn’t do it. It was like all the things these people had pointed out, which no one had ever pointed out before, were suddenly manifesting in a vastly exaggerated way. I was like a newbie learning to play the saxophone for the first time.

Not surprisingly, this didn’t go over well. I still remember when Mrs. Quinn was conducting our combined classes; the look on her face when my horrid notes squeaked out over everyone else was one of disgust and disbelief. And then there was my jazz band conductor, who asked me, “What happened to you?” Embarrassed does not describe how I felt. I was mortified, and I was also frustrated because I didn’t know why I was playing so badly. But after a lot of practicing, not only did I escape this abhorrent playing, but I became more skilled than I had been before the core-shaking incident.

I think something similar happened to me with my writing. All I wanted to do in life was to be a writer. And between 2003 and 2005, I tried to make that happen professionally. Well, it didn’t. I wrote articles that were never published, a novel that received many rejection letters from publishers, and applied for countless jobs for which I was never even interviewed. I couldn’t get a literary agent to take me on either. And then I got a job offer in India, in copy editing. I thought back to my school days, when my friends would ask me to look over their French assignments, and I’d happily sit with my red pen and correct their work. Yes, I thought, this is the place for me. I had some hiccups along the way as an editor as well, with some bad client feedback and low quality assessment scores; nevertheless, I decided, no, I’m not meant to write; I’m meant to edit other people’s writing. But now that I’ve been doing this for five years, I’ve honed my skills, and I’ve read hundreds of really bad authors (sorry, but it’s true), I think I’m over my mental block about writing.

So, I think this “problem” of mine is both a good thing and a bad thing. It might keep me down for some time, but I always persevere and rise again, to the top of the heap. (Never let anyone tell you it's wrong to toot your own horn!)