I've heard that in order to truly learn a lesson, sometimes you got to burn your hand touching a hot stove. People can tell you not to touch the stove, but until we feel the heat emanating off that convection oven for ourselves, the lesson doesn't truly cement itself within our minds.
I had that happen to me last weekend (metaphorically). Upon a quick review of a short story I submitted, I had two easy to catch, clear errors in the first paragraph. It was blatantly obvious to anyone, except me apparently.
Man, was I disappointed in myself at that realization. I had submitted this short story draft to three separate magazines before I caught the error. And while I fixed the mistake itself rather quickly, the need to review everything I submitted one last time with a final fine-tooth comb became fully realized that day.
Yes, the cost was three magazine submissions that I'll never get back, but I also have to accept that there's always going to be missteps in every journey. No one on this planet gets everything right on the first try. Maybe there are some that learn faster than others, who make less mistakes, but the only thing that I can control, that any of us can control, is that we show up every day willing to work on ourselves. All we can do is hone our craft and keep moving forward. And while I can't control when I get published, I can fix the errors in my short story and learn from my failures.
Aside from that, I listened to a good writing podcast with Neil Gaiman and Tim Ferriss. It was an interesting podcast and of particular note, Neil mentioned having multiple projects ongoing at the same time and it struck a chord with me. I thought that was quite reaffirming for where I'm at. Sometimes I worry that by spreading my time between a full-time job, three days a week of BJJ, 10k first draft words a month, and editing, I'm spreading myself too thin, too unable to focus on any one thing because of all the cooks I have in the kitchen.
But ultimately, we all got to live our lives. We all got to try to build the lives we envision for ourselves. And I have to trust that if I keep showing up for everything I mentioned above, if I keep chipping away at it, I'll get to where I want to go.
Thank you everyone for your time and I hope you have a great day!
Sincerely,
Josh Acocella
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