Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.
– Norman Vincent Peale
Norman Vincent Peale has a questionable grasp on astronomy, but he raises a good point–you can fail on a goal and still make progress.
Which is what happened to me on Camp NaNoWriMo last month. I failed miserably in my writing time goal, but I still finished a short story, my first new piece of fiction in over a year. It’s another Everyday Thieves short story, this one inspired by a scenario I read in Financial Serial Killers by Tom Ajamie and Bruce Kelly. If you’re in the metro Detroit area, you may recognize the inspiration for some of the locations.
One short story isn’t much, but after calling it quits on fiction writing a year ago, it feels great to be telling stories again.
Have you failed reaching a big goal? If so, how did you fail upward?
Grace Wen 