“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Failure — probably not the easiest or happiest topic to kickoff a week of writing. And yet. And yet. And yet. There’s so much we can learn from it, so much it can teach us if we’re willing to stop and listen. If we’re willing to mine the gifts it can give us.

Write now (love this — it just popped up!), you may be struggling with some kind of failure. I know I am. Something isn’t working in a piece of work I’ve been revising, and today, I have to go in and fix it because I’ve realized that my last round of changes simply isn’t working and didn’t do the job.

How about you? There may be some not-quite-there-yet feeling you’re experiencing, too. You may feel that you’ve fallen short in some way.

You may be struggling with a revision that doesn’t want to be revised. You may have sent out a story and gotten a rejection — again. You may have queried an agent you were hopeful about and received a pass.

Whatever the challenge you’re facing and I’m facing, as our boy Ralph says so well, it can be our “greatest glory” if we rise up.

If we rise up instead of giving up.

Failure can be so fruitful if we don’t let it knock us down!

It can force us to go back in to a story and fix what’s broken.

It can trigger a fresh new way of approaching a thorny plot point.

It can prompt us to reach out and ask for help from a trusted source.

It can inspire us to redouble our efforts — to really step on the gas.

Failure isn’t final. It’s just a blip on the radar screen. And it can be our “greatest glory” as long as we rise up and keep going. Write on!