Developing the Nerve of Failure
As I begin to end this 12-week set of posts on writing my first novel, I’d like to share some thoughts from sociologist and creative writer Laurel Richardson about developing confidence in your work as a writer.
Laurel Richardson is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology at The Ohio State University in the United States and is the author of eleven books. Her latest book is entitled Lone Twin: A True Story of Loss and Found, and it was awarded an Honorable Mention by the book review panel for the 2020 Book Award from the International Congress for Qualitative Inquiry.
In a keynote address she gave for the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry several years earlier in 2013, Richardson shared some reflections about her “failed” writing. The address has been reprinted in Julie White’s (2016) book, Permission: The International Interdisciplinary Impact of Laurel Richardson’s Work. Richardson told her audience that when she reviewed her “failed” writing projects in preparation for her address, she realized that all of them were interesting, valuable projects. She also realized she abandoned them because Gatekeepers had determined there were no audiences for the projects.
It was I who did not persist. It is I who had let projects fall. In each case, it was I who lacked the “nerve of failure.” I had accepted the judgment of the Gatekeepers. (Richardson quoted in White 2016, p. 14)
At the end of her address 2013, Richardson said this to her audience of academics and writers:
I implore you to take risks. Believe in your projects. Become Gatekeepers who open gates for others. Be permission givers. Have the “nerve of failure”.
A powerful example of the ways writers can open the gates for other writers was the creation of Kitchen Table: Women of Colour Press in 1980 by writers Audre Lorde and Barbara Smith. I explore the story of how Lorde and Smith started a press for women of colour who were not being published by white, male publishing houses in a play called A Press of Their Own. The play appears in a set of seven short plays about queer and trans activism in the early LGBTQ liberation movement. My theatre company Gailey Road productions performed the plays at the 2023 Toronto Pride Festival to mark the 50th anniversary of homosexuality being taken out of the American Psychology Association (APA)’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1973. The first play in the set, The Love Booth and Other Plays tells the story of the activism that led to the de-listing. A Press of Their Own appears alongside The Love Booth. And other stories of activism including stories about Shirley Chisholm, the first Black women to run for President in the United States in 1973; Iris de la Cruz who challenged the stigma and shame of living with HIV; Two-Spirit artist and activist Chrystos, and trans activists Marcia P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera and Chelsea Goodwin who supported homeless young drag queens, gay youth and trans women living in New York. A Press of Our Own as well as the other plays are available on the Gailey Road website.
In closing, it can be challenging to believe in our writing projects when publishers and other gatekeepers tell us that our stories won’t find an audience. However, if we believe in a project, if we believe it is interesting, has merit, has value, then finding the nerve of failure might make the difference between letting a project go and finishing it. Then finding a way to share it with others.
In my last post of this set of posts about writing my first novel, I will share the story of how I found the nerve of failure, finished Home of Her Heart, and found a way to share it with others by publishing it independently.
All the best,
Tara
References
Goldstein, Tara. (2023). The Love Booth and Other Plays. With contributions from Alec Butler and Jenny Salisbury. Gailey Road Productions: Toronto. August 2023. Available at www.gaileyroad.com
Richardson, Laurel (2019). Lone Twin: A True Story of Loss and Found Brill/Sense.
White, Julie (2016). Permission: The International Interdisciplinary Impact of Laurel Richardson’s Work. Sense Publishers.