Yes, I failed. No, I am not a failure.

Today was the sub­mis­sion dead­line for the Loft Lit­er­ary Cen­ter’s Men­tor Series. I have known about this pro­gram, and the dead­line, for near­ly two months. I have been count­ing down the remain­ing ‘writ­ing days’ for almost six weeks. I could have, in this time, put togeth­er fif­teen to twen­ty dou­ble-spaced pages of my best prose. I did not.

I pro­cras­ti­nat­ed. I kept start­ing out in new direc­tions. I brain­stormed. I wrote frag­men­tary scenes. I even made an out­line, some­thing I have not done since some­time in the last cen­tu­ry. But I brought noth­ing to fruition until, last night, exhaust­ed but deter­mined to patch some­thing togeth­er, to at least sub­mit some­thing, even if not my best work, I fell asleep kneel­ing next to my son’s bed while putting him to sleep. When I awoke in this same posi­tion two hours lat­er, my kneecaps numb, my ankles seized at a painful angle, I knew that it was over. There is, as they say, always next year.

So I am now deter­mined to keep forg­ing ahead, to keep writ­ing some­thing, how­ev­er seem­ing­ly-insignif­i­cant, every sin­gle day. Even­tu­al­ly I am bound to fin­ish some­thing.

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