During this last week, that’s a question I’ve thought about a lot. Failure is something that happens. I’m one of those types that will keep trying to succeed and it takes a lot to get me to give up.
This week highlighted that, both in my day job, where I’ve been asked to find out how to do new things I’ve never done before and in my family life, where my son asked me to do something I haven’t done in a while. New challenges at work are normal in this post COVID-19 world. I try to approach those challenges with the belief that the solution is out there. Most of the time it works.
This week, when my son was invited on an activity to go roller skating and told he could bring me along, I was nervous. I haven’t gone roller skating since I was in elementary school. When I was in high school, I had roller blades until I got a job and a car, and other priorities took my time. That was more than twenty years ago. But this week, my son asked me to come with him. He was so excited to go roller skating, so I couldn’t say no.
Did I fail? I only fell once, but I got back up and continued. By the end of the roller-skating time, my son and I were making good time around the rink. It was a highlight of this last week.
I treat my writing the same way. If I enter a contest, or submit a query letter, and get rejected, I continue writing. Several short stories I’ve entered in the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future contest have gotten honorable mentions. I don’t count those as failures, but there is always room for improvement.
I believe I only really fail when I stop trying.
If you’re looking for a good science fiction story, check out my books The Promise of Dust or Progenitor’s Legacy: Deceit. If you’re looking for a young adult science fiction, check out my series This New Earth, that starts with Demons of a Dead World and Secrets of a Dead World. If you are looking for a young adult fantasy, check out my book The Threads Unbound.
DANIEL R. BURKHARD 