On Failure

I don’t write for fun — it’s more of a wrestle than a dance. There are moments when it feels like a dance but they are fleeting. I step on toes, tactless, desperate to find the beat. Other times I’m writing around the point, trying to find my way to the centre of a labyrinth. Writing is the task of telling the truth and some days it’s easier not to. Easier to fill pages with imagery. Easier to talk about writing than it is to extract its essence.

The nature of writing is that it ensnares. It draws you in, casts a spell. The word spelling comes from the idea of casting a spell. A person’s voice can get inside your head. Someone once said to me, be careful of the books you read, books can be like friends — equally as persuasive.

But I never wanted to persuade anyone of anything. Writing for me has been a practice of curiosity. A tool for enquiry. If I could write a letter to my younger self I would not give her the map to this labyrinth. Instead I would encourage her to love the questions themselves. Because if there were answers then there would be no use for writing.

My biggest failures have always led me to something I would have never found without asking questions and making mistakes. You don’t stop making these mistakes either, you just learn to trust them. The first time you fail it hurts. It feels like the end of the world because you have no reference points. All you know is the feeling of destruction without creation, which always follows. There will always be more and it will always be better. This is not to say that I enjoy failing but I am learning to move with it rather than against it.

Writing isn’t something that makes me happy, but it gives me a deep and slightly sinister satisfaction. As though I’ve momentarily tamed a beast or at least distracted it long enough for it not to eat me alive. I’ve spent hours arranging words on a page, failing to capture the essence of something, watching the words run sparkling through my fingers. The point is that you will never be happy with what you create, there is no such thing as mastery. There’s just a deep and menacing satisfaction that keeps you going and makes you more alive than the rest.


Words & Photography
Shannon May Powell