When We Fail

First, a giant THANK YOU to all who have purchased, read, and even reviewed Songs for Libby. If you liked it, please tell a friend, or post about it, or tweet about it. All my yammering will do very little in comparison to a recommendation from you.

Moment of vulnerability, folks.

I had a crap day on Saturday. It was one of those times when the stars aligned (in a bad way) and I ended up feeling like a failure. I was failing at mothering. I was failing at housekeeping. I was failing at authoring.

The truth is that I wasn’t actually failing at any of those things (seriously, I did a book launch, why did my brain think I was failing?), but in those moments it seemed obvious that I sucked at all the things. Even though I knew rationally that I wasn’t a complete failure, that didn’t mean the feelings of failure were any less real.

They were crying-in-my-bathroom real. Angry-cleaning real.

So what’s the point of sharing this?

No point, really, but since I can’t just leave it at that, I suppose I’ll bring it back to writing.

I spend a lot of time in my characters’ heads. And they have a lot of complicated, often irrational emotions that they spew out all over the page and onto the other characters. And one thing I’ve discovered is the importance of letting my characters acknowledge when they’re being irrational. Because most of the time, in real life, when we’re screaming at someone because we’ve had a crappy day, we know we’re being awful. Even as we yell, we know we’re going to regret it later, and we know we’re being unfair, but in that moment it just feels necessary. Probably because we feel out of control, and this is our way of trying to regain control. Or some other shrinky explanation.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve always been drawn to writing. Because I can see in my characters all the flaws and stumbling blocks and humanity that I encounter. And often writing those things out helps me make sense of life.

So let’s all be kind to ourselves and be willing to forgive our own humanity.

Book Highlights

The Billionaire’s Second Chance Christmas by Chelsea Hale.

Rescuing the Bad Boy by Anna Catherine Field.