The Thing about Failure...

This post is about positive thoughts on rejection and failure.   

But first a little background:
That giant of a research project on the Ogallala Aquifer, which has consumed much of my homework time over the past seven months, reached its final deadline a couple of weeks ago.  I turned in a project that I was quite proud of, that I felt said some very important things, and that taught me a ton.  And if time and energy measured the quality of an end product, this one would be dynamite.

This paper, and those written by my fellow staff members on the law review, was eligible for publication in the Kansas Law Review.  But my paper didn't make the publication cut.   I was disappointed.  Sometime in the last year, my measure for success for paper writing became publication--not meeting deadlines, turning in a quality project, or making the grade, but publication in an academic journal.  

It was good practice in dusting myself off and getting over myself.  It's good to have a nice balance of success and failure in your life, I think.  Keeps you realistic, keeps your feet on the ground.

Since finding out, I have had the opportunity to turn a critical eye back at my paper, with the help of constructive criticism from some encouraging professors and generous fellow law students.  It turns out it's ok, but flawed; it turns out a lot more work could be done to make it live up to a standard of what I would be proud to see in a publication.  

The question is: Will I put that work into it now, and try to resubmit it elsewhere?  If I decide to do that, there's a good chance I could sink a lot more time into it without seeing much benefit--not many publications are willing to look at a student's work. 

This quote that I read on another blog helped me to accept this whole situation as just the way it should be, and to accept that my time spent was not (and will not be) futile.  This is attributed to Ira Glass, and quoted from Adulting (one of my favorite blogs these days):

"...The thing I would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short, you know, and some of us can admit that to ourselves and some of us are a little less able to admit that to ourselves.
...But we knew that it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have… Everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase or if you’re just starting off and you’re entering into that phase, you’ve got to know it’s totally normal and the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work.
Do a huge volume of work. ... Because it’s only be actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions."

Well... I'm taking that advice.  I realize that legal and academic writing takes practice.  This semester is an exciting challenge for me because I almost all of my homework is research and writing: I will turn in three more papers that constitute the same volume of work as this one before the end of the semester (including several drafts between now and then). 

And meanwhile this afternoon, I'm taking a break from abstract thought and computer screens (other than writing this blog post)... I'm gardening: another thing that I believe takes a lot of practice and persistence to get good at. 

Last year, in my first year gardening on my own, I had some successes (unfortunately, my best crops were eggplant and swiss chard, neither of which I am inordinately fond of) and some serious failures (like the tomatoes that sat on the plant, green, for two months, never ripening... weird).  I learned a lot. 

This year, I am going to make a better use of my space and sunlight as possible, and I'm not going to make the mistake of having too few plants on hand, or letting the drought outsmart me.  This year is practice round two, and I will have a few failures again, but of course that's part of the process of becoming, and creating, and doing it right.