Writing Failure is Simply More Data on Your Way to Success

Several years ago, the National Endowment for the Arts devoted a whole issue of its magazine to the topic of “The Art of Failure: The Importance of Risk and Experimentation.” Writers, artists, and musicians all shared their insights about their creative process, and how to handle the failures that happen along the way. One of them, Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, encouraged writers to regard failure simply as data that can help them get better. This is part of a complete episode.