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Epic Fails

I recently blew up everything.  

In August I decided to just do what I would do if I could not fail.

  • I finished and submitted True Blue Lies. (A mystery/romance)
  • I finished a full-on Teachable class on Journaling and set up the elaborate promotion system to sell the class for the month of  September.
  • I finished and submitted wild and crazy poems to 15 journals.
  • I got my first tattoo.
cubist Old Fashion Typewriter

And by September 30 the results were in!

The only thing that worked was the tattoo.  Pretty happy with it.

Every other project failed in a very big, very public, very spectacular way.

The response and the results came to exactly zero.   

It is said that the only things we regret are the things we never tried. Had I not tried the online class,  I would have always wondered, what if?  If I hadn’t submitted the manuscript, I would have wondered, what if?  If I hadn’t submitted the poetry . . . You get the idea.  I would love to always win,  always be successful, wouldn’t we all?  But how much emptier life would be if we never tried in the first place.  We must keep trying and practice not only our art but our resilience.  The big win is learning that it is not the response to your slam poem, it’s the win of standing up to read, and not dying in the attempt.  It’s learning that you become a better writer every time (and I really mean every time) you run through another edit of your book.  The win is knowing that organizing new ways to promote your art is exciting rather than debilitating.

To that end, I’m giving my blog a break.   

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Thank you.

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CatharineBramkamp

Catharine Bramkamp is a successful writing coach and author. She has published over 300 newspaper and magazine articles in publications like Modern Maturity (AARP), SF Chronicle and Santa Rosa Magazine. She was a contributor to two Chicken Soup Books and has published anthologies of her work, non-fiction works and novels. Her work has also appeared in a number of poetry and fiction anthologies. She has experimented with the self-publishing world since 2001. She has published and self-published seven books through companies like Author House, author assist companies like 3L Publishing and through traditional publishers like Write Life. Her poetry collection, Ammonia Sunrise, will be released in August 2011 by Finishing Line Press and her mystery novel, In Good Faith will be released by Write Life in 2011. Catharine holds a BA in English from UCSB and a MA in English from Sonoma State University. She is a 25 year member of California Writer’s Club. She is an adjunct professor for the University of Phoenix. She works with authors of both fiction and non-fiction to make their dream of producing a book come true. For more information on that, visit her at www.YourBookStartsHere.com Catharine has lived in Sonoma County for 25 years and considers wine a food group. She is married to an adorable and very patient man who complains he’s never featured in any of her books. Her grown children who are featured in a few of her books have fled the county.

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