Failing Better

The only real New Year's resolution I made at the beginning of this year was to try (and to try hard). Four months in, I can pat myself on the back. According to my diary, I have at least two more stories to revise and proof and pass to different local publications. My diary also informs me I made a pact with myself to try submitting to international publications, too. So, if anything, my twenty-fourth year will mean tears and bloodshed. But, at the end of it, absolutely no regrets.

To that end, I began a digital library of visual story pegs for upcoming revisions including The Hand You Are Dealt, Six, and to help begin drafting that weird alternate world story I've always wanted to read (and write, apparently).

I've decided I am attracted to moody, suggestive pieces, characters stuck in medias res, with backgrounds and color palettes highly suggestive of mood and tone. High contrast images with a lot of action. Busy pictures that ask why, why, why?

At this point, let me also remind you, because you will need the reminder come September:

1. Remember how it felt, the weight of the manuscripts in your hands the night before submission. 
2. Remember your dreams and the short evening you spent trying to convince your mother that you have no future in this business. She only faced you with the same determination and (God-given) stubbornness (pigheadedness) that you inherited (from her and from your father, both). She looked at you and said you should keep trying, rejection be damned. There will be no end to them.
3. But, back to regular programming: Remember how you got lost on your way to the Palanca office. 
4. Remember you wore the yellow, adventure backpack.
5. Remember you were proud of yourself and that you have cause to be proud of yourself. Because, after all, didn't you write two wonderful stories? You have to get them out there!
6. Remember, too, that you printed out your curriculum vitae but you couldn't reread the entries, there. 
7. Remember, too, that you had May all to yourself to work on several revisions, several drafts, and a twenty-page media theory paper. 
8. Remember, this too shall pass. Glory and pain both. 

Remember there is no end to your story.