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Book

The promise of failure : one writer's perspective on not succeeding

Call Number

  • 808.02 M47885 (CEN)

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Publication Information

Iowa City : University Of Iowa Press, [2018]

Physical Description

xii, 128 pages ; 22 cm

Summary

The Promise of Failure is part memoir of the writing life, part advice book, and part craft book; sometimes funny, sometimes wrenching, but always honest. McNally uses his own life as a blueprint for the writer's daily struggles as well as the existential ones, tackling subjects such as when to quit and when to keep going, how to deal with depression, what risking something of yourself means, and ways to reenergize your writing through reinvention--back cover.

Contents

  • Rejection, failure, and the bigger picture (A personal history)
  • Prepared spirits (author stakes and risking failure)
  • The life you save may be your own, redux (depression and failure)
  • To the stars on the wings of a pig (reinvention, genre-hopping, and collaboration)
  • 194 days (when to quit ... when to keep going)
  • Conclusion.

Subjects