 "Failure is a normal part of life. It's not the end of the world, it's the beginning of a new one."
Author, culinary wizard, podcaster and journalist, Sophie White, interviewed me for Image Magazine about my upcoming debut novel, The Glass Door, and being a failure. Sophie writes: "We love stories of success. We love to hear about disappointment, hardship and failure, but only as long as the final act contains a gloriously vindicating flood of success. All these viral videos telling us how Oprah was fired from her first job and The Help was rejected eight thousand times before it was published, gives us a little dopamine hit. We like a little bit of adversity but ultimately the story has to deliver big in the form of respect and success at the end. However, the success narrative is not really teaching us anything of value because it rarely dwells on the most vital part of succeeding: Failing." Speaking of failing, I discuss the decade long journey I've been on with The Glass Door, from writing it on scraps of paper in my London flat while I was auditioning for acting jobs, to Dalzell Press publishing it on the new Amazon White Glove publishing platform later this year. Between traditional publishing houses having trouble identifying the 'market' for the book, and winning awards and agents with it, it has been a road both tempting and frustrating where the bright spots of its successes have threatened to dim and go out as it stretched ever further into an unknown distance. I was very honest about the difficulty of the journey, and how at times I have really struggled with the whole process, which forced me to re-learn the ways I value myself. This was made easier by Sophie's forthright, funny and grounded approach, and the fact that she, and many others who write or make art, are or have been in a similar situation to me. Not that knowing I'm not entirely alone in the process makes not getting what I want any easier, as this quote suggests: "I don’t know, I mean you can say what you want about these things. Maybe it’s this, maybe it’s that. Maybe it’s just because it’s f*cking shit! You make any excuses you want but the fact of the matter is that I started writing it 10 years ago and for seven years it’s been rejected consistently." To read the rant/use of expletives in full, go here.
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