What I Learned from My Failures: SparkLife Edition

lemon_101 learned from her failures and got a post published on SparkLife!—Sparkitors

Sparklers who have submitted posts to SparkLife should be able to relate to this situation: It's one in the morning and you're refreshing your email page every five seconds. Then, suddenly, you have a email, and it's from a SparkLife editor—it's the moment you've been waiting for. You click on the email with rapidly beating heart—only to discover kind words of rejection. You have failed. I'm no stranger to this scene, and I won't lie, rejection does dampen the spirit quite a bit. However, as I gather myself after each failure, I formulate my next great idea for a post. I've learned a lot from SparkLife rejections—and you can too.

1. Being awesome is not as easy as it seems. If you look at most, if not all of, the posts on SparkLife, they are well-written, witty, inspiring, and downright admirable. I figured I could write a post with all those qualities right off the bat, but I've learned that awesomeness has to be gained through experience and practice, much like piano playing. Maybe some people are just born with this enviable trait, but I'd like to think that even Dan Bergstein didn't always emit rays of awesomeness.

2. Not everyone appreciates your brand of humor. Humor is a funny thing (see what I did there?). It's completely different for each person; like Picasso's artwork, your sense of humor cannot be loved by everyone. Around my friends, I can be pretty funny, but my humor doesn't shine as brightly on SparkLife posts. The subjective nature of humor and the fact that I'm not used to writing humorous material sometimes make it hard for me to get published on SparkLife, which publishes some of the most hilarious stuff on the internet. Nevertheless, I've accepted that I can't please everyone, and I try to stay true to myself.

3. Develop better observation skills. Not that I'm not observant, but to write for SparkLife I need to take on the world with a new perspective. Since the Sparkitors look for humor and wit in their posts, I'm beginning to seek out the hilarity  in everyday situations. For instance, I noticed that my SAT supervisor looked like Woody Allen, which sparked an inspiration for a post called "Ways to Calm the Nerves During the SAT" (yet to be written). I never would have thought of this subject, or even noticed something like this, if it hadn't been for SparkLife.

4. Flexibility in writing. I'm used to writing essays, reports, newspaper articles, and stories, but none of these are like SparkLife posts. As most SparkLife writers can probably tell you, writing for this setting requires a different writing style, a style I have yet to fully develop. However, it was a great practice for me to have written all those rejected posts because now I know how and where I can improve. Flexibility is definitely very important  for anyone to become a successful writer. Sometimes you have to learn to compromise.

5. Failures are not useless. Yes, it is so cliche, but only through SparkLife rejections have I truly learned the meaning of the saying "Learn from your mistakes." Rejection of any kind should not stop what you are doing, but push you to perfect whatever you wish to do.

WORD. Lemon, you nailed it. Anyone else learned valuable lessons from failure?

Related post: Blogging My SparkLife Rejection