"But in both knitting and writing, mistakes can be made, learned from, and unmade, in order to make something new, something better. [...] And it's a comfort to know that when I knit badly, or when I write poorly, I haven't really lost anything but time - and even that time has changed into something: knowledge. Every time I fail, it hurts like hell. But I know more than I did before. I tried".
A Life in Stitches: Knitting My Way through Love, Life and Laughter, Rachael Herron
Just before Christmas I got the results of my theatre MA, which I wasn’t immediately impressed with. Yet again, I was better than average, just not as good as the best at the one time I really wanted to shine. I got a merit overall, with a merit for the dissertation. (I wrote a play; the word cloud is above). Part of the irritation of not getting the mark I wanted, was the irrational worry that the people who had upset or pissed me off the most, had also done better than me. Insult to injury, as it were. I feel somewhat embarrassed about the outpouring of support when I vented my spleen on Twitter.
Reading the Twitter feed of somebody I thought was a friend (but who has blocked me on Twitter and Facebook for no understandable reason) I see that he too has got a merit overall, and said that he was depressed at the lowness of his dissertation mark. For various reasons, the latter doesn’t surprise me, but that’s his journey, not mine. In comparison, my merit of a play script isn’t so bad. Rather than thinking I’m an amazing writer and then being surprised that I’m not, I’ve let myself believe that I’m rather rubbish and am surprised that I may not be.
So I’m going to treat my play script the same way as I have the fingerless mittens which went wrong on the second row, or the lace scarf I had to rip back, because I didn’t have enough yarn. Deep breath, take pride in what I’ve achieved and do better with the next attempt. Once I’ve untangled what I’m doing ….
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