Seven Failure Principles from Elizabeth Day's How to Fail Live with Reni Eddo-Lodge

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 Seven Failure Principles from Elizabeth Day's How to Fail Live with Reni Eddo-Lodge

1. Failure is a fact but you are not defined by it 
"Just because you fail does not make you a failure"

2. You are not your anxious brain
The brain tells us something is a danger when it isn't 
We are not defined by our thoughts

3. Almost everyone feels they have failed in their 20s

4. Break ups are not a tragedy - your ex-partner has taught you something

5. Failure is data acquisition

6. There is no such thing as a future you

7. When we choose to share our vulnerabilities is when we feel most satisfaction


A couple more nuggets of wisdom that Day shared include

When times get too tough and you feel like giving up, cling on because the biggest failure may be not finding out what will happen

Anxiety doesn't want you to enjoy life

My introduction to Words Weekend at The Sage

I spent a large proportion of the weekend at The Sage, Gateshead enjoying the inaugural Words Weekend. 

Fane Productions is behind this brand new festival;

"Words Weekend celebrates the power of words and stories with a packed programme of talks, workshops, panel discussions, music and spoken word. 40% of the 60+ events are free, and all are fully accessible and BSL interpreted. Through the power of words and stories, Words Weekend aims to unite communities and ignite imaginations."

Although I am (ashamedly) not particularly well-read (I am dyslexic and reading takes a lot of energy and time and requires specific conditions), I have (and always have) a great love for stories, both written and spoken, read or heard. In the last five years I have become increasingly interested in writing and spoken word, and I've begun to share some of my creative writing and audio work.

It was when I first read Mark Haddon's 'The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time' that I realised that it was possible to write in a manner that echoes the way one thinks. I found it incredibly refreshing and liberating to read. At last I had found a book that was written in a way that I found pleasurable. I could easily, and relatively quickly, digest it. It did not conform to what I believed to be 'the norm' and the 'proper way'. By this I mean that I realised that stories did not have to be in prose.

This experience encouraged me to explore my own style of writing, and I have since created a couple of publications namely A lot can happen in fifteen minutes (2016) a risograph publication made in collaboration with Unstapled Press and Portion Control (2017) made for an exhibition titled REALITY CHECK at The NewBridge Project, Gateshead.

Over the course of the next few blog posts I will be posting about the various events that I went to. 

Bernardine Evaristo & David Olusoga in Conversation

Cash Carraway: SKINT ESTATE

Roisin Crowley Linton: Teenage Kicks

How To Be A Public Author: Cash Carraway, Paul Ewen, Carmen Marcus

Spotlight on Indie Publishers: Galley Beggar

Elizabeth Day's How to Fail Live with Reni Eddo-Lodge