{"id":87,"date":"2015-02-03T11:01:32","date_gmt":"2015-02-03T16:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zachbarnesonwriting.wordpress.com\/?p=87"},"modified":"2015-02-03T11:01:32","modified_gmt":"2015-02-03T16:01:32","slug":"failed-permanently","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/2015\/02\/03\/failed-permanently\/","title":{"rendered":"*Failed Permanently*"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy Tuesday-After-Superbowl! \u00a0What a day!<\/p>\n

So, in allusion to the title: the other day I was trying to send an email (a difficult task in this day and age) and my fool self typed in .caom instead of .com. \u00a0Needless to say, the email bounced back. \u00a0Usually I don\u2019t read the server response to an email that bounced, but for whatever reason I read this one, and this is what it said:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cTechnical details of permanent failure:<\/p>\n

DNS Error: Address resolution of yahoo.caom. failed: Domain name not found<\/p>\n

Techno-babble blah blah blah\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I got really,\u00a0really<\/em> hung up on that first line.<\/p>\n

\u201cPermanent failure\u201d<\/p>\n

I struggle against the concept of permanent failure, probably because failure to me always means\u00a0coming back and trying again in a different way. \u00a0Failure is impetus for harder work, and certainly isn\u2019t permanent. \u00a0If anything, failure is transitory.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u00a0do<\/em> understand that for this singular email, failure is permanent. \u00a0There\u2019s nothing it can do to not fail. \u00a0Poor little guy. \u00a0Despite that reality,\u00a0the language got me thinking.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m in the process of querying at the moment, which means I\u2019m getting rejection letters. \u00a0That\u2019s okay\u00a0by me in and of itself, because it means people are actually receiving my queries. \u00a0I\u2019m just glad that the concept of permanent failure does not apply to the query process (or any other human process). \u00a0Even trying to imagine a world like that defeats my feeble mind. \u00a0It would be the ultimate dystopia: a place\u00a0where you only had one shot to do anything\u2026 \u00a0My strategy has been to send out two query letter for each rejection letter I receive. \u00a0Not the same letter, mind you! \u00a0That would be Einstein\u2019s definition of insanity.<\/p>\n

In any case, landing an agent, publishing, and that\u00a0sort of hooplah\u00a0is an eventuality for me, not a question. \u00a0It may not happen this year,\u00a0hell, maybe not even for this\u00a0book, but it will<\/em> happen.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s because a single mass-less point on a continuum is only permanent if you stay in the same place.<\/p>\n

Mountains!<\/p>\n

\"You<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m on facebook at: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/zachbarnesonwriting<\/a><\/p>\n

And Twitter: @ZacharyBarnes4<\/p>\n

Like or follow me if you enjoy the blog!<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t steal my words. They\u2019re mine. \u00a9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I struggle against the concept of permanent failure, probably because failure to me always means coming back and trying again in a different way. Failure is impetus for harder work, and certainly isn\u2019t permanent. If anything, failure is transitory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":81,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amazonpipp_noncename":"","amazon-product-isactive":"","amazon-product-single-asin":"","amazon-product-content-location":"","amazon-product-content-hook-override":"","amazon-product-excerpt-hook-override":"","amazon-product-singular-only":"","amazon-product-amazon-desc":"","amazon-product-show-gallery":"","amazon-product-show-features":"","amazon-product-newwindow":"","amazon-product-show-list-price":"","amazon-product-show-used-price":"","amazon-product-show-saved-amt":"","amazon-product-timestamp":"","amazon-product-new-title":"","amazon-product-use-cartURL":"","amazon_featured_post_meta_key":"","_amazon_featured_alt":"","amazon-product-template":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[21,27,30,50,52],"tags":[58,61,65,95,153,204],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":455,"url":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/2016\/04\/04\/my-other-job\/","url_meta":{"origin":87,"position":0},"title":"My Other Job","date":"April 4, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In a society that so values monetary success, understand that the immediate lack thereof is not a sign of failure, nor is it a symptom of bad writing or flawed ideas, though that's an easy go-to excuse.","rel":"nofollow","context":"In \"Avengarde\"","img":{"src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":934,"url":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/2016\/04\/18\/workout-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":87,"position":1},"title":"Workout Time","date":"April 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I'd like to borrow a tired chich\u00e9 from my music education experience, which is that the \"practice makes perfect\" mantra is misleading. Practice makes permanent is more often true. Only perfect practice makes perfect. Which raises the question: how does one practice writing?","rel":"nofollow","context":"In \"Advice\"","img":{"src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":695,"url":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/2016\/03\/21\/minecraft-apocalypse\/","url_meta":{"origin":87,"position":2},"title":"Minecraft Apocalypse","date":"March 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"As a writer, not all of our ideas can metamorphose into a fully-fledged piece of expression, and it's important not to invest too much energy into the ones that aren't working.","rel":"nofollow","context":"In \"amwriting\"","img":{"src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}