In Praise of Failure

There are so many parts of Sherwood's article that we read for this week that I find comforting. But this one part I find also intriguing:

Frankl implies that we can help writers cope with extreme fear of failure by asking them to do their best to fail. If this request inspires laughter at instead of confidence in us, so much the better.

I have a friend who sometimes assigns her writing students the task of writing the worst paper they possible can! It is a brilliant way to lower the stakes (as Peter Elbow points out is so important), to get people laughing and talking about writing.

We also have to think about our failures as writing consultants, and we have to talk about them, as much to give us the courage to keep trying as to learn from and improve upon.