A Writing Tip by Autumn Konopka
IN DEFENSE OF IMPERFECTION

Beside my desk, I have a collage made from rejection emails I’ve received over the years. No, thank you. We’re unable to accept your work at this time. This just isn’t a fit. Sometimes we have to turn down even well-crafted poems. And my personal favorite: We’re sorry. We know rejections suck. Over these black and white words, I pasted a portion of this famous quote from Samuel Beckett:

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” 

Some folks say the quote is absurd or enigmatic. How does one fail better? Isn’t it still failure? Maybe so, but I take comfort in the momentum of it, the forward motion. Reading this reminds me that failure is not an end, but an opportunity. 

A few weeks ago, I really needed this reminder, when I had two lessons on the importance of proofreading—and public failure—and empathy. 

If you subscribe to Cleaver, you may have noticed the impetus for my first lesson in the subject line of our May 13th newsletter, where I posed the following question: 

What if your writing doesn’t fit the traditional molds?

At least, that’s what I meant to write…. 

Instead, the subject read: 

What if you’re writing doesn’t fit the traditional molds?

My fellow English teachers, editors, and grammar geeks, I see your eyes rolling, your heads shaking with dismay. I hear the groans and exasperated sighs: Does she REALLY not know the difference between you’re and your?

I’ve been writing and editing professionally, or teaching writing and editing at the college level, for more than 25 years. In fact, one of my favorite things to cover in my ENG 101 classes is the lesson on commonly confused and misused words: its/it’s, their/they’re/there, your/you’re, etc. 

So, yes, I know the difference. Nevertheless, my error surely prompted some readers to question that. In fact, a handful of well-meaning subscribers emailed almost immediately to point out the mistake—and explain the correct usages of your and you’re. 

When I teach that lesson on commonly misused words, I emphasize the importance of careful proofreading. I explain that, in writing, presentation is a critical component of the “ethos” leg of the rhetorical triangle; a clean presentation can bolster credibility, while mistakes can distract from, or even undermine, the larger point you’re trying to make. What’s more, unlike those typos that happen when our fingers slip and we omit or transpose letters—typos that generally replace real words with meaningless letter jumbles—errors of confusion or misuse replace real words with other real words, making them harder to detect, for both spell checkers and human brains. I remind students (again and again) to proofread drafts slowly and deliberately and to get at least one other person to review their work. 

And for the most part, I practice what I preach. So, I was embarrassed… no, chagrined… no, appalled when I saw my mistake in the newsletter subject line. My stomach tightened and twisted like it, too, wanted to curl up and hide in shame. I dredged my memory—as if, by recalling the exact moment of making the mistake, I might undo it. But I couldn’t. 

My editor and I exchanged a few apologetic emails: I can’t believe it. / I should have caught that. That sort of thing. Ultimately, we thought it would make good fodder for a future writing tip about the importance of proofreading; I’d focus on all those ENG 101 proofreading lessons, offer my mea culpas, and beg mercy from the editing gods. Lesson learned: Fail better next time.

That would have been the end of it. 

Then Thursday came and, with it, the delivery of my son’s senior yearbook—and one of the most mind-boggling editing fails I’ve ever seen. 

In the yearbook, all of the seniors are featured with an individual headshot, their name, a quote, and their future plans. Some students list plans and no quote; others have a quote but no plans. Some only have their name listed. Beside my son’s picture, the name reads: First Last. His photo is there, along with a few lines from his favorite song: “Banana banana banana terracotta banana terracotta terracotta pie.” Somehow, they got that right. Yet, where his name should be, there is placeholder text. 

Stunned. Angry. Disappointed. Mortified. I immediately called the school, and when the yearbook supervisor wasn’t available, I emailed him—along with several members of the administration.

I genuinely don’t understand how something like this could have been allowed to happen. 

The irony wasn’t lost on me; I knew it wasn’t “allowed.” Mistakes don’t ask for permission. I also didn’t care in that moment. My child is nameless in his senior yearbook. No matter how it happened, or why, I wanted acknowledgement, apology, redress.  

That afternoon, the yearbook supervisor responded to say that he was on the case. We check every page before going to print and this one slipped by. 

Of course it did. Mistakes are slippery. I’ve seen typos in the New York Times, major magazines, best-selling novels. 

He said they’d refund our money, of course, but he was also working with the printer to devise a solution. Then he added: This is a student publication and when I shared the sentiments from your note with the young people that made the book they felt awful.

I was stricken; I had no interest in making students feel awful. Yes, I wanted an apology and a solution, but I certainly didn’t expect anything from them. They are teenagers; there was a mistake; and mistakes are where the learning happens. 

Awful feelings, on the other hand, if allowed to fester, might lead to fear, avoidance, or unrealized potential. Maybe it’s doomsday thinking, or the remnants of my own educational trauma, but I’d hate for any of those students to walk away from their experience feeling ashamed or diminished. 

I’d have liked to reassure them—as I do my own writing students, as I do myself when I get a rejection or send an email with a glaring error—that every time you give yourself over to the process of creating something new, you are doing a remarkable thing. Regardless of mistakes. 

The truth is: No matter how many rounds of edits you do, no matter how closely you proofread, whether you read the work silently or aloud—you will almost always fail. There is no such thing as a perfect publication or a perfect piece of writing, no matter how “final” it is. That’s the bad news. 

Here’s the good: You will almost always fail, which means you will almost always have an opportunity to keep going. You will struggle, learn, grow, react, and change. You will fail again and again and again—but each time, you will fail better. 

Autumn Konopka is a Senior Editor for Cleaver, responsible for Book Reviews, Author Interviews, Writing Tips, and Newsletters. A former poet laureate of Montgomery County, PA (2016), Autumn’s poetry chapbook a chain of paperdolls was published in 2014, and her award-winning, debut novel Pheidippides Didn’t Die was released in 2023. Autumn is a Philadelphia native and loves celebrating the city’s unique impact on the literary landscape. Visit Autumn’s website here.

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