Veronica Henry

Back in college, I had a recurring nightmare. In this nightmare, one of two things would happen: I’d either wake up breathless and realize with horror that I’d missed (slept through) a final exam or I’d wake up late and rush to class, only to see my fellow students streaming out of the classroom, high-fiving each other over how they felt they’d aced the exam – and I’d missed it. I’ve even had versions of this dream a few time since college. And I believe it harkens back to an early fear of failure. One that I’m proud to have tackled.

But after a recent discussion, I realized that even that ability to fail is not universally granted. The topic of the discussion was the movie industry and the fact that for many years, Hollywood has repeatedly cited the fact that black movies don’t do well overseas as an excuse for why the movies aren’t released there. In fact, I’ve even read countless times how black movies don’t do well at all. I could go into what I crock I think this is (all types of movies, by and about all types of people fail for many different reasons), but that’s a subject for another post. The point of contention is that by not even releasing overseas, or by not entertaining a script featuring more than one black character, denies us the equal right to fail.

The same thoughts have wormed their way into the literary world. And it’s time for it to stop. Having launched two websites that I’ve had to shutter, I know that the lessons from those failures have helped me with launch of my apps. If I hadn’t written and failed miserably with my first novel, I would not now be on my 4th. As a friend recently put it, I’m failing my way to success. But my color or the color of my characters should not deny me the chance to even get in the game.