Hannah linkdumps one Miss Snark, as quoted by someone who I don’t know who it is on account of only having an LJ handle to go by: “Failure isn’t trying and not achieving. Failure is not trying. Failure is letting your fear rule your actions. Suck it up. Wasting your talent is not ok.”

Hannah’s reaction: “Who gets to decide what’s a waste of a talent, and why do they care?”

Which was pretty much mine, too. Only I’m short one X chromosome, so it came out sort of like Hey, I’ll waste whatever I m——f—— well please!

But: then I got to thinking.

And it occurred to me that I have seen, and been irritated with, something more or less like what Miss S seems to be talking about — for instance, sending good work to a bad ’zine — all y’all zinesters: not one of yours; one of the bad ones — because you’re afraid it’ll get rejected by the people you’d secretly like to publish it. Or thinking: My life as a writer will be complete if I learn to write stories (or books) at least as good as the worst stories (or books) that get published, and one of them sells. That’s a waste I can’t support.

But, again, note:

A sin of commission is a positive act contrary to some prohibitory precept; a sin of omission is a failure to do what is commanded. A sin of omission, however, requires a positive act whereby one wills to omit the fulfilling of a precept, or at least wills something incompatible with its fulfillment.