Type “quotes on failure” into your preferred internet browser, and you’ll be met with thousands of well-meaning affirmations which I, as an unemployed university graduate, find somewhat unhelpful. Trying to reduce such an experience into a tonic meant to make rejection easier to swallow inevitably achieves the opposite—it leaves you feeling worse.

I’ve been trying to break into the publishing industry for the last four months, and for the most part, no comment from Edison or Einstein makes a “thanks, but no thanks” sting any less. So, I thought I’d try to offer a more realistic view of what it feels like to be a jobless twenty-something, chasing what she naively believed would be a quickly achievable dream.

Job hunting is a game governed by letters. I’ve emailed over forty publishing organisations in the wider Bristol area, flinging my CV into the digital ether along with polite pleas for employment. Some smaller outfits replied with kind, encouraging—but ultimately disappointing—messages. (Though I did gain a few lovely pen pals.) Meanwhile, larger organisations pinged back automated apologies with promises to “keep my details on file”—which I could never verify.

Having spent most of these past months pyjama-clad and glued to Indeed, I’ve also written a small mountain of cover letters, each explaining how passionate I am about *insert subject here* and how deeply I respect and admire *insert company name here*. If you were to read this rather uninspired anthology, you might call me a hypocrite for my earlier dismissal of motivational quotes.

Ultimately, the CV and cover letter you write for any job—especially one in an industry that prints, markets, and sells the written word—is a piece of self-aggrandising waffle that you hope sounds convincing. The greatest challenge in writing this fiction is that, for many of us, formal boasting feels intrinsically un-English. We’re raised to see self-deprecation as polite, and anything else as a bit much.

I know my skills as a former barista don’t translate seamlessly into publishing assistant. I’m keenly aware that the links I draw between bartending and journal editing are, at best, wildly optimistic. I know, I know, I know. But they’re all I’ve got.

Eventually, I turned to networking—in search of fields unploughed. I interrogated every relative, hoping someone might reveal an estranged aunt who happened to be Editor-in-Chief at Penguin, or President of HarperCollins. No such luck. Luck, I’ve found, tends to ignore the desperate.

Despite my lack of connections and glaring inexperience, I did finally secure an interview. For context: being from a small village on the outskirts of Swindon, my previous interviews had all been in hospitality. These were straightforward, competency-based exchanges that boiled down to questions like, “Do you have arms?” and “Can you use said arms to hold a tray?”

This new world of Zoom-based, long-form interrogations was far more intimidating. Still, they went well—or at least I thought they did. Slowly, I progressed through one round after another, spending the anxious weeks between confirmation emails fending off endless questions from well-meaning loved ones, biting already-mauled fingernails, and generally quaking in my slippers.

Then, almost inevitably, rejection came—this time in the form of a cuttingly courteous email. I was crushed.

Of course, there was a mourning period. I allowed myself a week of moping, crying, contemplating my place in the universe, and spewing gin-soaked ramblings at my unfortunate boyfriend (sorry, Otto) before realising I might be taking it all a bit dramatically.

So, I woke up the next week, opened the laptop, and began again.

Please don’t think this is the part where the story turns triumphant. I’m still very much a listless, jobless youth. But if we sift back through all those thousands of quotes on failure, there is one that’s a little easier to swallow. From Samuel Beckett’s Worstward Ho:

“Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

So that’s what I’ve tried to do. I’m learning to take each dismissal a little less personally. I allow myself a moment to wallow, then I move on.

Don’t get me wrong—every so often one still lands hard enough to make my stiff upper lip wobble. But I’m trying.

In the meantime, I’ve found ways to build on my desolate CV: volunteering, temp work, and writing (this article being one such endeavour).

I read more. I draw. I plant herbs and grow vegetables. I try new recipes—then try to stomach the results. I bake bread. I take long walks and let myself get a little lost.

I meet others stuck in the same cycle—people who’ve turned to Pilates or crochet, who manage to keep their sourdough starters edible.

And in the background, like a dull metronome, another email arrives saying it isn’t the right time. It’s us, not you.

And I think—slowly—I’m learning to accept that.

We’re all failing, constantly and without grace.

I’m just trying to fail better.