Oh my. I know what it is to feel regret and even anger about wasted opportunities as well as wasted time and efforts, believe me. So just don't read this piece now. Move on to other things. There is no plan for life, you can't control it like that, it just happens to ya, Even something like writer's block, not something you can control.

I don't mean to say "there's a reason it happened", I don't agree with that. It's more like the Alexander Graham Bell quote When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.  And it happens fast, before you know it, everything changes. it's all experience good and bad or indifferent.

What you think is a failure may be useful in a totally different way later. If for some reason you want to revisit the Buchanan topic, this article will still be there. And no doubt by then there will be a new twist. It's likely that before you know it, your contacts with Harper's will all be gone on to other jobs, maybe even dead. You could pitch another story then without a black mark. Maybe you can't, maybe Harper's will be gone tomorrow, as long lived as it is. The old ways of trying to build a C.V. have changed forever, your network will change radically and quickly over and over. You learn both from what you did and what you didn't do.

There's also the whole thing about what we've learned about human brain and memory and sleep, etc. Something like writer's block is probably not something you can do something about if you just had more discipline. Rather, it's probably more along the lines that your brain wasn't ready to tackle the topic yet.

Hope my babble helps more than hurts Don't feel you have to reply.