One of my favorite failures.

Failure is an interesting idea. I take no shame in what some may see as failure.

People often attach the idea of success to money, or recognition. Anything else is a failure. I think anything you do is not a failure, simply because you did it. It’s the failing to do something that is a failure. I’m a big believer in doing. Talk, dream, imagine… all fine, but they are trumped every time by doing.

In 2006 I had a thought: There was a revolution underway.

The internet had changed things. Now anyone could publish a magazine. Media power would no longer be centralized. It was anyone’s game. So why not mine? I figured I’d do it. I’d make a digital magazine. I started to think about what an online magazine would look like. I knew that an invention would come along and make digital media easier to consume, but what and when? At this point there was no iphone, no ipad and social media was not a buzzword. Myspace and Friendster were oddly creepy to me.

I build something in Flash. Flash was the cool kid on the block at the time, with no signs of going away. What I designed was an animation of a magazine. Everything was a Flash animation making inserting text a real pain. Every file was handmade. It was like Gutenberg gone digital, slow and laborious.

After finishing all the code, I started to “publish” issues. I’d stay up all night to be sure it was out on time. I doubt anyone was even paying attention, but missing deadlines and getting behind are not part of “doing it.”

I worked with my friends who were photographers and models for the visuals. Two covers were not models, and they were two of my favorites. One was a woman named Candice. She had breast cancer and a mastectomy. The mastectomy was on her right side. She was also right handed and an artist. Candice painted breathtakingly beautiful watercolors. The idea of losing a breast was not as scary as the idea of losing any fine motor skills in her right hand. She shunned the extra surgery necessary for breast reconstruction in favor of a tattoo. A beautiful peacock that she designed herself.

Would she be up for a cover photo showing the peacock tattoo and a feature story on her? She was. My friend Melissa Mahoney was the perfect photographer for something so beautiful and poignant. Melissa took the photos. I wrote the story. I’m a visual person, not a writer, but Candice’s children loved the article. In fact they loved it so much, they wanted hard copies. That felt good.

I’ve been quoted and mentioned in print before and things often don’t reflect the true emotion of the subject. This was — in my opinion — an important story and I’m so glad she felt properly represented.

The other cover I’m thinking of was photographed by my little sister, Greta Skousgard. It was the summer swimsuit issue. I wanted someone with a body that wasn’t super long and super lean. Don’t get me wrong, the young woman we used had a perfect figure! But she was not tall and had all the curves displayed by most healthy young women.

That issue had an overwhelmingly positive response. Woman loved seeing bathing suits they felt they could wear and look good in. I had multiple requests on where the bathing suits could be purchased, showing that a more realistic body type absolutely will sell clothes.

Lovely never made any money and only lasted a year. Adobe did find the magazine and called me to ask about my digital workflow. (I used my Adobe Creative Suite to create Lovely.) They were interested in simplifying digital publishing through some of their programs. Very kindly they sent my a free Creative Suite. I — of course — already owned one.

Hearst publishing also found me, which was just what I wanted. I was just itching to talk to a large company about digital. But they were looking to have an interactive digital advertising insert made for Sears that worked like Lovely, not in exploring digital for their magazines. They wanted a programmer to bid that job. More coding. Ug. I was only coding out of necessity, not because I wanted to be a programer. There were so many options in digital and I had not managed to get anyone interested.

So in many ways, Lovely was a failure. Yet, I don’t think I’ve ever “failed” at something I love. Even my flops are dear to me, I enjoy doing them and always learn a lot. And then, you just keep going. The main thing is to be doing. Failing to do is the real failure.

The nostalgia for this old project is being prompted by an email I received the other day from a young lady. She wants to create a magazine, and she’d like to use the name Lovely. In a few weeks there might be a new resident at lovelymagazine.com. I hope she can do more with it then I did, but mainly I’m pleased to see that she is “doing.”