Tag Archive for: mistakes

Making dessert from disaster

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by: Joelle Charbonneau

I make lots of mistakes. LOTS of them. I have the tendency to trip over my own feet when wearing high heels, save documents in places on my computer that guys at MIT would never be able to find and occasionally, I have been known to bake oatmeal cookies with no flour.

Funny about the oatmeal cookie thing. On a good day, I’m a decent cook. However, this time the cookies lost all shape and melted all over the cookie sheet into a big mess. After one look, my inclination was to pitch the whole mess into the garbage can and start over. Only, I am a touch crazy and I took a taste. Yum. I then shoveled the crumbly mess into a bowl and used it to top ice cream. Double yum.

Baking is not the only area in which I’ve found a mistake can turn into an unlikely opportunity. A few years ago, I set aside a manuscript I’d been editing and started writing a totally different kind of book for kicks. It was the most fun I’d ever had writing. Any goofy or strange idea that popped into my head went onto the page. And to top it off, I was writing in a genre I hadn’t studied much.

Everyone always says you should study the genre before you start writing. I used to believe that. Scratch that. I still do. Only, I made a mistake. I didn’t really know the subgenre I was writing in when I started. Heck, I don’t think I’d ever heard the term for the subgenre. Belonging to RWA, I knew all the romance subgenres, but I wasn’t writing a romance. (To tell the truth, I was bad at writing romances….and I tried. Honest. I did. Another mistake, but one I learned from.) So instead of knowing what I was writing and making sure that I created a story that fit the expectations of the editors and readers of the genre, I just wrote.

Once I was done writing, I realized I had no idea what I had written. Yes, Skating Around The Law was a mystery, but what kind of mystery? Turns out I wrote a book that follows the cozy mystery guidelines but isn’t really a cozy. Well crap. I’d made a HUGE mistake. Everyone knows that it is easier to get a book published if it falls squarely in one genre. Yes, people blend genres all the time, but editors have a harder time selling those books to their editorial board because they are riskier. Double crap.

And yet, like the flattened oatmeal cookies, I couldn’t bring myself to throw that manuscript into the trash. It didn’t taste so good on ice cream, but I loved it. Turns out my agent and editor did, too. Thankfully, they also liked the soon-to-be-released SKATING OVER THE LINE, too!

The one thing I’ve learned from the experience is that sometimes mistakes are more than good lessons. Sometimes they are opportunities. You just have to take a step back from the mistake and decide which one it is. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll find your mistake is both. I bet if you think about it, you have a few tasty mistakes out there of your own that I’d love to hear about.

On Giving Talks About Writing

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Lately I’ve read several blogs about what to do when appearing on TV or giving talks. I love giving talks about writing and about my books.

This video was taken when I gave a talk at the Hanford CA library about my books.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYf11ShLhKo

I had a runny nose that night, which you’ll certainly pick up on as I keep wiping my nose. My daughter-in-law is sitting by the books, and she is who I picture in my mind when I’m writing about Deputy Tempe Crabtree.

This is more or less how I look and sound when I’m giving a talk most anywhere–though I don’t usually have a runny nose.

I recently gave a talk on Self-Editing to a pleasant and welcoming group of authors at a lovely bookstore in the foothills on the way to Yosemite National Park. Everyone was welcoming–and no one challenged me after they realized I really did know what I was talking about. Another thing that helps is I always tell mistakes I’ve made and managed to get through into my published books, despite all the eyes that looked at it in manuscript form.

The biggest goof was in Deadly Omen, the first in my Deputy Tempe Crabtree series. Tempe drives around in a Blazer which becomes a Bronco and then turns back into a Blazer, and this happens several times. I admit it, I don’t pay much attention to cars. Whenever I get a new one I make sure that my adhesive banner with my website on it is stuck on the back of the new car so I won’t have trouble finding it in a parking lot.

In Calling the Dead there’s a name change on a page–the man is called something, then his name changes (it’s a close name) then changes back. When a reader pointed it out to me, I informed the publisher and it was changed before the next round of printing.

I always warn all writers to print out their manuscript when they are ready to proof-read. Proofing on the computer just doesn’t work. Your eye seems to fix all the mistakes.

Once when I had a broken ankle, I decided to work on an old manuscript because I didn’t feel like starting anything new. I went through the novel zealously, changing words, making sure pronouns agreed with nouns, all the things I know to do when editing. But–I didn’t print the book out. Instead I sent it off to a publishing house that has always published everything I sent. What I received from them was a polite note that I should consider what the first reader had to say, and if I fixed all my mistakes, send it back for another look through.

When I read it again, I was horrified to see that in many cases where I changed a word, I left the old word in too. There were other mistakes too–ones that I’d have easily caught if I’d printed out the manuscript and edited it one last time before sending it off. And no, I’ve never tackled it again.

Another good idea is to put the manuscript aside for at least a week, then go over it one more time.

Going back to the presentation, I hope that I saved those writers from the humiliation that I felt when I received that message from the publisher.

All in all, it was a terrific afternoon. I enjoyed meeting new writers, seeing two old friends, and talking about my favorite subject–writing.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com