writerlywitterings

Nothing Succeeds Like Failure

Posted by writerlywitterer on 29/03/2019 · 8 Comments 

This title appealed to me for two reasons today.

The first is, yesterday I put up a video that demonstrated my utter incompetence with technology. I had tried to make a video recording of opening a parcel. Not, you would think, the hardest thing to do.

However, the camera decided to go into a bit of a sulk; the audio system didn’t play ball; the loose nut in front of the camera forgot his script, didn’t check settings, and mucked it all up.

So, being sensible, I gave up on that, brought the system into my office and tried to record again … but without realising that certain elements weren’t functioning. Such as the sound. I had forgotten to turn on the microphone, so after another 40 minutes of work, I had precisely nothing to show for it.

I would just say, that if I had a more modern set up (mine is a good 10 years old), I would have been able to see what I was recording, and could have seen that the sound was not working. But I have an old system, so I wasted a lot of time.

Some aspects could be rescued, which were what I put on the video (it’s here, in case you want a laugh: https://youtu.be/UpZITkWqmnY ), but it was gutting to lose several hours of work when I really didn’t have the time to waste.

And yet, this is where the title comes in – it got the fastest number of hits from people watching it, and easily the largest number of comments. Probably, naturally, most of them were people sympathising and trying to calm the gormless author who’d messed things up so badly.

The second success born of failure? My next book. I’m currently editing book four in my Jack Blackjack/Bloody Mary Tudor series for Severn House, which should be out in June.

Jack is a totally incompetent hero. He is a failed pickpocket, and now has the enviable position of official assassin to Master Blount, but suffers from a perfectly logical fear of blood – especially his own. This makes him more than a little incompetent at his job.

However, it does lead to a lot of humour – and his failures are a joy to me. Last night I was editing through to midnight, and even though I have read this specific book several times already, it still made me laugh aloud on occasion.

Maybe I ought to stick to writing, and give up on YouTube!