Have you ever done something, and only days/weeks later, when you discovered your stupidity, thought to yourself, “What was I thinking?” only to realize that was exactly the problem. You weren’t.
Yeah…welcome to my life.
I shared with you in February my Polish contract snafu, in which I painstakingly dried and ironed contracts that had gotten left in the rain by UPS, only to send them back to my lovely agent in NYC sans signature.
My latest is almost as stupid, and once again, involves my lovely agent, who through it all, has never once said to me, “Lisa, wtf?”
This time it involves revisions.
Many of you have heard me lament about how impossible challenging writing The Novel Formerly Known as Hellbent was for me. Wrapping up a trilogy with a tidy bow turned out to be the bane of my existence. But, my agent and crit partner had some great suggestions, so I got to work revising. There was one point in particular my agent made which made sense, and I spent several hours revising a chapter to bring it in line with what she wanted. I really liked how it came out. I was so excited about it, I sent it to her that night, back on February 24. That’s a month ago, in case you’re counting.
A week later, I finished all my revisions and sent it back off to Suzie and Andrea, who once again, made some helpful comments. I made a few more changes and I’m reading through last night, putting on the final spit and polish before it goes to my editor next week. It’s one o’clock in the morning when I get to chapter 17—the one I rewrote for Suzie.
I’m reading it, and I’m like, “No. That’s not what this is supposed to say.” So I keep reading and realize it’s original chapter, before I made the changes. So I go back to the email I’d sent to Suzie in Feb. and open my attachment only to find it’s the same stupid chapter, unrevised.
I managed to cut and paste the original chapter 17 in place of the original chapter 17! And I’m just finding out about it NOW! A month later. Ugh!
In my defense, I was stressing at the time and had three different versions of my manuscript going, but still… Although Suzie never said to me “wtf?” I can’t believe she wasn’t thinking it—or at least something along the lines of, “Yeah, you really knocked yourself out on those revisions…”
So, after digging through my recycle bin, I found the revised chapter and plugged it in. Crisis averted—until the next one. O_O
That is so funny (although I'm sure it wasn't at the time). I feel like my whole life is a WTF moment! My kids are great about reminding me of the things I need to be reminded about. You know, like don't forget to pick me up, don't forget to buy stuff for lunches. You are not alone!
ReplyDeleteI just noticed this yesterday:
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of March, I was having a bad day at spelling director. My fingers just kept missing the "c" for some reason, but it's not like I didn't go back and spell it right the instant I pressed the space key.
I wrote a tweet which stated, "I go through weird not-being-able-to-spell-certain-words periods. Today is apparently a Brenna-can't-spell-director day. #spelllingfail"
Notice any problems with that hash tag? Like the three Ls? I didn't mean to do that at all. Funny now. Only proves my point for the tweet. But now I feel like an idiot.
Ugh! That must have been so frustrating. At least you can laugh about it now. It sounds like your agent is a treasure!! :-)
ReplyDeleteIt feels good to know that you're actually human and make mistakes...I'm not sure if some of your characters would admit to those mistakes. (Please don't tell Luc that one...I don't want to make him angry.)
ReplyDeleteYesterday, I wanted to make dinner for my parents since they were coming back from island hopping in the Caribbean. So, I put potatoes on the stove and start cooking when my brother comes over and wants some music off of my computer. The plan was to show him the file and go back to the kitchen. Fast forward an hour later, I open the door and the whole house smells like smoke. The reason I'd closed the door in the first place was because I didn't want the whole house smelling like (cigarette) smoke, talk about irony. Nothing bad really happened in the end, other than I had to throw the pot away and open every window in the house.
ReplyDeleteOh, this is my biggest fear! I've done it to crit partners, but not my agent. Hopefully I'll be able to learn from your mistake. ;)
ReplyDeleteHave a good weekend!
Annerb--That's acutally funny. I would have figured you'd done the hashtag on purpose. (Only cuz that's something I would have done :p)
ReplyDeleteSafari--So glad you didn't burn your house down! O_O
@Lisa - I know. So I could totally get away with not owning up to it and saying I did it on purpose. But I didn't. I'm just sad that I didn't notice until almost a month later.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain. I'm so capable of being a space cadet that I should put post-it notes in every room and in my car reminding me to be "mindful" of the moment. The problem is thinking about what I have to do in the future, rather than what I am doing in the present moment. I've decided to open the attachment on sent mail to be sure I did attach the right thing from now on!
ReplyDeleteLisa this all sounds like something i would do lol Then you walk around mentally kicking your ass for the next hour while you try to fix the mess. Thank goodness no one think we're perfect huh?
ReplyDeleteLisa B
I shouldn't be laughing, but the contract fiasco is hilarious! I can relate because it always seems to rain when I have good letters in my mailbox... or books on the porch. I'm glad your crisis was averted!
ReplyDeleteI've had lots of WTF moments, too. Left the garage door open when I went to work. (Thank goodness for parents). Brushed my teeth with moisturizer. (It was 5am).
It's okay, Lisa honey. I guess you're just human.
ReplyDeleteWhat a nightmare! But you had some major luck just by finding those edits. If all that hard work was lost the WTF would have been so much worse.
ReplyDeleteSuzie must be so kind to not have said anything for a whole month either. Either that or she was seriously questioning your ability to revise!
I will be paying special attention to chapter 17 when this comes out!