Coded for error

On the creative energy of mistakes

I’ve just seen the typeset pages of the ARC of my new novel, THE HUMMINGBIRD EFFECT. It’s the kind of grab-your-chest, jaw-dropping moment you don’t get to experience much if you are a novel-every-four-years kind of gal like me. But - goodness - it’s bloody lovely when you get here. I’ll be telling you more about the book, making proper splashes over socials and giving you the lowdown on events along the way, but for now, it feels enough to say it’s real and it will be out in Australia in August (cue excited/nervous gigglesobs).

The nature of the last phase before this moment is all about getting things right - or as right as they can be for an advance proof (there’s still that lovely possibility of making even MORE changes for the final!). As such, i’ve spent the last couple of weeks looking at corrections and questions from my (amazing) editors (including those on sex scenes I wrote about here - now unlocked for all subscribers :)) and trawling sentences for errors.

We KNOW that the thing will never be perfect. We KNOW that the original ambition - George Saunders’ golden orb that shatters when we first conceive of the idea of the novel - will never be FULLY realised. It will get close. So close. But we will forever be angsting over a word choice, a thought that we could have done MORE (I talked about this a little in Monday’s podcast ep).

I’m a huge fan of Maria Popova and her writing in The Marginalian. This post on generative mistakes was a cracker:

It is by erring again and again that we find the shape of the path, by tripping again and again that we learn to walk it.

Maria Popova, The Value of Being Wrong: Lewis Thomas on Generative Mistakes

This quote reminded me of something writer Cate Kennedy said in a recent interview for the podcast:

Tripping, getting up again, making one’s own map. It’s taken me some time to learn this lesson. As an A-type anxious-perfectionist for most of my life I always HATED making mistakes, or being wrong. Parenthood, therapy (and medication!), writing and the general wear and tear and joy of life have helped me embrace all the times I mess up. It’s hard to be precious about mistake-making when you accept that writing 80k words in the wrong direction is just par for the course.

One of the ‘rules’ I had to unlearn is the idea that there is ONE right choice - a correct way to do the thing (pack the car for camping, select the gift, make the lunchbox, be a good partner) - and embrace the possibility that there are many ‘right’ choices (I know, I know, seems obvious). I loved Popova’s exploration of Lewis Thomas’s work and his idea that there is great power and opportunity in a mistake big enough to leave us ‘stunned’:

What we need, then, for moving ahead, is a set of wrong alternatives much longer and more interesting than the short list of mistaken courses that any of us can think up right now… If it is a big enough mistake, we could find ourselves on a new level, stunned, out in the clear, ready to move again.

Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail

In the post there's some great (prescient) quotes, too, about the capacity of computers to make errors and thus surprise us. I’ve used ChatGPT to help write the ‘AI’ sections of the new novel and I’m really looking forward to talking about this - about AI potential and error and hope - when the book comes out.

Hope that at least some of your mistakes this week are in the Beautiful Oops vein, and that they set you off on new adventures. K x

What I’ve

Been Reading

• Reasons Not to Worry: How to be Stoic in Chaotic Times by Brigid Delaney, for an upcoming event at Newcastle Writers Festival.

• Toni Jordan’s Prettier if She Smiled More. Jordan delivers, again. Perfectly timed, snort-worthy and then gut-punch moving. Looking forward to celebrating the launch of this one at Readings on Tues April 4.

Been Doing

• Took my kids (9 & 12yo) & musical-loving sis to see & Juliet. Oh it is SO SO GOOD! Arts critic (and my mate) Reuben Liversidge is far better at articulating musical goodness thoughts - read what he thought of & Juliet here (watch out for the flagged spoiler alert!).

• Reformer pilates: I’m so deep into this particular addiction i’ve even bought the socks. Particular type of virtuous torture that leaves me sore and satisfied.

Got Coming Up

• Headed to Newcastle Writers Festival this weekend (Friday March 31 - Sunday April 2) for on stage convos with Brigid Delaney, Holly Ringland and Chris Flynn. (And off-stage convos and festival fun with everybody else!). Say hello if you are in town!

• Hosting Pip Williams for her Melbourne launch of her new novel The Bookbinder of Jericho at Cinema Nova for Readings on Wednesday April 5.

• Running a free online workshop on Creative Resilience for Manningham Libraries on Thursday April 27, 6.30pm. Registration here.