It’s time for another round of Fail Better Club!
There have been several rounds of Fail Better Club now, so I wanted to make a post that explained it all. What is it? How does it work?
You can watch the video above for a more detailed explanation, but the quicker version is:
Fail Better Club is a fun time where you send me your troublesome manuscript, I read it, and I tell you what I, from an outside (professional writer) perspective, see as the main problem. This might be something like: flat voice, the point of view keeps changing, lack of plot, the book isn’t actually about anything, the manuscript is actually three different stories smushed into one, there are four main characters, the main character should be a different character, you’re not being hard enough on your characters, you’re not pushing the story far enough, the ending makes no sense. I love this process. Figuring out what’s holding your manuscript back and getting you excited about revising it is an honor and a thrill. And it helps me do the same with my own manuscripts.
Send your weird half-baked manuscripts. Send the ones you love so much but that you can’t figure out. This is a time to breathe some life into those stories, the ones that are held together with twine and gum. I believe that those stories—the ones that have a hold on you, but have become difficult or unwieldy in one way or another—are important. They landed in your brain for a reason. They keep nagging at you for a reason. Often the solution is for some time to go by, until you’re a better writer. Fail Better Club is a way to inspire you to revise those manuscripts with new enthusiasm.
You can send a full picture book, or a chapter from a novel.
Fail Better Club happens roughly three times a year, when Mercury is retrograde.
You email me your manuscript, but after that, all communication happens via Voxer, which is a voice-note app. I talk faster than I type, and talking out loud about what I’m seeing in your story often allows me to figure out things about your story that I wouldn’t land on otherwise. Voxer is free. It’s easy to use, I promise. There are many of you, and if I typed up responses to everyone, I would have to limit the number of people who could participate in Fail Better Club.1
Fail Better Club runs from Monday through Sunday. If possible, send your manuscript as close to Monday as you can, so that we can have a conversation about it as the week goes on.
Fail Better Club is offered for paying subscribers to this newsletter.
The next round of Fail Better Club begins on Monday, July 21. Let me know if you have any questions! If you’re a paying subscriber, you’ll get an email before Monday with instructions.
Thoughts and Links
I am still thinking about Forager, Michelle Dowd’s memoir, more than a year after I read it. This post about getting lost on a hike and the revelation that followed resonated with me.
Why not have a day where you let your higher self call the shots?
I’m tempted by this book of bookmarks. (I love a good bookmark!)
Dinner tonight: Mediterranean Couscous Salad, perfect for a hot summer day, since it barely requires cooking.
I love the curated pattern lists on Threadloop, which is a sewing pattern app. Last month I saw one called Off-Duty Clown Core (well, that’s what I thought it was called, it’s actually Clown Core Cutie’s Closet—which is why my brain came up with a different name). I clicked on it expecting to see a lot of patterns I hated, and was surprised that I owned many of them. Is it possible Off-Duty Clown Core is a hefty part of my aesthetic? (I was telling Ramona all of this, and then I for real fell backwards over some shoes, which made her ask, “Are you an on-duty clown?”) All of this to say: the dress I’m wearing in the video, which I made out of vintage shirt fabric, is the Day Shift Dress from SewLikeShop, and I recommend it, even though, or because, it was on that clown list. It has enormous pockets!
Books I read recently and loved
Disclosure: book links in this newsletter are affiliate links to Bookshop.org, a site which supports independent bookshops.
Stalactite and Stalagmite by Drew Beckmeyer is about the cutest little cave formations. This book is kind of like The Little House, but it’s The Little Cave Rocks.
I am late to Chooch Helped by Andrea L. Rogers, illustrated by Rebecca Lee Kunz. You don’t need me to recommend it: it won the Caldecott. So this is hardly a secret treasure. But it is a treasure! If you haven’t read it yet, do.
If you are a tarot card person, you might like The Library of Questions by Lida Pavlova as much as I do. It’s a book of tarot (or oracle) card spreads, and there are many that tell a story. The Cursed Book, The Boss Toad of This Swamp, Paranormal Pigeon, the Moon Hare. I love using weird tarot spreads, and the ones in this book have yielded some super interesting readings. You can see more on Lida Pavlova’s pinterest here. (Also note that the book link is for Amazon, which is the only place it’s available.)
I do offer critiques, which is when I would read your story and make comments on specific lines and type up an edit letter about specific revision steps. Send me a message if you’re interested in that.
