Diane, it sounds like a lesson learned. He opened his mouth once too often and you paraphrased instead of quoting – your error is easier to fix than his faux pas. Too bad he couldn't take the heat for what he'd said in error!

And frankly your first gaffe was so minor – I'd not care where you were going to see a red kite, but moreover that you know the breed! And Cornwall's close enough to Wales…sort of… 😉

Clare, thank you for the belly laugh! I've often wondered how these fabulously busy writers make time to tweet the dickens out of us. And thank you for the kind words. I know no other way of relating to people. 🙂

Gabriella, it sounds like that client lost his budget. Honestly, mid-year is when things dried up for me, too. My clients bothered to tell me their budgets were gone – this guy may not be comfy doing so. My recommendation? Check in with him every two months. Just send a cordial note asking how things are, hoping his business is going well, and asking if there are projects you can help him with. Keep the lines open, but don't sweat it. If there was something wrong, he should have said so, and his indication that all is well should be the one you stick with. If he's not happy, it's up to him to tell you so, not the other way around.

Kim, I think any client would understand that when the kids are in the hospital, deadlines are secondary. Though I did have one client who was irate because I couldn't focus on the work at hand when my FIL was dying. They fired me, and frankly, who wants to work for people that unfeeling?

On Friday one of my longtime editors called to fact check a couple things I'd recently turned in, including a really long timeline about a long-running, complex, confusing, and extremely popular TV series. The facts were fine, but she asked, "Who tracked him down and dragged him back? There's a misplaced modifier."

I was mortified, but my editor was very understanding. After all, the timeline spanned five action-packed seasons and I'd turned in six single-spaced pages of events for them to choose from. Each event had to be three sentences or less, so I did a lot of pruning and re-writing. I'm lucky there was only one misplaced modifier!

Gabriella makes a good point. Admitting to an error the moment you find it is always the best move. Sure, a few people will forever brand you as the one who messed up, but most people understand that even writers are human. And those are the people you want to work with.

My last error was back in October. A fellow writer on Twitter contacted me about taking on a client because her plate was too full and I agreed to work with the the client on his project. The very next day my daughter became severely ill and was hospitalized for a week. I struggled to complete the first half of that project, and a couple of others that were on deadline, while spending my days at the hospital and nights with my other children (my husband took the night shift with my daughter after work).

Needless to say my work didn't reflect my best ability and I felt crushed. I should have just turned down the project. My confidence took a real hit. I remind myself there's nothing I can do about it now but learn from what happened so I never make that type of mistake again.

This post is very encouraging.

I've made a few ones, and it seems when I make them, I make boneheaded ones. I sent out two queries one day, and on both, I left off the first word of my email. So it started, "a writer…." instead of "I'm a writer…"

Luckily, I caught it right away and emailed both, blaming it on my glasses (that was the honest-a-goodness truth; when I put my glasses on, I saw the mistake immediately!).

One editor still hired me. The other was totally nice and said she's made some mistakes herself, so she didn't hold it against me. Still no work, but I appreciated her kindness.

On a related note, what do you do when you know/are pretty sure you haven't made a mistake but the client goes silent?

I had a great client who loved me until mid-last year. After I wrote my last articles for him, he sent me an email attaching pdfs of the articles, saying he'd probably have something again for me shortly.

Crickets.

I've politely checked in, and he doesn't even respond to those emails.

So I finally got on the phone and politely said, "Hey, what's going on. Haven't heard from you. Did I make a mistake or make someone mad?"

He fumbled all over, saying no, no, no, changes at the company, with the client, and he might have something for me again soon.

Still crickets.

I still check in once in a while, but no response.

I'm flummoxed. Did I do something wrong and he doesn't want to confront me? Did they lose funding? If so, why not just tell me?

Is there something you'd recommend I do?

Thanks everybody!

I'm sick of seeing writers in my Twitter stream banging on (in an admittedly rather brittle way) about how busy/successful/efficient they've been that morning.

If you're so effing busy, how come you've got time to rub my face in it on Twitter? Aargh!!

Keep writing, Lori – as I've said to you before, you're one of the few bloggers I look forward to seeing in my RSS feed.

I wrote to the editor of one magazine, addressing it to the editor of a competitor magazine … They sent it back to me, saying I'd got the wrong publication and address. I left it a while, and sent the same query to the right editor …

In my letter to the right editor, I told him, quite confidently, that I was off to Cornwall to see Red Kites at Tregaron. He wrote back saying he thought Tregaron was in Wales, but he was willing to accept the article from either destination. Tregaron *is* in Wales … BLUSH.

I still got the commission. I should never have got that commission. I had no right getting that commission, nor the byline, nor the rather hefty cheque.

But it was a bloomin' good article. :o)

My recovery came from the editor who fortunately knew my work and knew me well. I still got work from him.

My recovery came from me, by writing to the lady that had written in to complain – she wrote to the publication concerned AND she wrote to me care of a different title she also read that I wrote for.

My recovery continued when I vowed to always, always put someone else's words in their own mouths – i.e. write it in Q&A form. That way, all errors definitely belonged to them. I am, after all, reporting what they say.

And, of course, I rarely write about something I have so little or no knowledge about any more, so I usually at least get a dinky little alarm bell go off.