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Today on Salty Inspirations, I’m welcoming Carolyn Eichhorn, author of Murder in the Mix. Carolyn is stopping by to share her thoughts on the writing journey, the reality of first drafts, and why learning to fail better might be one of the most important lessons for writers. If you’ve ever struggled with self-doubt or perfectionism, this guest post offers a refreshing reminder to keep going.
Learning to Fail Better as a Writer
by Carolyn Eichhorn
Writing is hard. But not because we don’t have ideas. Ideas are everywhere. Anytime I tell people that I write stories, they want to share their ideas with me – they have so many. Write them, I say, and they shrug. Maybe they’ve tried. Maybe they aren’t sure if they have what it takes. Maybe they shared those ideas with others who shot them down or told them that’s it’s been done already or that they should do it this way or that way. Maybe they fear failure.
But here’s the thing – failure is going to happen anyway.
My day job is as a project manager. I spend a good amount of time thinking of all the ways my projects could fail – though we call it risk management and assert that these unplanned deviations from the path can be good (opportunity) or bad (issues). So when my mind goes to all the possible disasters ahead, it’s not just my anxiety speaking to me, it’s my stubborn will to pivot, to adjust, to overcome, to mitigate. Let’s be clear, my anxiety does pop in too. But when we shift our mindset to expect that things are not going to go smoothly, a good bit of pressure comes off and frees us up to try.
Firstly, your first draft is going to suck. A lot.
That’s enough to kill off the will for some fledgling writers. KEEP GOING. It’s impossible to fix what doesn’t yet exist. Once it’s all down, you can shape it, rearrange it, trim it down, beef it up, add sub plots, remove explication, whatever it needs. You can make it a comedy, tragi-comedy, tragedy, or whatever. I had a writing instructor tell me once that the first draft is a writer’s notes to themselves – a way to collect all the relevant and maybe not-so-relevant thoughts around a topic so that they can then go back and make it into something.
So this first draft is just that – notes to yourself. Give yourself permission to do it badly – just do it. Plenty of time to fix it in post as they say.
But that’s just the beginning, my friends. Because you can’t spend your writing life reworking the same piece over and over hoping that a publisher or literary agent or Hollywood producer will telepathically become aware of your amazing work and throw money at you to share it with the world. If only, right?
You are going to have to submit your work to get it published.
Ugh, right?
I read an article years ago called Why You Should Aim for 100 Rejections a Year:
Kim Liao on Flipping Your Perspective on Submissions, and Failing Best in which the author talks about shifting focus away from “what if they reject me” to “I’m going to keep submitting my work until I get 100 rejections this year.” Why? Because mixed in all those “no thank yous” and “not for uses,” a few acceptances will creep.
But I think it’s more than that. This approach requires writers to keep moving forward. Write a piece, make it good, send it out, start on another. Then that piece can be polished and it can go out too. Now you have two out there generating nos and maybe a yes. Start on another. The math will start mathing. And you won’t be stuck in a despair spiral – you’ll be too busy writing.
Back to my day job for a second. As a team, we are reading Pema Chodron’s Fail Fail Again Fail Better, a book based on her 2014 commencement address to Naropa University. The title comes from a quote by Samuel Beckett which is printed in the beginning of the book:
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
She is speaking to college grads about to step out into the world on their own and encouraging the mind shift to “lean into the unknown.” Consider observing these unexpected obstacles like an anthropologist might – collect data. Project managers might take what’s called an “agile” approach – plan, do, check, and act. This is the “Deming cycle” of mapping out what you want to do, giving it a try, gathering information, and then adjusting and starting again. It’s how technology is project managed as there are no roadmaps to follow when you are building something new. You will have to experiment, prototype, try and fail, try and fail again, and then gather what you’ve learned to map out how to move forward.
It helps to be stubborn. Lean into that. It’s a superpower.
Or angry. Yup, that’s useful too.
Or frustrated. Great motivation to keep at it.
Channel that stuff into producing words. Tell your stories. Learn from your missteps. Figure out what works for you and what doesn’t. Shift a little. Try again. You’ll get better and better and that math will take care of itself.
Resources: https://lithub.com/why-you-should-aim-for-100-rejections-a-year/
Pema Chodron. Fail Fail Again Fail Better. Sounds True, Boulder: 2015
Meme from Writers Write
Murder in the Mix (A Gina Morrison Mystery) by Carolyn EichhornAbout Murder in the Mix
Murder in the Mix (A Gina Morrison Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Settings – Baltimore, Savannah, NYC
Publisher : Grounds for Suspicion
Publication date : October 21, 2025
Print length : 272 pages
Paperback
ISBN-13 : 979-8218825447
ASIN : B0FX3C84PV
Digital
ISBN-13 : 979-8218825485
ASIN : B0FX6SYZN2
When Gina Morrison agrees to pen the memoir of celebrity chef Marisol St James, she expects high-pressure deadlines, diva behavior, and decadent dishes-not murder. But when Marisol is found dead in her restaurant’s kitchen, Gina’s literary aspirations take a back seat to her survival. Between a cutthroat industry, simmering secrets, and the demands of Marisol’s unfinished manuscript, Gina becomes entangled in a web of lies, rivalries, and danger. Worse still, Marisol’s killer may be keeping tabs on Gina to ensure she doesn’t write too much.
About Carolyn Eichhorn
Carolyn Eichhorn is a mystery novelist and former Disney Imagineer whose work blends suspense, humor, and heart. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and has published short mystery fiction and essays. Based in the mountains of Western North Carolina, she draws inspiration from small towns, big secrets, and the stories people tell to survive.
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Thank you, Carolyn Eichhorn, for stopping by Salty Inspirations today and sharing this thoughtful guest post. Be sure to add Murder in the Mix to your TBR, and don’t forget to browse around for more cozy mystery features, book spotlights, and author visits here on the blog.
As always, thanks for stopping by for some Salty Inspirations! —Michelle❤️
