What is Murphy's Original Law?
If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.
Other wise men have opined similar notable truisms.
- Etorre's Observation - The other line moves faster.
- Acton's Law - Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely
- Boob's Law - You always find something in the last place you look.
- Franklin's Rule - Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he will not be disappointed.
As authors, Murphy’s Law affects our craft. I’ve taken the liberty of thinking how some of these laws might apply to an author. Perhaps you’ve experienced a few?
To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer
1. The chance that your copy machine will break down is proportional to the importance of the manuscript that needs to be copied.
2. When you arrive at your pitch session appointment, you’ve left the synopsis at home on the desk.
3. There will always be beer cans rolling on the floor of your car when the writing instructor asks for a ride home after class.
4. Any time you are unable to solve a problem scene in your manuscript, ask your critique leader. She probably won't know how either, but she will fake it.
5. If you’re broke you ask your publisher for an advance on your royalties, she will help you remember what you wasted all your money on.
6. The display settings on your computer will play havoc only when you have to finish the article for a press release by 5:00 this afternoon.
7. At the end of the Writer’s Conference, you recall having enrolled in a lecture at the beginning of the weekend…and never attending.
8. On the day you planned to work on that difficult love scene in your manuscript, your neighbor is going to mow the grass all day.
9. At the Writer’s Conference, your laptop will fail during the main speaker’s lecture.
Author’s Corner: Look at something you wrote several years ago. If you can’t immediately improve it by editing or rewriting it today, you aren’t growing as an author. Better take some additional writing courses, join a critique group, or head for a writer’s conference. An author must constantly be improving his craft or risk being left behind.
Everybody Else: If you eat a live toad in the morning, nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day.