Rabbit Holes, Runcible Spoons, and the Joys and Sorrows of Writing Fiction

The following describes a rabbit hole I bounded down this morning after the monks in my current bedtime reading had "runcible" peas for dinner. The book was the fantastically written Dissolution by C.J. Sampson, whose character is a hunched-backed detective working for Cromwell during the reign of Henry VIII.

You know and I know that runcible is a word made up by Edward Lear for the Owl and the Pussycat's dinnerware. I have a spoon with a curved handle that I was given as a baby that I always described as "runcible.” Some people now call sporks runcible spoons. My mother used to call an old bent silver utensil her runcible spoon.

Then I came across the following article that suggests the use of "runcible" was probably a good-hearted attempt by a copy editor to correct what they thought was an error. The author notes that rouncival is a variety of pea. 
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2010/05/runcible-peas.html The monks in Sampson’s book could very well have been eating rouncival peas.

It was a morning enjoyably spent careening down a fiction rabbit hole, sparked by what I thought was an error. Now that I’m an author, I’m much more patient with mistakes in books. This change in perspective coincides with the publication of my first book in 2016. It contains at least one but probably more errors. I’ve read somewhere that the industry standard for fiction is ten errors per volume. I can’t provide a citation for that, so it might well be urban legend perpetuated by authors stung by mistakes they are unable to fix post-production. These noxious things seem to appear in publications despite efforts by authors, editors, copy editors, proof-readers, and kindly family members to scour the work for the slightest misstep.

If you’ve read my books and found errors, I’m sorry. I did my best. So did my team. We goofed. Or gremlins were at work. It was not intentional. It was not due to lack of desire for utmost quality. It was not caused by lack of effort.

My only hope? That you’ll forgive the errors and enjoy the stories despite them. And that one day you will find a mistake in a book that sends you down a rabbit hole as enjoyable as this one was for me.

My favorite version of the Owl and the Pussycat, illustrated beautifully by Jan Brett.

Above is a “spork” a combination of a spoon and a fork, often called a runcible spoon, and a baby spoon much like the one I dubbed my runcible spoon as a child.