Category Archives: Editing/writing life

About doing this stuff for a living.

Book reviews, Editing/writing life

New release: Second Chance Valentines by Shawn Inmon

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The e-version of this short story is now available. I did the editing.

What impressed me about the ms on the cold read was Shawn’s ability to generate new characters. Most of his work so far has had an autobiographical lean, and this is neither rare nor necessarily unwelcome–but one day, it comes time to fledge. I see him doing that as he gains confidence in that ability.

My part of the work was relatively modest, because with each new ms I find myself doing a little less surgery. He learns and grows, which some authors do not. We had to work over a few plot issues, seeking to avoid contrivance and create an effective and credible event flow. Those are sometimes hard for editors, or at least for me, because there is a continuum ranging from proofreading (you just look for errors) a full rewriting (few sentences may remain intact, and one may add or remove significant content). The various editing modes fall somewhere between those two, but for me the question is never far away: if I alter the story too much, will it cease to be the author’s story? There is no answer that fits all situations, but the author is the author, and I am the editor, and I have no fundamental yearning to encroach upon the author’s purview.

My usual method is to do a cold read, assess the ms and come up with some feedback and commentary prior to proceeding. There can never be two most current copies of the ms, so Shawn and I refer to it as ‘handing off the football.’ On the cold read, I think it essential to identify story inconsistencies, contrivances, credibility issues, or anything that I think a reviewer would one day pan. I would rather offer the author the opportunity to address those with his or her own ideas, so that the story remains as much his or hers as possible. I’ll offer suggestions if I have any (and I consider it my duty to arrange to have some), discuss ideas back and forth, evaluate ideas the author presents.

It went that way this time. Shawn’s a hardworking author, and was still taking time to work on the ms while he was supposed to be enjoying an idyllic getaway at the coast. I found some stuff that I felt he should rethink, and he did so. I got the football back and went to work, and I believe he accepted most of my edits.

The result is, in my opinion, a deft short story that has Shawn starting to fledge. The experience of reading his work is growing richer, and I foresee that growth continuing as his mastery of the storytelling art increases in breadth and depth. It is a pleasure to work with him and watch him succeed.

So what’s the lesson for aspiring authors? The guy is selling a lot of writing. If you want to do that, there are things you can learn from him.

  1. He isn’t touchy, either during the process or with the public. The gracious, approachable Shawn you see responding to his readership is the same Shawn I deal with. I’ve never had to tell him something sucked, but if it was the only honest way to convey my opinion, I could safely do so. He would ask the right questions: why does it suck, and how should it be fixed? Because if I’m saying that, I had better have some ideas, or I’m not much use. Shawn’s a friend, but this is business, and he’s a client who deserves to be treated like one.
  2. He takes full advantage of every service I’m offering him, which gets him the best value I can offer for his money. I told him to get in touch any time he wanted to discuss anything, from a potential project to a character that isn’t quite clicking. He believed I meant that. I want to help him, and he gives me every opportunity to do that. When you stop to think about it, I’m also helping myself, because my work will be easier later.
  3. Growth. It gets better each time. I may never break him of a few habits, but I have a few of my own I may never break. He incorporates feedback, and I see the results next time around.
  4. Marketing. Your work will not sell itself; that’s only true of endcap auto-sellers, whose series tend to jump the shark after a time. (W.E.B. Griffin, got my eye on you.) I’ve read dozens of excellent books that never sold well. If you think marketing is yucky, and you want to imagine that you can stake it all on your epic writing talent, you’re standing in your own way. Shawn can and will market his work, and that causes more people to buy it. A good product is the beginning; the next step is to bring the product to the attention of people with the power to click ‘Add to Shopping Cart.’

If you commit to those things, your chances leap skyward.

Editing/writing life

Up to my posterior

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‘Lancing is feast or famine. A month or so ago, all I had ahead of me was a couple of short story editing jobs. On my plate, right now:

  • A complete read of a novel with commentary preparatory to editing. I have to do it this way because there are decisions remaining that the author should be making, not me making for her. Oh, and it’s 500 pages.
  • A re-read of an updated ms that the author believes is now ready for editing. Not as lengthy, but with important decisions and feedback to be considered and offered.
  • Consulting with a client about future project ideas. He will probably take most of my advice, so my advice had better not be stupid or half-baked.
  • Co-authoring a book on, what else? Writing books.
  • Oh, and any day now, a technical writing/proofing project will come along, and need to be done more or less immediately.
  • Oh, and for all I know, something else could show up.
  • Oh, and it’s billpaying time.
  • Oh, and I’m still kind of tired from holidays and bowl games.

I wish it were always this way. Nothing is so invigorating as to have entirely too much work. Furthermore, ‘lancers can never phone it in. Every one of the above projects requires and deserves the best attention I can devote to it.

So what do you do? I prioritize, and if necessary, keep multiple balls rolling. Whatever time belongs to a given project, I do nothing else while I do it.

Editing/writing life, Privacy

Blogging tip of the day

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I’ve been getting a couple hundred spam comments a day. WP catches 99% of them, if not more, but I still have to dump the trash.

If you are getting tired of shoveling out your spam comments, take a moment to look through them and see what post or page the spammer replied to. Then change the URL (WP calls it the ‘permalink’), even by just a character. Bingo. Their old spammable post or page no longer exists.

The only drag is that this will also break any legit links that other sites have made to your page. At this point, it was worth it.

Editing/writing life

New release: Christmas Town, by Shawn Inmon

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Shawn decided to release two new Christmas-themed short stories this year. Christmas Town is the second.

Now, working with Shawn is a little different than working with most writers. A Falstaffian figure and somewhat of a mad-literary-scientist idea generator, he has a great deal of self-confidence. He also likes marketing, and does it very well. His storytelling skill is catching up to both of those important qualities. It is beginning to feel very much like working with baseball great Bill Veeck–and those who know me very well, and who don’t throw up at the mention of sports, will know what a compliment that is. Like Veeck, Shawn knows that it’s all about the public. Veeck didn’t watch baseball games from box seats or owner’s luxury seats. He used to sit shirtless in the bleachers with the fans who had bought cheap tickets. He would drink beer with them, talk baseball and boo the umpires. If Shawn drank (which he does not), and if he owned a baseball team, I suspect he’d do the same.

As an editor, I tend to evaluate a writer by how s/he reacts when you tell him or her of a serious flaw. The less confident and successful writers aren’t sure whether to cry and give it up, or fire me and seek someone to tell them how great they are in all areas. If I tell Shawn that something just doesn’t work, he fixes it. Sometimes I don’t know how to fix it, but he will figure it out. This is why he is making major strides as an author.

His newest release is a winner because, in addition to a good story, Shawn is developing an excellent sense of the moment–and how to handle it. With every new work, there is more show and less tell. Endings become much more difficult to predict. My job is getting more involved, because most of the low-hanging editorial fruit is going away. The task before me grows more invigorating. With most of Shawn’s books and short stories, my initial feedback is qualified praise. Not this time. Christmas Town came to me with great fundamental merit and no tremendous issues to resolve. I trust I helped a bit in resolving the minor ones, but I had good material to work with. If you have a dollar to spend on a very worthwhile Christmas story, this is an excellent choice.

Editing/writing life

What you might not know about writers, editors and proofreaders

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And there’s a lot.

Writers:

  • A surprising number of us are unbearable. Truly. The dirtiest little secret about writers, in my view, is how many of us have some paralytic personality flaw that means we are best off away from polite society. Don’t lament that J.D. Salinger became reclusive; realize that he was probably doing humanity a good deed.
  • What motivates us to write varies from person to person, but one thing is consistent: at one point, we were all terrible, and great irritants to others. Some of us improved.
  • You’d be astonished how much writing is done while drunk. Ernest Hemingway wasn’t so anomalous. I am not convinced James Joyce ever wrote a sober line. Anthony Burgess wrote most of A Clockwork Orange, one of my favorites, through a haze of ethanol. I have sent off work that disturbed me so profoundly that I could not finish drafting it with a clear head.
  • Few of us make any money. That is for several reasons. 1) Most of us cannot market and hate marketing, considering it icky. 2) What many of us want to write is not what many people will pay to read. 3) A lot of us consider ourselves too good to take on the writing that really does pay. 4) In an increasingly less literate nation, we are not exactly in rising demand.
  • Writer’s block, which does not exist unless you author it and dignify it with the name, is not the main bugbear for writers, though it’s a handy excuse for not wanting to write and not desiring to admit that. The main bugbear is ego: the deep-seated fear that one will be exposed as a fake.
  • Pet peeve? People who love to catch me in a simple human error when I’m not in a professional writing situation. “Ha ha! You spelled that wrong!” So petty, so childish, and so lowers my opinion of someone.
  • Writers with no senses of humor about themselves and their foibles are beyond retrieval.

Editors:

  • Editors come in many levels of competency. There are no certifications.
  • When you communicate with us in writing, most of us aren’t mentally correcting your grammar and spelling. People have to pay us to do that. If no one is paying, that means no one wants us doing that. Nothing is gained by doing it for free just to be an ass, or because we can. That’d just alienate people. Some damned smart people are ESL, or have disabilities, stuff like dyslexia, or various other reasons they aren’t great typists or grammarians.
  • Not every editor is right for every writer. For example, I am not a good editor for someone who can’t write and cannot face that reality when presented with tact. I just have to live with that.
  • Editors who take pleasure in hammering stakes into writers’ work are unprofessional and shortsighted. They exist. They are addicted to that self-absorbed jolly they get from a well-crafted misericord run up under the writer’s ribs. Most can’t make any money editing. We call those ‘Amazon reviewers.’ They are competent to point out flaws, but evidently incompetent to help authors remedy them.
  • Editing processes can vary a great deal from editor to editor and from project to project. For example, if on the initial evaluation, I am sent an outdated version of a ms, then an updated version, the value of my work is gutshot because once I begin reading for the first time and thinking, a new version will require me to doubt every ‘feel’ that I gained, for I cannot get a truly clean second set of first impressions. For others, that’s not a problem.
  • Before you snark that the author “obviously didn’t hire a competent editor,” consider this: you have no idea what the ms looked like before the editor got to work. You also have no idea how many edits were rejected by the author. It may have been so bad that the editor asked for Alan Smithee credits and didn’t get that courtesy.
  • Editors without senses of humor about themselves and their work cannot be saved. Take them behind the barn, and return without them.

Proofreaders:

  • We are born, not made. I know of no way to make someone care about precision and minutiae, nor to train them to do so.
  • Our processes vary, as do our competencies. My own is simple: I do it all twice at least. And if on the second pass I find anything of significance, I do it a third. A fourth and fifth, if need be. My credibility and value lie in missing nothing. For a good proofreader, a solitary mistake is unacceptable.
  • Proofreading may at times verge into light editing. The ability to handle that shift with minimal effort is a valuable thing.
  • As with editors, before you snark that the proofreader obviously did the job high on meth, bear in mind that publishers can blunder so monumentally as to publish unedited versions of a given ms. It happened to Allen Barra, a very capable author who could reasonably have expected better from a prominent publishing house. If the product is defective, the publisher is at fault. It was the publisher’s duty to assure that there were zero errors in the publication-ready ms.
  • To be a capable proofreader, you have to enjoy finding errors. To get paid to do it, you have to learn not to spike that particular ball in the end zone. You are in the business of telling people they did it wrong. No one is having fun when that happens, or if you are, no one will want to work with you. You need not apologize for doing your job well, but if you exult in all your catches, people will hate you.
  • Proofreaders who can’t face the fact that even they will miss mistakes are doomed. Do what I do: utter a sentence full of shocking blasphemies and gutter vulgarities, apologize and abase yourself, and move on. And don’t ever miss one again!

But you will.

Editing/writing life

Badverbs

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I’m a convert to the Stephen King School of Adverb Rejection. When I see too many adverbs, I consider that I am seeing amateurish writing. When I find myself using too many, I know that I’m getting lax and need to step up my own game.

It’s not my way to swallow ‘rules of writing’ without question. Before I reached this conclusion, I asked myself: what’s wrong with adverbs? They’re a part of the language, are they not? Parts of language exist for our use, don’t they? In order: they rarely pay their way, they are an overused part, and not every tool in the drawer is right for every repair.

Let’s examine some sentences.

The impact completely destroyed the Mazda. ‘Completely’ is redundant. If ‘destroyed’ doesn’t sound cataclysmic enough for your purposes, how about: The impact obliterated the Mazda.

She quickly reached into her purse to feel for her wallet. If you want to say that she was in a hurry, try: She darted a hand into her purse to feel for her wallet. Any adverb that can be removed with a better verb choice is a badverb.

Slowly, she said: “But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.” You can fix this with ellipses, which are easy to overdo in lazy narrative but may be necessary and helpful for dialogue: “But you don’t have to…if you don’t want to,” she said. This is a good time to make a key point: dialogue and narrative are not the same. Dialogue is how people talk. Your characters may abuse adverbs in speech; most people do. That’s perfectly fine. What, did I just do it? Excuse me. That’s fine. Better.

A Garden City man was brutally murdered the next night. As opposed to a nice, gentle murder? If it’s a messy one, are you not about to explain what was so messy about it? If you are, do you need to tip the reader one sentence earlier? Police found a Garden City man murdered the next night, with signs of torture and prolonged suffering.

King says, and I concur, that if you examine most of your adverbs, you will find that most do not pay their way. This is an excellent study for writers, because as we examine our slacker efforts, and challenge ourselves to remove badverbs, we can find ways to replace them with more descriptive writing. Some add nothing, some are just laziness, and a few still have their places.

Fewer is better.

Book reviews, Editing/writing life

New Release: short story _Second Chance Christmas_ by Shawn Inmon

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Having worked with Shawn on several of his projects to date, I know that I must always be alert for a new one. Sometimes I’ll think it’s genius, sometimes lunacy, and rarely in between. But he’s always fun to work with, so I’m glad to hear what he has going. If I have misgivings about the concept, the way it works is I tell him what I think, he thanks me for my input and tells me he wants to do it anyway, and I do my best to help it succeed.

This was one where I had the misgivings, with some aspects of the early version needing more originality. What Shawn does well is take that feedback to heart, like an adult and a professional, and then address it. He does this better than most writers I’ve known. His success is an example of what one can achieve when one learns from critique rather than simply tuning out anyone who does less than gush over one’s writing, story concept or whatever. Unfortunately, most people seeking critique and input don’t mean it. They mean ‘praise me.’ And when they go forth to hire an editor, they don’t want to hear ‘this needs a lot of work.’ They want to hear ‘you’re so awesome!’

Shawns are rare. I’d have a much steadier flow of work if I just lied to people who couldn’t write and refused to learn. The process would be simple. I’d tell them how great it was, make some minor changes here and there but make sure it remained the same trainwreck they sent me, they’d delight in the praise, and I’d receive money and referrals. All their fellow writers who praised their writing clearly do not know the difference, and would also seek similar praise.

If I did that, I wouldn’t amount to much.

In this one, Shawn even understood what I was trying to say when I couldn’t quite articulate it, not an easy admission for me. Something was wrong with the flow, and I wasn’t sure of the best way to fix it, so I described it in rather awkward terms. I wasn’t sure what I meant. Somehow Shawn understood me better than I understood myself, because in the next draft that issue of flow was completely remedied by changing the juxtaposition of the tale’s convergence. Abracadabra. Nice work, Shawn.

Second Chance Christmas is e-published at Amazon. If you find the holidays grumping you out a bit, its warmth and quickness of reading (9000 words) might help push a bit of the stress aside for an hour.

Editing/writing life

Brainstorming…and a new project

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Recently I had a contact from a longtime, highly respected colleague inviting me to consider co-authoring a book. This was most welcome for a number of reasons: I like working with this author, I know he has the chops, and he is strongest in the areas where I am not.

So, when two people who know the scene set forth to work together on a commercial project they know will make money, how does that happen? And what does that mean?

Obviously, there is the initial approach: “let’s do this.” A thumbnail sketch of the general plan and how the financial aspects will work–because a commercial book is a business deal, never forget that–and some discussion and questions and brainstorming. All of that sounded equitable, doable and enjoyable to me.

When I said ‘yes, let’s do this together,’ then began the preparation phase. Commercial books are planned, not just typed out willy-nilly as Clio or Erato bestows her inspiration. I would develop a given number of topic ideas about which I felt competent to write. So would my co-author. We would schedule a time to discuss these, reach final agreement, and assuming that agreement, get to work. One may safely assume that we will, in the case of that agreement and plan, establish deadlines and expectations. We will hold one another to these.

That is how this works. One is sought out, considered, valued as a partner because one is believed to be a person of his or her commitments and, in the end, one’s word. This is business. In business, much may be done with a handshake, though some of it requires contracts and so forth. As with some collectibles markets, though, the fact that a handshake would probably suffice is what got you in the door. Reputation and professionalism are all, and those are oak leaf clusters earned by performance and consistency.

I mention this because I consider it among the very most important qualities any writer can have: handle your business. Be on time. Do as you say you will do. Back up your words. There is no such thing as ‘writer’s block,’ and you cannot blame anything on it. Most of the money I have earned with my keyboard came about because people believed, with cause, that I would perform. Cast aside all this baloney about ‘just not feeling it.’ I have completed assignments with a bucket adjacent to my swivel chair, or when I was close to using Immodium as a recreational drug. Do your work and do it well, in writing just as in any other profession, and no harm can come to you.

The icy reality of professional writing is that it is full of aspirants who, in the end, can’t or won’t perform. If you are pursuing a literary career, my advice is to offer results and product (and yes, your writing is a product), not excuses and extensions. The world is full of writers and those who would like to write. It is not so full of producers, who take deadlines seriously and will either deliver or perish in the attempt.

It’s work. Treat it like work. The difference between plumbing and writing is minimal that way.

On Sunday, I will have a neat outline of topics and subtopics to offer my collaborator. I will have thought them through, and will be ready to answer any question he might pose about any of them. Are we friends? Absolutely–but this is a business meeting. One of my deepest beliefs is that people do wrongly to shortchange friends and family, ‘because they can.’ No. That is no good; that is unethical and unprofessional. If they are friends or family, they are owed greater consideration and performance, not less. So I don’t care that my collaborator happens to be a friend with whom I have swapped stories, commiserations and so on. Not here and now. What I care about is that my job right now is to show up prepared for the discussion, and to bring my very best to the table. He’s a friend. My duty is greater, not less.

The sooner a writer learns to come to the table prepared to do business, the likelier he or she is to succeed. There are many ways to define professionalism. One of mine is “is willing to volunteer his or her time here and there for the common good, and seeks out those opportunities.” Another is “keeps his or her commitments and does a quality job on time.” All the flighty types, who think business and deadlines are icky, will be frustrating to work with until they mature and adopt professional attitudes. And when opportunities happen, you may easily guess to whom they will happen.

If it wasn’t work, they wouldn’t pay you.

Editing/writing life

Is this a vanity book, or a commercial book?

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So goes one of the first questions I pose to writers who contact me for some guidance about the publication process.  I have to ask it somewhat gently, but I can’t fail to ask it.  I decided that the distinction would make a good subject for a blog post.

A vanity book is not expected to be a money-maker. If it makes money, great, but often the author just wants to say what’s on his or her mind, tell a story or a series of stories, what have you. Grandpa wants to tell his life story to the world. Mom has a wealth of advice for teachers. Jim believes that his Vietnam experience will pass on a message to the current generation. Sue knows more about quilts and quilting than a whole grangeful of Kansas grandmothers. The vanity book is motivated more by a desire to ‘get this out there,’ whatever ‘this’ may be. It’s usually based on a certain level of conceit that one’s knowledge, experiences or ideas are going to be fascinating to the public, but that’s not a negative. Without that conceit, one can’t really put oneself out in the shooting gallery of public comment, can one? The conceit may be fairly placed; it may be misplaced; but it is needed. The writer should embrace it and call it by its right name, at least in private with colleagues.

The main issue with the vanity book is that I so bluntly call it that. Most writers bristle and refuse to acknowledge that; ‘oh, no, no, this is a commercial book, we want to make money.’ The unspoken assumption is that a vanity book is pure frippery, something no one (perhaps including me) takes seriously, making the label intolerable. They are rarely being self-honest, because most haven’t thought too much about finding a way to sell books.. With a vanity book, you market as and when you feel like it. Once you cover your costs–if you do–the rest is gravy, right. Unless you outshine your costs by a lot, it’s not much gravy.

That’s the problem. Suppose after it’s all said and done, you net $2000, which is more than many self-published writers will net. How many hours did you spend on this? 500? You worked for $4/hour, which is barely half the US Federal minimum wage. If your goal was money, you could have earned more asking people if they wanted fries with that. So, in reality, if that’s an acceptable outcome, it is a vanity book because you could have made more money doing something else. You might have enjoyed it less, but remember, you said it was commercial and rejected the label of ‘vanity book,’ right? ‘Commercial’ means a focus on money, revenue, profit, and other yucky non-literary stuff.

Which is why a commercial book, naturally, will have a marketing plan. Yes, I know that marketing is icky to many writers, as is much discussion of money. If I were better at it, I might make more money myself, so I know what it’s like to lag in marketing. However, if you insist that it’s a commercial book, you must support that with motivation, a plan and the willingness to invest some funds. Above and beyond the basic production value issues and costs–a capable editor, quality proofreading, cover design and typesetting–the author must be ready, willing and eager to market the work. ‘Hope it gets discovered’ is not a marketing plan. Neither is ‘but my life has been really interesting, it’d be a really good story.’ They’re fine sentiments, but they are not marketing plans.

Even if you are not going to try the small-press or New York routes for publishing, a query letter and book proposal (for nonfiction especially) are good exercises. Your query letter is how you advise publishers that you have a finished ms that is ready to market, and try to attract their interest. If you can’t come up with a good query letter, can you really market a book? If you find it distasteful to write a simple letter pitching your work, how will the rest of marketing feel to you? The book proposal goes into greater depth, and is in effect the book’s business plan. Both the letter and proposal will make you see your book through the publisher’s eyes as a commercial prospect. If you’re self-publishing, the publisher obviously is yourself, so this will force you to see the commercial side. Who is the audience? Why? What’s the competition, and why is this different/better? How will you get it noticed and purchased? It’s a commercial book–you insisted–thus surely you have thought this through?

If you have not thought your book through well enough to write a book proposal with ease (and the aid of a guidebook to the conventional format), I submit that calling it a commercial project is self-deception. Look, it’s okay to call it a vanity book. That is simple self-honesty, if true. Just admit it, accept that you have no marketing plan and don’t plan to develop one, and be at peace. Your editor will work just as hard either way, since s/he gets paid the same either way. Nowhere on your Amazon page are you required to call it a vanity book. To thine own self, and to thine editor, be true. Others aren’t entitled to know.

I could probably make a lot more money playing along with writers’ conceits about commercial books without taking a moment to give them some honesty, but I believe that would betray the editor’s role. If as a writer, you cannot count on your editor to tell you the truth, that’s sad. What is more, your editor isn’t much of an editor for what you paid him or her. The idea behind hiring anyone for anything in life is that the person knows more than you do about a specific subject. Would you hire a plumber who didn’t know more than you about how a household water piping system worked? The other idea behind that hire is that the person will trade their knowledge and expertise for your money. Failure to offer that equals failure to deliver value. Failure to deliver value equals ‘no point in paying you.’ Third rail.

And since my editing and proofreading and freelance writing work is definitely commercial in nature, what I may not do is touch that third rail.

Editing/writing life, Social comment

Moneychanging in my temple

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The journey of the English language is much like a walk through modern Detroit. It evolves, but never comes through history unscathed. However, of late some of the scathing is beginning to offend my delicate sensibilities.

I’m pretty disgusted at some of what the Oxford Dictionary people have now decided is all right. They have evidently decided, for example, that ‘literally’ (a word we very badly need to separate wild metaphor from candid description) really does also mean ‘very,’ since enough people misused it long enough. That’s basically the equivalent of deciding that if men can’t hit the urinal, we’ll just remove the urinal and let them miss the toilet instead. However, they aren’t the most annoying abusers of the language. Even the text generation, with ‘ur’ for ‘your’ and ‘lol’ used as a comma, aren’t the worst. They are like copious spitters on the sidewalk, throwers of chewing gum on it, and occasional urinators in the alley. They make English gross and crude, like the floor of a baseball dugout, but they aren’t really doing much damage.

The business-speak word coiners aren’t even the worst. I hate to say it, but they aren’t even that awful. I’m talking about stuff like morphing ‘downsizing’ to ‘rightsizing,’ or addiction to words like ‘best practices.’ Most of it is baloney, but the baloney is mostly heard and believed by its inventors, who do not usually take it out into polite society where it could offend cultured persons. This is like butchers putting filler into the ground meat products: it lowers the overall quality of English a bit, but rarely poisons anyone.

No, the most irritating is made-up vaguely positive-sounding terms used as the actual names of corporations. Thrivent. Meritage. Exelon. Centene. Qwest. Visteon. Agilent. Actavis. Exelis. Altria. Viacom. Aramark. Meritain. Verizon. Navistar. Celgene. Entergy. Taligent. Cingular.

Credit to JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Electronic Arts, Monsanto and even AT&T, a rogues’ gallery of the vilest: at least their names are real words that refer to some real thing, person, etc.

These invented words go into the public mind and manipulate it, and cannot be extracted. They are goosing English in the crowded bus when they know there’s very little she can do about it, molesting her dignity and personal space. They are created by people who want to create a fiction in the public mind, hopefully one at variance with the truth (that the company only cares about quality and service if faults in those areas cause corporate harm). Don’t think that corporate invented-names are picked by employee contests. No, some very sophisticated psychological and literary sellouts get involved. Above a certain level of social control, accidents become very few.

This is crap. ‘Cingular?’ Really? ‘Thrivent?’ Seriously? ‘Meritain?’

I want to say “They cannot be serious,” but I’d be wrong. They can. They are.