Category Archives: Editing/writing life

About doing this stuff for a living.

Book reviews, Editing/writing life

The worst thing about book reviewing

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…is a bad book by a good guy.

I mostly don’t donate free content to Amazon any more, and when I do, there’s usually a motive beyond the desire to share my opinion. There are many reasons why, from the basic dumbness of the rating system to Amazon’s whoring of the content to not donating work to for-profit enterprises. In the past I’ve talked about how not to solicit book reviews. That’s another reason why: most of the books whose authors wish me to review them, I don’t care to read. Either their book is in a genre I’ve never shown that I cared about, or they want me to review galleys or e-copies, or they write badly enough in the letter to make me decline. After you get one bite of a rotten egg, after all, do you keep eating?

Now and then, an author does it all right. I had such a situation just before we moved to Idaho. Author seemed mature, pleasant and sincere, pitched the review correctly. I really don’t like thriller stories that much, but I’ve reviewed enough Laurell K. Hamilton books that if he imagined I liked thriller/mystery, it only meant he’d done his homework. He offered a complimentary print review copy, as authors (or publishers’ reps) must. They simply must, for it’s the only compensation the reviewer gets in return for committing to read a book which may be agony to finish, donating hours of time to a tragic cause while looking wistfully at the pile titled ‘Books To Read Which I Know Are Much Better Than This.’ The only way he could have hit the ball harder was for the subject to just happen to line up more with my preferences; say, a travel biography. If there were a book I’d take a chance on, this author’s would be the one.

So I did. My custom is that when I’m sent a review copy, I drop any other unpaid work in its tracks and get to reading. The author deserves that courtesy. I let the author know the book (actually two) had arrived, grabbed a diet cola and sat down to read.

The ideal result for all is that I love the book. I don’t want to shamble through 300 pages of suffering. I also don’t want to write a review that leaves blisters. I don’t want to write a Gentleman’s C review (a three-star review given out of mercy to a one-star book). If the author is famous, or has committed offenses against historical writing, I don’t one bit mind hammering the stake, decapitating the corpse, sewing holy wafers into the fangy mouth, and chucking the head into a river. That sort of author will probably never see the review, and if he or she does, probably won’t care. S/he will probably do another line, say ‘those who can’t do, pan those who can do’ and tell Araceli to do a better job on the kitchen. To an aspiring author, though, a very articulate but harsh review is a serious problem.

Most people work more on the principle of suggestion than they like to admit. In this context, if Joe Reviewer highlights a dozen glaring weaknesses in a book, anyone who reads that review and then the book is likely to watch for those weaknesses. And to post ‘me too.’ The whole picture can unravel. One could always take the ‘tough luck, be a big boy/girl’ approach, write a brutally honest and balanced review, and let the chips fall. And if I took reviewing more seriously than is the case, I might. In fact, I really don’t even give a damn about Amazon reviews. Too many fools, too much gang-rating, and too many people with no taste. They are the worst metric going that does the most needless damage to good books and promotes bad books. Yes, the people have spoken, but the people are stupid. This is why McDonald’s is more popular than Fuddrucker’s, and why democracy breaks. It follows that, not wanting to suffer though a bad book, I try to avoid reviewing them. Now and then I get surprised in a bad way, as in the case under review.

I’d expected to yawn over the story but not the writing, yet it was the other way around. The author had a great story concept, but the presentation was pure tyro. If he engaged an editor, he or she needs to be fired. Typos, typesetting mistakes, bad character introductions, perspective all over the place, forgetting what the reader knows and does not, dialogue not very credible, passive voice everywhere, inconsistencies of tense. If I had been asked to edit it, the author would have paid what I charge for a complete rewrite. And yet the fundamental tale was excellent, with plenty of surprises and good discipline in pace of revelation. Even as I groaned over the flaws, it held my interest to the very last in a genre I barely like.

What do you do in that case? Hammer the stake? Deceive the public? Welsh on your commitment?

Sure, you have every moral right to post a completely honest review, and in the take-your-quarts big boy/girl school of professional writing (where being mean is a way some people like to show off their cred, and where being arrogant and smug is taken by so many as a sign of authorial coolness), you would. You’d also hurt a human being. Remember, I care minimally about my rep as an Amazon reviewer. Amazon and its reader base don’t pay me enough to care. The only pay I got was a copy of a book, and I’m not generally inclined to turn around and hurt people who paid me…if I can help it. I also would rather not leave behind me a trail of slain dreams. To get me to play Simon Cowell, they have to up their bid. A lot.

When I realized that an honest review would skewer the book, I wrote to the author and said so. I offered him three choices:

  1. The big boy/girl method, posted with no holds barred.
  2. Same review, but sent to him privately.
  3. A more informal yet candid critique, without the writing-for-public-consumption gloss.

What I did not tell him was that 3) would be far and away the most painless and helpful for both of us. Happily, that’s what he chose anyway. If I have to say it, I did not pitch my own services as a book mechanic. Now that would be sleazy: lurk for writers needing help, lure them in, beat down their will by panning their writing, then offer to save them for a fee. Marketing in disguise; the car dealership service department where you take your vehicle in for an oil change, and they ‘find’ $2000 worth of stuff to fix (that would cost $750 at a real mechanic’s shop, except the real mechanic would tell you that $250 would cover what you actually need). The HVAC company in Kennewick that came out to diagnose a minor noise, kept breaking my heater a little worse with each visit, then wanted to sell me a new one. I despise it and I’m not going to do it. I was approached as a reviewer, and should stick to that.

He took the critique well, considering I was telling him he couldn’t write. What he does with that is up to him. It’s the worst thing about book reviewing: trying to remain halfway considerate without sacrificing honesty. And it’s why I decline most requests for reviews. I am in this situation too often for my liking, I end up doing lots of extra work, and there’s always the chance I’ll be punished for it anyway (making me wish I’d just adopted the big boy/girl approach).

Adventures, Editing/writing life

Lollapalousa

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This past weekend I took a trip out to Hrafnstead, the residence of our good friends Rebekah and Forrest. They’re very different folk, but fun and interesting in their own ways.

Forrest is deceptively willowy strong, even-keeled, and grounded. He does blacksmithing and woodworking, helps with the animals, and has a day job. I could see him teaching yoga and quietly advocating peaceful co-existence.

Rebekah is physically powerful, boisterous, vocal and incredibly craft-oriented, and also has a day job. When most people want feta, they go to the grocery store. I wouldn’t put it past Rebekah to make her own feta–and it would be good. I could see her teaching drinking, and noisily advocating many things from natural fabrics to chickens.

Hrafnstead is near Princeton, Idaho (north of Moscow, pronounced MOSS-coe). If you don’t know much about Idaho, a good starting point is that north Idaho differs in many ways from the widest, southern part of the state. If north Idahoans perceive that you do not grasp this distinction, they consider it well worth their time to clarify for you. For one thing, north Idaho is mountainous and has a lot of timber, which is not true of southern Idaho; southern Idaho has most of the people, and is far more heavily influenced by the LDS church. In Rexburg, and many other towns, I’m pretty sure you couldn’t get elected dogcatcher if you weren’t Mormon.

Oh, my heck.

Princeton is solidly in north Idaho, in Latah (LAY-tah) County. Not far south of Latah County is Idaho County, which only has 12,000-odd people, and I’m pretty sure could hold Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

To get to Hrafnstead from where I live, it’s three hours’ driving. Most is through the Palouse (pa-LOOSE): Washington’s wheat country. Farms only look boring to those who do not understand what they’re seeing, because they paint and highlight the land in gorgeous colors. Now, granted, this is not Kansas, where most of the wheat country is fairly flat. The Palouse is hilly and its roads wind around and over many small hills, so it presents the sort of vistas Kansas rarely unrolls before the motorist. Right now, with the wheat high, is one of the prettiest times in the Palouse. Perhaps I can help you to absorb a bit more of what you see; if you are going to drive through it, you may as well like it, if we can arrange that.

After not quite an hour of freeway driving north toward Ritzville (which is not ritzy) and Spokane (which wishes it were ritzy), WA-26 heads east toward Colfax, WA, home of the state’s most infamous speed traps. However, its first portion takes you up a rocky depression called Washtucna Coulee, palisaded by black basalt outcrops, buttes, walls and fortifications. The land is thus because, some eleven thousand years ago, the Ice Age Floods backed sullenly up into the growing coulee as they filled ancient Lake Lewis (which covered much of the Palouse for a few days during each calamitous flood). This tore merry hell out of the basalt flows that dominated the region. Six hundred cubic miles is plenty to drink.

Like most Palouse towns, Washtucna itself isn’t very memorable; after you pass it, you enter the portion of Washington that makes it sixth in the nation in wheat production despite only a quarter (at most) of the state’s area cultivating the crop. Around and before you roll hills in several predominant colors, sometimes with splashy boundaries, sometimes firm: sepia/grey  for fallow land, the remnants of last year’s wheat stubble still visible. Sometimes the fields are striped, so that full crop fields lie right next to resting earth. Harvested fields are pale buff, fresh stubble with birds gleaning and gorging. Most people know the luscious deep golden amber color of ripe wheat, a hue radiating life, the color of an old $20 gold piece, but sometimes it’s still green and won’t be ready just yet. Often vehicle tracks and tramped-down areas make me wonder: I can see why someone might have had to drive out into the field at some point, but how and why did they mash down perfectly good crops? Those spots look like someone shoved a load of wood out of the truck, left it for a couple of days, then came and hauled it off again. It doesn’t look like some kids went out and did cookies or anything.

The prettiest (and probably most frustrating for farmers) are fields with a splattery mix of gold and green, right now mostly gold with green highlights. Imagine a woman with spring green hair, a mature mother whose hair has mostly turned golden rather than the conventional silver. Streaks and splashes of green show how her locks once looked; gold is its future and will eventually claim her entire mane. Or imagine that a painter set forth to describe wheaty hills, but painted the amber over the green, and in haste missed a number of spots. That is how parts of the Palouse look now. And yes, the Palouse is a woman, bearing life annually and tended with gentle admiration and care for her miracle of fertility and the giving of life. As you drive through, you admire her belly, and you may touch it in spots, but with respect.

Buildings here are nearly all farm structures, or the houses of those who tend farms. In most parts of the country, a big crimson barn or silo has little significance. Here, expect grey trim on that building, to symbolize locals’ allegiance to Washington State University in Pullman. In the Palouse, a deeply rusted roof that is still part silvery is a way to represent. WSU logos decorate mailboxes, silos, homes. Many locals are alumni, for in today’s agriculture, you do not know only what Grandpa, Dad and Uncle Vern taught you. You know those things, plus your degree in agronomy or animal husbandry. The nation’s agricultural bounties owe everything to the land grant universities, offering the application of current research and experimentation to the practical realities of agriculture, from soil conservation to making excellent cheese.

The locals are not readily hostile to outsiders. Most are friendly, even to outsiders wearing rival colors (in my case, purple and gold). At most, one should expect some friendly ribbing, essentially a test to see if you are a) jovial and friendly, or b) stuffy, fearful and condescending. I’ve tested this in a number of Palouse taverns, and like most places on earth, you don’t have trouble unless you brought it along and sought it out. More likely they will be very glad to talk football recruiting, coaching and upcoming season outlooks. Anyone from a very urban environment (say, Seattle) who gets a Deliverance vibe here is plain paranoid and silly. Wave to people, say howdy, be at ease. And if you stop in Dusty, WA, there’s no need to point out how aptly named the place is. I reckon they know it as well as anyone.

I indulged in the marvelous colors, gave the rural two-finger steering wheel wave to everyone, and dreaded Colfax. The route to Princeton through Colfax is particularly winding and irritating, with speed limits carefully crafted to create citation opportunities (particularly after turning onto WA-272 toward the actual town of Palouse). Forewarned and experienced, I snailed along at 2-3 mph under the limit no matter who was tailgating me. If everyone drove like me through Colfax, they’d have to lower the speed limits or enact taxes. As I approached Palouse (two miles shy of Idaho), the road took on a video game windingness. I slowed going up hills because I had zero idea what the road did on the other slope, and could live without rolling my truck in some guy’s wheat to create a new crop stomp.

Palouse, WA is only a couple miles shy of the Idaho line. In this region I began to see forests and foothills, increasing as one transitions to ID-6. Logging country. Bad place to wear your GUN CONFISCATION NOW t-shirt. Potlatch, Idaho was having its community day, whatever that may entail, and I cruised on through to Princeton before taking a right over the Palouse River. When the side road’s paving petered out, I knew I was back in the bush.

At first glance from outside, Hrafnstead was more like a county fair than a homestead. A warm welcome from R&F and at least a couple gallons of their home-squeezed cider, and I was rather renewed despite the heat. Considering I’d just done three hours in an un-air-conditioned truck on a hot July day in the Palouse, it wasn’t very hot up in the hills. I got the Hrafnstead tour, including textile workshop and technology center (first Samtron monitor I’ve seen in a decade), forge, various animal enclosures and barn (including guest room). As Rebekah is fond of saying, “this isn’t Martha Stewart Living.” And thank the gods.

Since I was basically not doing anything useful, Rebekah taught me how to card wool. All of it was under 21 and none of its fake IDs fooled me, so I did a good job. Then came a hearty dinner of potatoes (we were in Idaho), cheese pancake and grilled mutton. I had never before had mutton. Tasty, fairly chewy. A great dinner, then a couple hours of conversation and mead in front of a bonfire. Then Rebekah tried very hard to interest me in some comic videos and Game of Thrones, with mixed results. The best part of all of it was the company, their balance of ideas and keen intellects.

I headed up to the barn to sleep. The futon was very comfortable, though there are limited pathways among piles o’ textiles, and plumbing required improvisation. No matter; I conked out fast. Next morning, they don’t do coffee so I just drove into Potlatch for some, and we had a great breakfast on my return. Forrest made, and ate, at least twenty pancakes besides the ones Rebekah and I chowed on. If I ate that many on any consistent basis, I’d be watching out for Japanese harpoon guns. I think Forrest could eat forty and never gain a pound.

We then three-way disagreed completely on guns and gun control for a while (always a great sport in north Idaho), with barnyard sounds seeming to take my side on various aspects of the issue. It’s hard to imagine a more calm, hospitable retreat from the urban world than Hrafnstead, with its kindly hosts, backdrop of hard work to build self-reliance, homegrown/made refreshments and forested quiet.

Struck out for Kennewick by the same return path, and a dirty little secret of blogging is that this is how we help our brains remember all the details we wanted to write about. Especially older bloggers with questionable memories who need refreshers, or who want another try to come up with the right words. Go back the same way and re-prompt your deteriorating recall.

Thank you, Hrafnstead. Thanks, north Idaho. And thank you, Palouse, for the sort of color display too few people will take time to absorb. If you have ever had the urge to ask to touch the swollen belly of a woman great with child, you can grasp what is magical and mystical about this part of the world.

Editing/writing life

Newly published: Both Sides Now, by Shawn Inmon with Dawn Inmon

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Shawn is the author of the true-life romance Feels Like the First Time, the story of his lost-and-found high school romance. I was his proofreader there, and he asked me to edit the sequel Both Sides Now, available for sale today. This book examines the same events from his sweetheart’s perspective.

When Shawn first contacted me about the project, I thought it had potential, but I also saw him facing some powerful challenges. This was to be Dawn’s story, not his. It should be told in her voice, not his. Shawn is extroverted and given to a lot of superlatives, whereas Dawn is more laconic and introverted, with no tendency to exaggerate. What would jump out at Shawn, Dawn might not notice, and vice versa. Shawn’s basic character runs counter to the gender stereotype of masculine emotional stolidity, so he was well equipped to consider some differences in how she might see the world, but it was still going to be a hard go.

Another challenge for him: pry the details out of Dawn.  Shawn can and will talk one’s ear off (and it’s usually insightful, puckish and entertaining). Dawn isn’t a Vulcan or anything, but she learned in life to keep things inside–if you read the book, as I hope you will, I promise you’ll learn why–so she is not prone to waste words, and unsolicited elaboration does not come naturally to her.

I felt very handicapped by not having met Dawn, and both of them saw the potential value in a meetup, so they graciously invited me to their home. I also felt somewhat of a duty. I’d seen sensitive parts of both their lives close up, yet neither had yet had any chance to size me up in person. Dawn in particular had not; to her, one presumes,  I was this eastern Washington guy Shawn worked with on the first book and his novella. Shawn turned out to be just as advertised: as Falstaffian and fun-loving as one might expect of a fifty-year-old man who still participates in a KISS tribute band and would have to look up the word ’embarrassment.’ Dawn was a lady of relatively few words and a steady gaze. Her natural shyness was easy enough for me to accept, because I’m similar. So, my task: in limited time, sit down on the couch and begin asking my hostess about the events of FLTFT as she remembered them, posing very personal questions of a woman I had just met about some of the most painful and difficult times of her life. No pressure.

That isn’t easy for me, because it’s not my nature to pry even with longtime friends. If all my posts about privacy issues tell you nothing else about me, that would be your one sure takeaway. I had to force myself. This was work, my job; without knowing Dawn’s voice, how could I edit it? So, with Shawn whipping up spaghetti in the kitchen, listening in with an invigorated smile, I began to ask Dawn to tell me about her life. One suspects that watching me gave Shawn some interviewing tips, but I had a natural advantage. I hadn’t been emotionally involved in anything that had occurred, nor had I seen it firsthand, thus I didn’t have my own memories intruding. I had no first-person perspective to break out of. I’d obviously read FLTFT exhaustively, to the last comma and loose space, but that’s not the same as living the story.

When one considers that she was speaking to a stranger about life events of the sort that most people would like to forget, I found Dawn a very calm, candid subject, even brave.  What she was feeling inside, I didn’t know and didn’t ask; maybe I should have, maybe I did rightly not to. I also got an answer to one question I didn’t pose, but that lurked in my mind: would she be shy about having her story printed to stand before the public? Dawnconically: no. I also saw strong hints of how she had gotten through a lot of life’s trials. As I said to Shawn over spaghetti, “there’s steel in there.” What Dawn made of me was difficult to say, though before the visit was done, I saw signs that she’d warmed to me. For the record, Mr. and Mrs. Inmon are wonderfully kind hosts, accommodating without hesitation my need to perform physical therapy exercises which somewhat disrupted their home arrangements. Anyone who gets the chance to hang out with them should take it.

I’d also like to drive a stake through one ill-begotten comment I saw in a couple of reviews. Anyone who imagines that this story is embellished or invented can take it from me: while I didn’t suspect that at all, I was doing my mental due diligence by force of habit. There is no way Dawn could have answered me so readily and frankly about the story without having lived it. Often–and especially when I got a brief reply–I’d ask a quick follow-up question for more details; a deceptive subject trips on those, which is why all police use the technique. Dawn did not trip. The historian in me is satisfied that events in both books are accurate to the best of their recollections and note comparisons.

The resulting ms impressed hell out of me, because my biggest question had been whether Shawn could Dawnninate his writing voice. He could and did. The voice read like the lady I’d interviewed. I had to fix some wordiness (which I think was far more Shawn than Dawn, as ‘wordy’ isn’t how I’d describe her), and I took a few firm stands on what content best fit where. If you read the prologue and find yourself yelling “That’s all I get? Damn you! Now I have to read it!” then I guess you can thank me. Or cuss me a little.

It’s a better book than FLTFT (which was quite good), and I wasn’t even close to the main reason for that. The ms came to me more polished than had the former’s edited version. Shawn Inmon is one of the quickest studies I’ve had the pleasure to work with. If I don’t keep upping my game, I’ll become less useful to him throughout his career, so that pushes me to improve. If you liked Feels Like the First Time, it’s a lock that you’ll like Both Sides Now, and you may well like it better still.

I did. I do.

Editing/writing life, Homeownership, Married life

That Titanic feeling

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It’s a strange feeling, it is. While calling it after a massive maritime disaster isn’t really appropriate–my situation is not disastrous, but hopeful–it conveys a similar feeling. Within five weeks, six at most, I’ll be leaving the state in which I came of age. I look around at all the familiarities, and know that their days are numbered, just as the ill-fated passenger liner’s crew had to confront reality: in two hours, nearly all that they saw would be submerged.

A part of me is tempted to mourn early and often, which is irrational. I should not mourn. I lived thirty-nine years in Washington without considering myself a Washingtonian (nothing against the concept). What is ahead is appealing, reuniting and promising. How many local vendors am I eager never to give one more dime? I will be saying farewell to a city government that is a poor steward of the public trust, a library that cannot find useful volunteer work for an author, provincial myopia about the region’s past and present, complete social stagnation, mostly mediocre dining, and dust storms. I just placed a simple phone call to my ISP and got four different answers from four different people, only one of whom seemed the least bit concerned about the variance. The rest were resigned to it. Said it all.

Yet for a long time it was home, and here I met some of the finest people I’ve known, had many good times, loved our house with its strong natural privacy and kind neighbors. And though I should not mourn, I know I will. My last ride to Boise will be a contemplative and emotional four and a half hours.

Soon we part, Washington. Thank you for all that has been good and wonderful. You’re a beautiful state with many fine folks, and you will always be a destination for those seeking climatic diversity and free spirits. People will also come for the weed.

===

In a complete topic segue, it’s about time I made written record of my usual analogy for my status as a published author.

I am not the sort of published author most people think of, and yet I’m not self-published (though I may change that). I have contributed to a good number of books, but all had other contributors. One might say I’m a freelance writer who is entitled to call himself an author, having done his share of authing for pay and print. I edit, write and proofread. Most of my paid writing work is done on contract, which puts me at the lowest tier of the authorly ziggurat. I usually describe it thus:

You probably saw Titanic. In fact, you’ve probably seen it eight times in reruns whether you wanted to or not. You observed that the ship operated according to a class system, which had direct relevance to one’s chances of ending up in a lifeboat. This has direct analogy to the security of one’s position in the literary world. Thus:

Suppose that the literary world is a Titanic. (The way New York is handling things, the analogy is apt enough). The highest class are, of course, first class passengers, would Madame care for some more champagne, veddy good, sah, socializing in that rotunda with crystal chandeliers overhead and an orchestra playing, more caviar, please, waiter. These are the J.K. Rowlings and Danielle Steels, anyone who is always on the endcap at the bookstore. Almost all of them are getting off the boat.

The next class, second, are the leisure tourists. They do not receive the fawning deference reserved for the big spenders in first class, but they are treated well. They enjoy some amenities and general respect. They are the top-selling science fiction authors, the more famous travel writers, and sometimes the self-help book gurus. Most of them are getting off the boat.

Down in steerage is the third class, the people making their own music who live in a different world than the prominent. This category includes most of the crew. These are most indie authors, history writers, the folks that pen Harlequin romances, cookbook authors, most children’s authors, writers of books on religion, and so on. Most people have never heard of most of them. Most of them aren’t getting off the boat.

Continue into the bowels of the monster and you will come to the engine room, full of people stripped to the waist and sweating quarts as they shovel coal into the boilers. These are the stokers. Without them, the ship couldn’t have set sail, but no one in first class can name a one of them. Not only have they no security, but in time of danger, more important people will shut the watertight doors on them. They aren’t getting off the boat.

I’m a stoker.

Editing/writing life

How a crazy busy ‘lancing day looks

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Freelancing is like Starfleet at times. Weeks of boredom and maintenance, a day or so of holycrapIhaveatonofstufftodo. Today was one of those days, so let’s walk you through it.

Morning. Finish second and final editing pass on true-life romance manuscript. What? If people hire me to edit their work, it usually gets edited at least twice? Am I that inefficient? No, that’s not the issue. On the first pass, I fix everything that’s obvious, but about halfway through I have spotted some trends, and realize that in the early going, unaddressed instances of those trends exist. I must normalize these so that the overall editing is consistent. In the ideal world, I would make the book sound like the author, only smoother. With good writing, one can do that. When it’s not so good, if it sounded like the author, well, they don’t pay me to maintain mediocrity. This one was pretty good even before I got my inky paws on it. Finish around 2 PM. Refuse to send it off. Want one more quick whirlwind read before I sign off on it as completed work. I hate making any mistakes.

During morning, receive inquiry from fiction author about rates and editing. Exchange e-mails. We agree that author will send me ms, I’ll look it over, I’ll sample edit a few pages and send it back along with a quote. This one will be somewhere between editing and rewriting, so there may be sticker shock, but if you want a great book that’s what it’ll cost. Receive and begin sample edit. I can’t tell what a ms really needs until I sit down and actually edit some of it.

Early afternoon, hear from author of true-life romance ms, who is about as calm and patient waiting for me to send him the finished work as he probably was when his children’s mother was eased onto the obstetric bed to have his first daughter. He is stuck on his blurb, which is his least favorite aspect of readying a book, and randomly mentions that if only someone would just take $x and do it, he’d be happy. With calm irony, I mention how unfortunate it is that he doesn’t happen to know anyone who writes for money. My author is not a fool. I advise him, however, that his price is outrageously high and that I won’t do it for more than $.6x. He complains that it’s well worth $x to him, and wants to pay that. I remain impassive and unmoving; $.6x, not a penny more. Unfortunately, I have no leverage, as in the end I can’t prevent him from writing a check that overpays me, so if that happens, I’ll just have to smile and thank him. However, he still only owes me $.6x for it. Let’s not forget that. In the process I learn that his wife–whose story he is writing as told to him–is enchanted at the many new words I have coined from her name. Encouraged, I start to lean into that and make a real effort to coin them just for fun. I like her story, and I respect the candor of her narrative.

Real life intervenes: wife has just come from home inspection for our soon-to-be own private Idaho. Problems are relatively minor, but here’s a chance to extract from the seller a little of her own overly hard bargaining. Drop everything, attend to review, discussion, and authoring of letter to real estate agent presenting a suggested offer regarding home’s flaws. Make wifely corrections. Day is crazy. Miss Big Brother premiere. “Sorry, dear, buying your dream home is less important than watching a really trashy reality show,” said no happy husband ever. Will watch later online. Someday.

Make grocery run. Welcome break. Buy the usual unhealthy stuff, though at least I’m eating less of it lately.

Whirlwind final review of romance ms, then birth the baby and hand it to author. Pretty sure author drops everything else in his world, except the woman about whom the story tells, to examine ms. I hear nothing back, so he’s probably happy. He’s probably still awake reading it as I write this, after midnight.

Not even close to done for day. Finish sample edit on fiction ms, so as to have eyes-off time to review tomorrow for presentation to author.  Reckon I’m on the right track.

Time for physical therapy. Having discovered that during 2/3 of the exercises I can read a book or magazine, I get in some reading on a travel bio sent me for review by a pleasant Australian DJ. When I’m sent a review copy, my rule is that it’s automatically at the top of the stack until I finish it and post a review. To me, that’s just simple fairness and gratitude to the author. Just about finish it as I am doing resisted hamstring curls–it’s not a thick book, in fact not as thick as I wish it were. By now it’s 11:30 PM, and in some form, I have been at work for twelve hours.

Still not done. A blog entry is way overdue. Regular readers don’t know I was in Idaho for three days with a 4.5 hour drive each way, and unless they’re personal friends, may not be moved by that. They just know nothing’s happening here. This cannot be tolerated, and I am somewhat understandably a bit tired, so I pull up WordPress and begin a blog entry. About what? Remember, there is no writer’s block. You want to write or you don’t. Obviously I want to write at this time, because I refuse not to write. Then decide that a busy literary day might be interesting to concierges, engineers, nurses, electricians, homemakers, lawyers, game wardens, activists, campground managers, cashiers, and all the other folk who take time to read what I write. I put on some rap and get to work.

At half past midnight, my workday is done. Productive day. If this was my every day, I’d have a lot less spare time, but I’d deal.

Good morning, dear reader.

Editing/writing life

Calling in sick

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First, I offer you this to make this post less of a downer: “Callin’ in Sick Today”

When you are a ‘lancer, can you really call in sick? Depends how bad it is. If you are so sick and weak you lack the mental acuity to do your work in respectable form, well, you have no choice. I was in that state Monday, with a fever probably about 104º F. For you of metric countries, much above that and you have to be hospitalized. There was no way I could work. Sitting up was hard enough.

I could postpone stuff like this, for example. While I’m heartened that people read the blog, I don’t think anyone’s going to unsubscribe if there aren’t any posts for a week. I would have to postpone or cancel on-site stuff, such as a meeting or teleconference. But some of what you have to do, if you can do–even if you have to proofread for an hour, rest for an hour, proof for another hour, etc.–you must do. And for Tuesday and Wednesday, that was what I did. Could barely even eat, nothing sounded good. Lived on mixed OJ and club soda, and cleaned out all the popsicles Deb didn’t eat.

But it got done. And that’s the big deal. If you have a long rapport with a client, proven track record, maybe it doesn’t harm you to have a crisis that delays the result. But when the project is a biography of a nonagenarian who is understandably eager to see the final product, for a first time client, well, the amount of delay one might accept is very limited.

And since you’re a ‘lancer, you do it until it’s done. Your career depends on that approach. When work is there, do the work. You can play Candy Crush or nap some other time.

Editing/writing life, Sports

It was only partly a labor of love…

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…I admit that part of it was motivated by the desire to generate some passive blog traffic. Not all, of course, or even most. In the main, I picked it up because I wanted the information and didn’t want to wait for someone else to provide it for me.

I’m talking about the Baseball Name Pronunciation Project, of course, which I am developing on this site with the kind consent of The Baseball Reliquary, which owns the rights to the relevant research and intellectual property of the deceased Tony Salin, the author of the best baseball book you haven’t yet read (assuming you have read Veeck–as in Wreck, obviously). I began with Salin’s work, did a good bit of my own research, opened the doors to public input, and am continuing to hunt down credible pronunciations of past players’ names.

One of the most helpful tools has been Youtube. It has some old radio broadcasts, and one can look up the lineups and boxscore for that game and see who’s on the list. While I don’t 100% trust announcers to be correct, they are likely to be close–especially for members of the team they covered.

I’m still hoping to get some stiff corrections and input from the general public, and it may be so as the word gets out. Of course, if I knew one single very old major leaguer, I could solve a whole bunch of these–but I don’t. Or if I knew even one rather greying big leaguer. But I’m just not good at bothering people.

If anyone out there knows any old ballplayer who’d be willing to help out, please let me know. It would be a deed well done.

Book reviews, Editing/writing life

Fetishism in writing

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Here’s an area for improvement by literary critics as well as authors: fetishism. Not only do authors need to rein it in, but reviewers need to start calling it out.

Fetishism occurs when the author displays a pattern of preoccupation with some otherwise normally hidden or forbidden aspect of life. There are reasons the author would not want to do that:

Privacy. Maybe W.E.B. Griffin really shouldn’t have so openly advertised his fascination with the young, virtuous, occupied-with-life virgin who suddenly presents the story’s rake with her ‘pearl of great price’ (WEB’s favorite term), then immediately drops everything else in life and now desires to play house and begin spawning infants. What does that say about him? His perception of women? I wouldn’t wish to speculate too much. However, if that were my kink, I’d sure as hell be unwilling to broadcast it on the endcaps. To give Griffin credit, he has seemingly heard the critics and taken action. (To give him discredit, he’s now mostly letting his son ride his coattails, and the son is not the author the father is. Brian Herbert, take note.)

Predictability. When I pick up a J.T. Edson western, I know for sure that I’ll get some British culture superimposed on the old American West, and that’s one thing. It’s minor, but it’s part of his approach, and kind of novel to be on the receiving side of cultural ignorance. I also know that, before a certain point in the book, two women will start a physical fight. And yes, bodices/blouses/etc. will be ripped. His women will care more for baring each others’ bouncy dairy tackle than for kicking their adversaries’ butts. Not only does it give us a not-necessarily-wanted view into what sharpens J.T.’s pencil, it’s predictable. Thus, when you come to it, unless that’s your own personal kink and the whole reason you bought the book, perhaps you just roll your eyes and scan through it, eager to get back to the story. Or, if it offends you–and I can think of women who would get real tired of reading a man’s descriptions of relatively uncommon and unrealistic female behavior–you might just stop buying the books. Once you are onto an author’s pet themes, and you can tell in advance a certain amount of what you are going to get, some of the discovery is certainly pre-done.

Boredom. The trouble with any fetish, in writing or acted out for real, is keeping it fresh. Suppose you continue writing. You’ve decided you don’t need editors. Your friend’s critique just didn’t grasp what was cool about your style, so what does she know anyway? And throughout all your writing, you keep coming back to the trope of restraint. Your reader knows, because you write your most evocative wording when you take her into the mind of someone who cannot move. The problem is not just that every reader with a sixth grade diploma knows that you’re drawing deep upon your own fantasies. The problem is: how do you keep tying them up tighter, more elaborately, to keep it interesting for the fans? There is a creeping human tendency to freshen by intensity. Your reader expects some new kink every time, and is bored with the old tired ones. If you keep going this direction, you’ll contract what I call Hamilton’s Syndrome. It may bring you wealth, but it won’t create good books.

Hamilton’s Syndrome is my newly coined term for fetishism ratcheted up to the point where it overshadows the story. When Hamilton first began the Anita Blake series, she was brilliant. An appealing heroine, edgy motif, interesting and credible internal conflict for the protagonist–a heel-wearing, Schnauzerlike tough gal seeking to hold onto her humanity and beliefs. The fetishism was always around the edges of the story, but was sustainable; at least, I thought so. Then, some seven books in, Hamilton cut her heroine loose from humanity, slipped all those anchor cables. Eventually the story became secondary; the main focus was on monster hurts and wounds and problems, all of which could only be remedied by increasingly kinky and elaborate forms of sex with Anita. I recall one book in which the initial monster sex crisis took up the first third of the volume. Oh, and lust became a physical hunger for her, the fifth food group. The story is no longer even the point; the question posed by Hamilton’s Syndrome is, how can the kink-o-meter continue to ratchet up? How long can Hamilton top herself?

In my own writing, I watch for fetishism with great care. For one thing, I am intensely private. Consider that since this blog began, I have experienced serious life and health problems involving crippling pain, trauma and serious psychological shock and distress from which it may take me years, even the rest of my life, to recover. I never shared them here. Some may have leaked through, but not on purpose. It’s not that I’m ashamed; it’s that I believe I’m here to entertain, provoke thought, educate, and otherwise be fun to read. I am not here to back up the personal issues dump truck on you, fishing for support. Were I diagnosed with terminal cancer (for the record, I am not), I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t blog about it. This blog is part of my work (which is why, with regret, I can’t post the video of some Texans eating surströmming–too crude for work). I go other places to pour out my real troubles. Even alluding to them in this paragraph is an uncommon show of vulnerability for me. Well, I don’t think many writers compartmentalize as well, and some I believe lack compartments to begin with: a filing cabinet consisting of a large heap of papers.

So I guess the question the writer faces with fetishism is at least twofold: just how far are you willing to invite random people to analyze your mind (as I have done to Hamilton…she asked for it), and how are you going to keep people from either being bored with you, or poking fun at your blatant fetish? The ‘I’m a badass bitch, screw everyone, I do it my way, if you don’t like me and my writing, go to hell’ reflex answer is, of course: “Who cares what they think? I am after all a complete badass! And I post at least three times a day on Facebook trying to convince myself of it!” Well, here’s the problem: if you are writing to get paid, people have to want to buy your book. Thus, while you can’t let yourself obsess about what everyone thinks, you cannot ignore and dismiss your reader’s preference. Yeah, if you get paid, you do care what your reader thinks–and you aren’t such a badass.

Such are the paths down which fetishism leads in writing. Have I convinced you that you really would rather not be there? I would be especially glad for commentary on this topic. Am I treating fetishism too harshly? Is there an effective, sustainable way to work it in? We’re always told to ‘be ourselves,’ and here I am challenging that to a degree. Can you counter my stance?

Editing/writing life

Becoming a better writer

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When I talk to people about improving their writing, I sometimes wonder if some flaws are simply hard-coded, or if anyone can improve those through effort. As Pepper Martin said to his manager Frank Frisch, after the latter’s rant during a time when the team was just bad, “You know, Frankie-boy, I got a jackass back home on my ranch, and you can run him from sunup to sundown, and he still ain’t never gonna win the Kentucky Derby.” That’s not a putdown without including myself; it may be true in some areas for all of us. I am pretty sure I’m tone-impaired, for example, because much music that some consider stunningly wondrous just sounds horrible to me, and I can’t make any decent music at all myself. I am not sure I have the physical wherewithal to improve. Likewise, I could have tried for a degree in math instead of history, but could I have comprehended even calculus? It’s doubtful, considering my struggles with pre-calculus. So some of what I suggest, I believe, might simply be outside some folks’ ken. But I can suggest it, and if people are trying to work on it, they can decide for themselves whether a flaw is innate or badly learned.

Homophones. These are words that sound the same, but are spelled differently and have different meanings. A long list is here. Until you make time to differentiate ‘their’ from ‘there’ from ‘they’re,’ you will look bad. I don’t care if you mess them up in chat, but if you’re writing something people should want to read, you must get these right. A new grocery store opened just down the hill from me. It looked fairly downscale, and then I looked up to its opening day marquee: YOUR TO GOOD LOOKING TO SHOP ANYWHERE ELSE. The combination of slack-jawed, vapid flattery with such obvious lack of attention to accuracy grossed me out. I’ve still never spent a dime there. If they can’t muster a better public intro than most people’s standard chat and e-mail errors, that’s just sad.

Read a lot–and read good quality. If I write well today, it is for two reasons. The first, the technical correctness, came from heavy reading between ages three and seventeen. Even when I can’t tell you why something is incorrect, I nearly always know when it is, because I have read a great deal of correct writing. The second, refinement, also comes from lots of reading, and began when I went to college. This is where we learn to examine our statements for clarity, wean ourselves away from adverb overdose, push aside passive voice, and otherwise break the standard bad habits. Don’t assume that endcap bestsellers exemplify good writing habits; more often, they exemplify lazy pandering to a public that doesn’t know the difference and doesn’t care.

Punctuation. Look up the purpose of each mark, from the apostrophe to the hyphen. Check your writing to see if you use these correctly. Find the basics here. And if you do not, then…

Stop with ‘well, that’s just my style.’ If your style is bad, then it’s not an asset, and should be changed. Styles evolve. Don’t hug your weaknesses dearly to your heart, as if questioning them questions your validity as a person. Lots of great thinkers and people can’t write well.

If you write like you talk, stop. It’s not an asset, because people don’t read like they listen.

Never ask for critique you don’t want. Most requests for critique are actually requests for validation. These are unfair to the critic, whom you place in an impossible position. Your writing might not be very good. If it isn’t good, and you came seeking validation, your critic can’t win. If she tells you the cold truth, she just broke your dolly and crushed your dream, heartless snob that she is. If she uses all her own writing talent to find a nice way to tell you that your writing is bad, she expended much more effort than you had the right to ask of her, all for nothing, because you probably heard only the kind parts you wanted to hear. And if she lies, she was worse than useless to you, actually harmful to your development. Don’t ask for critique unless you want it for the sake of improvement, even if caustic. No worthwhile critic is needlessly cruel, but sometimes the simple truth is cruel in nature. You don’t ask a dentist to tell you that your tooth enamel and nerve will grow back, do you? Do you ask an orthopedic surgeon to tell you that your achilles will really only take three painless months to rehab, when in fact it will take a year of significant suffering?

The worst, the very worst, is when someone asks me to critique their child’s writing. Critiquing a child’s writing is an exercise in compassionate lying. The writing may be quite good for the child’s age, but it’s almost surely deeply flawed–obviously, since the child is developing English skills. Is it good for his age? I am not equipped to know; that’s the province of an English teacher (whose job is to provide age-appropriate critique), which I am not and could not be. Think about it. I have to lie. I have no other humane choice. Can we just agree, outside the child’s hearing, that asking this of me constitutes a request that I lie and say something is better than it is, for the sake of not crushing a little soul? That’s all I ask: to be relieved of the duty of honest sincerity, and that we all agree that I’m here to lie, and that by lying here, I’m helping and being a good guy. Neither you, your child nor I desire that I dissect it for real. Okay? If you want age-appropriate non-lying critique, best ask a professional educator who knows what is good for each age. I’m not qualified to do anything but lie.

Learn consistency of article, number, person and gender reference. This governs so much and weaves together. If you do not even know what this means, I’ll explain. If the subject is plural, and you later refer back to it, you cannot use the singular unless you are singling out one member of the subject group. This is why ‘they’ is an unacceptable substitute for ‘he or she,’ the eternal gender neutrality problem inherent in English, and probably the cause of more recast sentences than even passive voice addiction. If you describe an event in the future perfect tense, you can’t contradict the timing in the next sentence. Learning the tenses in English would be a good step, so here is a reference to study. Use of the right verb tense is a combination of literal common sense and knowing what the tense means.

Remember that narrative and dialogue are different. Narrative represents the storyteller’s viewpoint, or the story as seen through a character’s eyes. Dialogue is what people say, their actual words. Internal monologue (unspoken thoughts) is a form of dialogue. In dialogue, nothing has to be perfect; it simply has to sound like the speaker (or his/her thoughts). Part of crafting good dialogue is knowing how well-spoken the speaker is. The English can and should be as lousy as the speaker’s; the thoughts may be disconnected and inconsistent. It could make a travesty of this whole blog post, and be great dialogue.

Never follow any rule off a cliff. This one comes from C.J. Cherryh, one of the finest writers in print. There are times to break every rule, provided you know it well enough to break it. Here is what I tell writers: every writer gets a certain number of cheats per piece, defined as deviations from everything he or she is told not to do. Teachers instruct us to use some devices sparingly, especially adverbs, em dashes, semicolons, ellipses, passive voice, split infinitives, sentences ending with prepositions…you get the idea. When you hew blindly to a ‘don’t do this’ list, you do as badly as if you are addicted to overusage.

Cheat for a reason. Cheat for extra effect. Cheat because it will make a key phrase stand out. Any time you cheat, be sure the cheat pays its way. For example, I have used ellipses twice in this post. Under normal circumstances, I’d consider that slothful, but I believe both usages worked and paid their way. The second usage is questionable, if the definition of a cheat were ‘something I could eliminate through recasting.’ To me, that is not a definition, but a value test for most verbiage and literary devices. That is a tightening test more than it is a cheat’s value test.

Editing/writing life

New release: It’s Not Rocket Science, It’s Parenthood, by Shannon D. Jackson

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Here’s proof that knowledge of the subject is not necessary for editing: me editing a book on parenting. Today, It’s Not Rocket Science, It’s Parenthood comes out in print on Amazon. (Obviously, this is not a review, as you can’t review a book you worked on.)

If memory serves, I first contacted Shannon via a Craigslist ad for an editor. I guess she liked what I had to say, which is saying something because I was fairly critical of her sample material. However, I found her a coachable writer willing to accept guidance supported by evidence and ability to explain. When an author pitches herself as a no-bullshit kind of gal, that will ring true only if she appreciates a similar approach from her collaborators. Her fundamental frankness and value of same seemed to me her strongest qualities, so I strove to smooth down the jagged edges without causing the metal to lose its sharpness.

Shannon has a wickedly creative approach to raising children. She strikes me as the sort of mother who understood early on that she needed to foster and build up the notion that rebellion, while expected, was ultimately futile and would always cost the child more than was gained. I believe that this basic characterization is at the heart of the book’s value, along with the brassy, immune-to-shame-or-fatigue methods she has come up with. If I had to characterize her parenting style in one sentence, I’d say this: she is immune to all parental peer pressure (and basically fearless), but if she failed to do her devilishly clever best to love and teach her kids, that and only that would cause her shame. Based on the book, I doubt she feels that way often. She cares too much about the role.

As I read it, I wished my own mother had been as forceful and confident. I’d have matured a lot sooner, and more thoroughly. I do not fault my own mom. She was in an abusive marriage and had numerous psychological disorders, and probably did the best she could in a rotten situation. However, I grew to see her as a pathetic, weak figure who did not mean most of what she said, and who therefore did not need to be obeyed very much. I’m quite certain Shannon’s kids see her as the sort of maternal force of nature that will have them describing her in reverent tones when they themselves are grandparents.

I believe that any parent can profit from a look at Shannon’s ideas, whether he or she adopts them or not. And if you have little Satana, or young Lucasifer, a hateful little spawn who is a) winning the power struggle with you, b) making you feel like giving up the kid for adoption, and c) has you deciding to get spayed or neutered so this never happens again, Shannon was there and won the battle. She may well help you do the same.