Tag Archives: fiction editor

Why it’s hard to volunteer help to beginning writers

September 30, 2020 jkkblog 4 Comments

One of my desultory ongoing marketing activities is to sort of participate on a couple of forums in which budding writers seek help, support, guidance, literary circle jerks, and sometimes editing services. I don’t post often; I’m not good at being an emotional support animal, and most of the questions just make me shake my head.

Here’s the problem: most of them can’t yet write correct English. While I do not look down on them for that as people, the idea of attempting to publish material in incorrect or broken English is dubious. Here’s the compounding problem: most of the people proposing to help them don’t even realize that the querents can’t write correct English, because they don’t know either (including plenty of self-proclaimed “editors”).

At some point, it seems, not only did garbage English become the norm, but it became the norm for literary aspirants and those who propose to guide them. The notion that all writers should at least write in reasonably educated English seems passé–and few now even seem to know the difference.

Are some of them not native speakers? Surely many are not. Okay, fine; then write in a language in which you are at least fluent, if not perfect. I speak Spanish, not fluently; I wouldn’t dream of trying to write a book in the language. I’d be an embarrassment.

Do some of them plan to hire editors to clean up the messes? I hope so…but from what I see, most aren’t willing to pay what a competent editor would ask. Many probably couldn’t afford it. It comes down to the question: will the writing receive remedy before publication? I would say the answer is a hard no.

Could I help them? I certainly could…but not for the effective $5/hour they can pay a fellow semi-literate who claims to be an editor. If editing just means fixing all the things, why pay any more than Wal-editing rates? And since the writer does not know the difference, that self-proclaimed editor doesn’t have to be any good. S/he just has to be better than his or her client. This is a low bar to clear. I see some responses that I am not sure even clear that bar.

I have some examples for you. Over a period of months, I collected the following (nearly verbatim, lightly edited to sampleize without making the English better or worse) writer/”editor” questions and “editor” answers:

===

How many words should a chapter comprise of?

How can I make my new book a best seller.

Hi Guys a relative newbie to the editing world, I was just wondering do people advertise their prices on their website at all? [Yes. This person was asking an editing group in this manner.]

Is there any good blogging sits out there. Were I can make a little bit of money and just have fun writing about random stuff.

I’m a line and copy editor. I offer free edit for the first [x] words, contained in your manuscript. It will help you get a feel of how I work. [In response to a request for editing services.]

What good for a book cover please

Tips on how to write stories?

I’m experiencing panic attack right now! And the reason is one of my friend told me not to post any of your sad feelings now.

I am writing a historical novel. I want to add artificial characters and plot within it to beautify the story. Can I ? pls suggest.

How do you guys prevent eye strain from your computer when writing?

Do you believe that Writing is inherited skill (by birth) ? Or anyone can become writer ? What are the traits of a writer ?

How do you guys think I can become famous by writing.

Is it a good idea to publish a book when you have no money?

what is the shortest length acceptable for a chapter? the longest?

why we Cannot protagonist be evil ?what is reason behind this. Can main character be the antagonist ?

What makes a plot unique?

How many books have to read if one wanna to become a writer

I want to create a female character but I’m a male any advice?

Please my people, help me with the best means to market my book or with a good marketer. Please contact us for supply or to market the book with us or in fact any means of selling the book.

===

I’m not putting these here to look down on anyone. Believe that, if for no other reason than that I don’t need to and can’t gain from doing so. I’m putting them here so that those who have been appalled by the current state of self-published English writing can peek into the kitchen and even into the restaurant supplier’s processing plant. It’s not you. It’s them. It has gotten bad.

And if many of the editors (when an editor was even involved) are barely better than their clients, how could the whole thing avoid being a leaky mess?

This is also intended as encouragement to those of you who write. If you can assemble complete English sentences with the correct prepositions, and use them to make intelligent statements and ask intelligent questions, congratulations. You are probably in the 85th percentile of aspiring writers.

Book reviews, Social comment

Current read: _Union Now with Britain_, Clarence Streit, 1941

September 15, 2020 jkkblog Leave a comment

One way to study history is through the writings of the times, including those writings that faded quickly from public notice. An old used bookstore is a wonderful source for these, and I found this one at an antique mall. I gather it’s at least a bit rare.

Streit was an interesting guy. From Montana, he had a passion for democracy as a concept. Might sound a little odd, since until recently the US hasn’t exactly had a large contingent of open fascists, but it’ll begin to make sense later in this post. After serving in WWI and observing the way the League of Nations floundered (usually attributed to us snubbing it), he developed strong feelings about the forward progress of human government. The start of World War II brought those views into urgent focus, and Streit wrote this book in an effort to awaken his countrypeople to a Federal Union of the primarily Anglophone countries: the US, UK, Canada, Union of South Africa, Australia, New Zealand.

Context is everything, and let’s establish it for this book. It was early 1941. Germany had absorbed Austria and half of Czechoslovakia (the remaining half becoming a puppet state). It had conquered Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France (puppeting part of it, occupying the rest outright). Of all those, Norway had taken longest. The USSR and Nazi Germany seemed allied, or at least friendly. Nazi warplanes were bombing the UK on a regular basis, and Kriegsmarine submarines threatened to strangle British connections to the Empire’s resources. Italian forces contended with a British Imperial force in Libya. The US was not at war, but had become something of a non-belligerent ally. Japan occupied a substantial chunk of China and was going to have to find petroleum somewhere, or else.

Dark times indeed.

Streit felt he had the solution, which was to escalate the US system up one level. Just as the thirteen original US states had more or less put aside their plentiful quarrels to form a Federal government, Streit felt that a Federal Union of mankind could begin by associating the Anglophone countries as member “states” of a greater whole. If the Germans took Britain and got the Royal Navy, he reasoned, the danger to the rest of the free world would move from severe to mortal. But if all these countries united with the pledge of never quitting until all were free and at peace, Hitler would either have to exit the war or face the mobilizing industrial might of the United States. Membership could then be offered to other non-Anglophone states, including those occupied by the Nazis, with the pledge of “we won’t quit until you’re free.”

Having advocated this solution for years well before the war broke out in Europe, Streit had thought through most of the issues and ramifications. Some he more or less glossed over as “to be dealt with later: A majority of the population governed by these states, perhaps, were not masters in their own houses; he did not propose to end apartheid and the British Raj immediately, and the colonialist chauvinism of the times is present in his outlook. He acknowledges that black Americans were not even nearly on an equal basis with whites, but doesn’t address changing that situation. He felt it quite possible that Hitler would back down rather than face such a Union (not an alliance, which Streit deprecated as temporary and fragile) alone. Japan’s intent was not known at the time, but I think he doubted Japan would square off with a united UK, US, Australia, and New Zealand. And if it came to blows, the Union would combine the best of all its sciences, locations, and populations to create a military juggernaut Japan could never overcome.

Was it viable? Perhaps, if one could get people to put aside all their comparatively minor conflicts and some major ones. With Britain standing to benefit most immediately from Union, I think Streit figured that a union with Britain looked attractive to our friendly former colonial overlords, and that the rest of the Empire would follow. He might have been right. In France’s darkest hour, Churchill offered them a political union, but the French rejected it. Churchill was still Prime Minister. Might he have advocated this, in order to assure the survival of the United Kingdom?

That telegraphs the basis of my own doubt: my cynicism about people’s willingness to put aside relatively small matters for the greater good. Every time I go to the grocery store and see a maskhole wearing it below his or her nose, or crowding me in the checkout line, I am reminded just how many people simply do not care about others. I felt that way before the pandemic and I feel more so now. Are some peoples better about it than the ones among whom I must buy food? Perhaps; perhaps not so much. I resist the tendency to imagine that people really differ at heart. Take former Yugoslavia, where not only have the former member peoples broken the country into a half dozen pieces–inflicting enormous damage and death upon each other before the matters became settled–but none of the underlying resentments and angers are gone. In fact, all have obtained new chapters of resentment and grudge. And all could join in shouting me down about it, that I misunderstand how their own people’s grudges are all legitimate and those of all the others so much noise, that I know nothing of their region and the Horrible Things Done Centuries Ago that remain unavenged. Maybe I don’t, but I do know they weren’t killing each other under Tito, and when he left, killing started. I think less killing tends to be a good thing. Prove me wrong.

The most essential key to understanding Streit’s perspective is remembering what had not happened when he wrote the book.

Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, or Singapore.
Neither the Soviet Union nor the United States were at war.
The public had not the faintest idea of the potential in nuclear weapons.
No nation had delivered the Nazi military any meaningful defeat.

A year after its publication, three of four of those ceased to be true. That’s how fast things were moving. No wonder Streit felt such urgency.

With outdated books, hindsight is an easy temptation; we have touched on some of it. Streit’s adoration of the US system as the perfect fundamental basis for Federal Union reads chauvinistic. Dismissing nearly 400 million Indians as unready to govern themselves was not calculated to please them, and glossed over the legitimate grievances of an aggregation of peoples who had done just fine until they became a “crown jewel” in someone else’s empire. We know that the war situation was about to change, and that Britain would survive the Blitz, but Streit did not. If one seeks to pick him apart, he’s no longer around to defend his proposal; he passed in 1986.

In any case, it’s worth the read not only for Streit’s take on the political and geopolitical study of it all, but for the view it provides of the way the world looked through one Montana son’s eyes in early 1941.

Editing/writing life

If you’re such a great editor, why don’t you write your own books?

August 18, 2020 jkkblog 2 Comments

We get this one a lot. There are many possible answers, and for some, multiple answers might apply.

The editor doesn’t want to. It can be as simple as that.
The editor realizes that there is more money in editing than in writing.
The editor knows that marketing is the difference between success and failure, and doesn’t like marketing. Or doesn’t mind it, but can’t or won’t do it well.
The editor has done so, either under a pen name or perhaps an unpublished work.
The editor takes more satisfaction in helping and guiding and teaching other people than in creating his or her own projects.
The editor doesn’t want the public engagement that could come with a reasonably successful book, at least not for the pittance s/he would likely earn from it.
The editor never got comfortable with the traditional publishing model (writer begs and begs, house condescends to accept the bulk of the revenue).
The editor isn’t neurotic enough to be a writer. (Okay, I’m sort of kidding. Sort of.)
Editing and writing require different skill sets and not everyone has both.
The editor hasn’t got anything original to share.
The editor is too busy helping others to focus on his/her own book.
A similar situation exists in many disciplines. Not everyone who can refinish furniture can build it. Not everyone who can repair a car can design and build a car.

Some of those apply to me to varying degrees. I’d bet some apply to most editors.

Adventures, Editing/writing life

field trip

May 30, 2020 jkkblog Leave a comment

In school, did you like field trips? I always did. I’d do anything to get the hell out of the classroom.

Today the blog is going on a field trip to Kit ‘N Kabookle, the online home of fellow traveler/colleague Mary DeSantis. She has been posting visiting editorial tips for some months now, one per week, and I’m up to bat.

For my topic, I decided to talk about choosing an editing mode beginning from the writer’s viewpoint: in plain English, what exactly is a given writer seeking from an editing professional? “I need an edit” is very inspecific. It’s like saying “I need a car repair” without talking about what’s wrong.

I always think it’s nice to know the name of what one wants, myself.

Mary’s site has plentiful information resources. She was pleasant and professional in arranging and scheduling this, and I thank her for her kind e-hospitality.

Privacy, Technology

Deceiving Facebook advertising by urinating in the data pool

December 7, 2016 jkkblog 2 Comments

Ever since the Ad Preferences thing became general knowledge, Facebook users have known a good way to feel creeped out. Yeah, we knew they would do this, and we can’t stop them.

However, I have figured out a way to ruin it, at least a little.

First off: why do that? “What part of ‘free service’ do you not understand? If you impair their ability to make money, you will no longer have a free service! You use this voluntarily! No one forces you!” Answer: because we aren’t getting paid enough. We, the users, are the product. Our compensation is not tied to the revenue we generate for a publicly traded company. Our views are the deliverable.

If Facebook were to pay us, that would be one thing, but it never will. Because it never will, it’s moral to mess up their income stream. And I laugh my head off at using Faceplant to publicize this notion.

How would one do that? At first, I though that deleting all the ad preference indicators would make sense. I then learned an odd thing: if you delete them all, they are soon repopulated with many more even if your FB usage is way down. I’ve been very busy the past couple of weeks and have spent far less time on the site. I checked last night and my “Ad Preferences” were as big a stew as I had previously accumulated (before the first Big Deletion) in years. If you delete them all, it seems, they are repopulated. Quickly. Like an ant colony.

All right. If you insist on keeping a dossier on me, I will ruin it. I will turn it into the hottest garbage I can.

Next time, don’t just delete all your ad preferences. Next time, go through them all and delete all those relevant to you: your leisure, your work, your beliefs, your hobbies, your passions. Leave only those that are complete whiffs. You like quilting? Delete any having to do with fabric. Oregon Ducks fan? There’s help for that condition, but in the meantime, keep any displayed ad preference that indicates you might like the Beavs or the Huskies. You voted for Jill Stein? Leave Joe Biden on there and remove Jill. Make sure that all the remaining preferences represent lies.

There is nothing Facebook can do about this. It amounts to urinating in the data pool. It also takes less time than deleting them all, and is much more amusing. You’re a millennial? AARP is on there? That one gets to stay! You’re a stay-at-home mom? Facebook thinks you like diaper pails? Hell, no, you do not!

Another method entails your page ‘likes.’ If you have not by now caught onto the reality that those are used to paint your advertising profile in order to sell your views to people who use words like ‘branding’ and don’t own ranches, you’re never going to. But if you have, great. Every so often, do this:

Pick a random term in which you have zero interest, and which is even whimsically stupid. A perfectly healthy 20something? “Colonoscopy.” A non-drinker? “Scotch.” An atheist? “Baptist Church.” It can be something like “boot soles,” “glassware,” or “potassium chloride,” even “nickelback.” The only rule is that it have nothing to do with the person you truly are.

Search on that term, winnow it down to Pages, and Like the first twenty or so that you come across. Every so often, pick a new term and do this some more. If one turns out to be a fountain of crap, you can unfollow it without unLiking it. All of this feeds into the profile they create about you. If they are going to market you, this will damage their marketing.

I still see feed items related to “durian,” but I’d rather see those than know I did nothing to strike back.

Have fun. We may not win the privacy war, but some of us will fight it just for enjoyment and pride.

Social comment

Reaching my caturation point

February 24, 2013 jkkblog 2 Comments

I’m caturated.

On a fundamental level, I like cats. That is not to say I find their depredations cute, want to pamper them, feel like carrying on conversations with them, or need to bomb your Facebook wall with cat pictures. No, it’s more basic. If the cat comes over to me, I’ll try to pet it, unless it tries to hurt me. If the cat ignores me, I’ll ignore it. If the cat accepts petting, I’ll keep it up. If it tries to harm me, I’ll brush it away. If it wants to play a game of entice-and-ignore, I’ll ignore the whole thing. But if the cat wants a normal relationship, in which it comes over for attention and leaves when it’s tired of attention, we’re harmonic.

It’s the cat people who are caturating me. I’m not talking about people who simply have cats. Like I said, I like cats. I’m talking about worlds where the cats occupy the top of the pyramid of priority, fascination and goodness, with human beings ranking as serfs lacking the right to object. Ever. We rank somewhere below field mice on this pyramid, since a field mouse is at least a fun cat toy.

Specifically: I don’t get the masochism. Cat threw up on your pizza? So cuuuuuuuuuute! Cat destroyed your mom’s wedding dress? Look at the kitty! Cat just hanging around doing nothing? Carry on a conversation with it, preferably using baby talk! Cat just walked through the litter box and across your kitchen counter? Isn’t this just the cutest thing, she’s ready for her hourly caviar treat! Cat just found a way to slash your femoral artery as punishment for a slight delay in giving attention, and you’re bleeding out? Ohhhh, woookada wittwe snwookums! Cat laid down on your couch? Post to Facebook immediately–the world must see this cat, for it is laying on a couch, which no cat has ever done in this exact posture, and which is utterly fascinating! Cat walks across dinner table while eating? Well, what are you waiting for? Duh! Give Precious access to your plate! Cat shed fine white hairs all over the $500 navy blue business suit you just bought? Isn’t this wonderful! Just got up at 1 AM to pee, and stepped right in a slimy hairball, falling and breaking your femur? Naughty kitty–while I am in rehab, I will adopt three more to keep me company!

Now, I do not dislike anyone for this. Truly. I try just to look past it, or tune it out, and mostly to shut up about it. If people think all this is fun and fascinating, then they do, and I don’t have to understand. I just have to accept it, but in turn, I need to sidestep as much of it as I gracefully can.

The job of authors is to give voice to that which other people are feeling, but have not yet themselves found the words to express. With that, I propose some additions to the English lexicon, which is already more bloated than a ten-day-dead herd of water buffalo in a tropical summer:

To caturate: to saturate with cat details. “Cousin Winifred hates cats. She is evil, and we want her to go stay in a motel. Let us caturate her until she leaves.”

Caturation: variant of above, an overload of cat details. “I just hid two more people from my news feed due to reaching my caturation point.”

Caturbation: reveling in cat information, pics, hair, hair balls, litter clumps, videos, destruction, whims, genital self-licking, piles of puke, fickleness, and all matters catastic: otherwise unbearable or boring–but because they are associated with a cat, more wonderful than a bases-clearing double, a grilled salmon filet or the sudden news that a terminally ill child has somehow recovered and is now cancer-free.

Catastrophe: any slight thwarting or denial of a cat’s every whim. Considered animal abuse, and grounds for reporting to the authorities. Also can apply to a situation where no cat pictures or worship have been posted for two hours or more.

Catankerity: feline fickleness. “Fluffy is catankerous today. I wanted to pet her, and she tried to rip out my corneas. Isn’t she wonderful?”

Catotage: feline sabotage of everything you love. “Snwookums just bit through my DSL patch cable! Naughty Snwookums–I will rush out and get a wireless router, so that nothing will impede my posting of fifty new cat pictures!”

Catchet: the fundamental awesomeness, cachet if you will, of Permanent Cat Serfdom. “Aunt Edna has great catchet. She prepares a special grilled chicken chunk to her cat’s exact tastes every two hours, night and day. I’ll never equal her.”

Cateteria: dining area in which cats are pampered with special treats. No kibbles allowed, unless of course the cat demands them.

Catculation: the feline’s careful analysis of what he or she can get away with. Which, of course, is all actions, since all actions by cats are fundamentally acceptable, moral, cute and delightful. However, the cat does not always realize this, or it would not waste time catculating.

Catlendar: the pampering schedule. Rigorously enforced. Failure to pamper on schedule is borderline animal abuse, and can make you an outcatst from the Cat Worship Club.

Catvary: the metaphorical hill with the crosses, where cat owners suffer and bleed for the greater cause of catpture. (cat rapture). Normally, the living room.

Cateo: a cat’s cameo appearance to be photographed and posted on as many social networks as possible. Keep a camera in your pocket at all times, and your iDoodad handy–the moment is fleeting, and the world must know.

Catera: the photography device dedicated to the cat, and to him/her alone. Must never be used for any other, lesser purpose, lest it lose its holiness and become a measly, mundane camera.

Catdidate: potential cat for adoption into your Cat Worship Congregation (family). All cats not owned by anyone else fall into this category, since one can never have too many cats. Duh.

Catonese: type of Chinese food prepared specially for the cat. Naturally, each cat requires a different dish. (Cat owner eats Top Ramen.)

Caticle: liturgical hymn sung in praise of cat behavior. Twice daily is the norm.

Catharsis: the process when one has not shared cat details with the world for such a time (fifteen minutes is normal) that they simply explode forth unbidden onto social media, kind of like in that alien movie where the thing emerges from her abdomen, or like Pat Buchanan ‘joining’ the Reform Party.

Catillary: small blood vessel broken several times daily when the cat responds to the owner’s love and care by making him or her bleed a little.

Catressing: the compulsive petting of a cat at all times. Even while asleep, if you’re really good.

Catilage: the tissue in your knee which you tore trying to avoid a cat which suddenly appeared right under your feet. Expendable; small price to pay for Total Cat Adoration.

Catanova: a horny tomcat. Not allowed, since all cats must be spayed or neutered, even though you would think that Complete Cat Worship would mean letting them keep their organs. Yet another contradiction.

Catechism: list of rules for humans sharing space with (i.e. fawning upon and serving with humility) one or more cats. Recite at least daily.

Cathedral: house of Cat Worship. All spaces in the house are sacred this way, just as the yard is consecrated ground.

Never let it be said I was ungenerous to cat lovers! (A special thank you to Ms. Diane Anderson, who inadvertently inspired me to write this all down, having no idea at the time that such might occur. But who, being a literary professional of the first water, will completely understand how that went.)

Editing/writing life, Married life

History lessons with my wife

February 7, 2013 jkkblog Leave a comment

So, I was mostly minding my business tonight while Deb watched Grey’s Anatomy. During a commercial, I looked up from my read of a book on the decline of the Ottoman Empire to read her a passage which I thought said a lot about Napoleon’s ability to influence peoples (though I was in fact a bit wrong about that). She said, in her outside voice as is traditional, “You don’t know history at all!”

“I don’t?”

“No. If you did, you would know that his last name was not really Bonaparte…”–I grew kind of excited–“…but Bone Together. ‘Bonaparte’ was an attempt by him to draw people away from him so he could have sex with the enemy’s women. That’s why he won the war!”

“Seriously?”

“Come at me, big daddy. Ask me anything. Bring it.”

“Okay, very well. What is the significance of Çatalhöyük?”

She fixed me with a gaze of shock and dismay. “You don’t know what Saddle Who You was? Listen and learn. When they wanted to build the Trojan Horse, they needed a saddle that could hold a lot of people. So they made one, and named it Saddle Who You, which is derived from Saddle Hookah. This enabled them to deliver rubbers.”

I looked at her and just laughed. “Rubbers?”

“Duh. Why do you think it was called the Trojan Horse?” I sat silent, like any good husband slow in the uptake. “See? You don’t know your history. Ask me anything else.”

“Fine. Who did Charles “The Hammer” Martel defeat at Poitiers?”

She looked aghast that I could be so clueless. “Charles Martel defeated Le Peu Nailé, which of course means ‘the nail.'” I cracked up again, couldn’t help it. “Keep it coming. Ask me anything.”

“Okay, dear. What was the significance of Charlotte Corday?”

A sigh. “Charlotte Corduroy, you mean. She invented pants, but they were corduroy pants. They were also called ‘whisper pants,’ and the idea was to give them to the enemy so they would whisper when they walked.”

“Really.”

“Absolutely. I’m really sad for anyone like you, with a degree in history, to be so un-knowledgeable.”

“I think you meant ‘ignorant,’ dear.”

“NO! I said ‘un-knowledgeable’ and I meant ‘un-knowledgeable!’ Now come on. Ask me another. I can see I have a lot to teach you.”

“Fine. Please name one of the Spanish explorers of North America.”

She thought for a minute, consulting her stores of learning. “Well, his name was Julio El De Massmainebostainia. There are some states named after him. He came with his wife Maria, their daughter Nina, and some pinto beans.”

At that point, there was nothing for it but to come put it on the blog.

Married life

The costs of marital compromise

December 11, 2012 jkkblog 6 Comments

This holiday season I find myself in a frame of mind to tell funny stories.

Deb and I got Fabius, a black Labrador retriever puppy, within a few months of buying the house. Most of you know that I wouldn’t willingly share my house with dogs if it were up to me. However, it’s not just up to me. Marriage means compromise or it means divorce. You can die on any hill you wish, but the problem with choosing a hill to die on is that you die there. One of life’s lessons is to learn which hills to live on rather than die.

I chose not to die on Doggy Hill. We got Fabius, who eventually grew into an 85-pound freight train of a dog with a tail like a police nightstick. If you wonder why the name, it is for Q. Fabius Maximus Verrocosus Cunctator (“Delayer”), Dictator of Rome. When we first got Fabius, he would not come on his leash at all, and I had to drag him until he got the idea: he delayed us a lot. Also, Fabius Maximus was a noble and brave Roman general who gave his all for his country, and would have given his life had it been needed. If we had to have a dog, I wanted him to see himself as Deb’s protector unto the grave.

Fabius has given us that, but he’s also given us a few other gifts he can have back. This story covers one such gift.

For whatever reason, in his middle years, Fabius was a puker. You’d find a large decoration of dog vomitus somewhere in the house, which was real bad for the carpet when his food contained kibbles colored red. Most of the time, this was Deb’s problem (that was our agreement: it’s her dog, she will handle the bulk of the care and cleanup). One night, it became my problem.

I tend to go to bed later than Deb, who insists that the dog must be permitted to sleep in our bedroom. She doesn’t mind the smell, which to me is worse than the Sunnyside feedlots. This means that when I come to bed, I’m making my way in the dark, my sense of smell overwhelmed by dog smell. I focus mostly on trying not to stick the square corner of a bedpost top into my thigh, which is very painful when you just want to lie down and go to sleep. I also react badly to sudden pains out of nowhere, simply because of a bad startle that’s been with me since my teens. Friends know not to come up behind me, for example.

So one night, I was groggy and ready to go to sleep. At that time, I did not happen to wear clothing to bed. I came into the bedroom, disrobed, and strode toward my side of the bed in the pitch darkness. All I cared about was avoiding a thigh injury. My bare foot splooshed into something cold, mushy and wet alongside the foot of the bed.

Before I could register my shock and disgust, I slipped in what felt like a square yard of dog vomit. I can’t even figure out where Fabius stored all that. The WHAM of my backside hitting the puddle coincided with the beginning of a yelled curse. I felt vomit splatter as I landed right in the middle of the stuff. Poor me, but poor Deb: awakened from deep sleep by bellowed husbandly profanity and a house-shaking impact, for I’m not a welterweight.

Of course, if she did not insist on having a dog, and did not insist that it be allowed to sleep in our bedroom, this would not have occurred. And in other fantasy worlds, if people would use their turn signals before changing lanes, a lot of accidents would not occur. We do not inhabit a fantasy world.

Deb jumped out of bed to assess the damage. There wasn’t any, except for painful bruising of my tranquility, buttocks and ego, and of course the need to get up and cleanse the carpet and surroundings of splattered dog ralph. I was not at my best husbandly composure and civility. In between vulgarities, I ordered her to clean up the offending substance and exile the dog to the kennel while I took a shower. I credit her for realizing that this was not the time for her to snarl “Don’t talk that way to me!” She kenneled Fabius and proceeded to deal with the present he had left.

I get a heavy adrenaline surge when startled, so I didn’t get to sleep easily. I didn’t laugh about it for several days. But I did learn that marital compromise does come with costs. The more important lesson was to step carefully going into the bedroom in the future.

Gods, but that was disgusting. Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

======

Postscript: just last night, marital compromise came full circle after all these years. I was indisposed, to put it delicately, atop the starship USS Sanitize. I heard a feminine yell of great, sudden dismay from the living room, penetrating walls and door. This is not a good moment, because while one will get up and rush to assistance if one must, one devoutly hopes the situation can safely wait for one to finish in an orderly manner.

“Are you all right, dear?” I yelled. No answer. Oh, damn. Louder: “Dear! Are you all right?”

From the vicinity of the hallway: “Yes. Leo just threw up all over me! He was just sitting there, and then he puked!”

That’s even worse than about three years ago, when she was on the floor sorting Christmas ornaments, and the insufferable little creature defaecated on the carpet–right next to her.

Now I’m worried it’ll be my turn soon.

Editing/writing life, Social comment

Why no politics

November 8, 2012 jkkblog 4 Comments

Those of you who visit here regularly may have noticed that we managed to get through a whole US election season without any partisan politics. I thank you all for not starting any such irritations in the comments; my affection for the readership grew in this time. But it may be useful for me to explain the many reasons behind my studious avoidance, since many of them relate to the views that fuel the writing:

I am not aligned with a major party, and am fairly bereft of faith in the process, so my rooting interest is limited to begin with. I feel that elections are something for other people to get worked up about.
This is my professional public presence. I make my living with my writing. I don’t check my readers’ political cards, and I find the notion abhorrent. If I share writing, it is for all, and whether we might agree or disagree on any issue is beside the point.
The above relates to a view I do hold strongly: one of our great problems today is political incontinence. I define this as the inability to set politics aside and work/play/eat/laugh/boff/live together in amity, caused by the inability to shut the hell up about one’s politics. Politics are like bowel movements: they’re fine in the proper places, even necessary, but the world doesn’t need a report on every last instance, nor does it need a constant flow of other people’s on display. I have determined that this must be a bastion of political continence. I know too many deeply intelligent people all over the spectrum of politics to think less of any person based purely on a political stance. It is important to me that no one walk away from here feeling litmus-tested, and to fulfill that mission requires strict political continence, which must begin with me.
If I started the discussion, it would become a fight, because I am a fierce and passionate man. I have seen how many people have behaved over politics in the past year, and many of the types of things people have said would be things they couldn’t take back–it would not be my way to let them. I also might respond with words I couldn’t take back, and being me, I probably would not want to back down. Know thyself, especially thine weaknesses. Whatever gain could be had from allowing that, well, it eludes me. Who could I blame but myself, were I to open that door? It would all be beside the point, which is that I am here to represent my writing to the world, not bicker. There are other places I could bicker, if so minded.
People need oases from politics at the best of times. These are not the best of times, and in these, they need oases that much more. People need good places, and I’ve striven to craft one.
I have never made a pronouncement/demand that commenters avoid politics, because I didn’t need to. The blog seems to have drawn people of good political continence. If I had to, I suppose I would, though the reflex of just deleting the political comments might be enough to send the message. It is fatuous to come out all bombastic against a problem that does not and likely will not exist. “Okay, thanks for that. What’s next, a proscription outlawing all living velociraptors? No mammoths allowed to post on the blog?”
The blog has taught me that social comment is possible without overt political commentary. At the outset, I wondered if this would be the case, and how to handle it.
Politics tends to bring on the sin of bloviation. Blogging should not be bloviatory.
Confession: I’m not really that knowledgeable about politics, nor do I think most people are. It’s my view that most people who take to political pulpits really don’t and can’t know the facts, because most people would not invest the time. They would take the word of news articles, or their favorite websites, even simply take the headlines and not read the articles. If I find myself having to guard against that, I must assume I’m not the only one. Therefore, my default assumption is that most of what I see is baloney based upon baloney: unsubstantiated conclusions based on unchecked, taken-for-granted suppositions. It is impossible for everyone to check everyone’s references, or even all of one’s own; there simply isn’t enough time. We do have substantial reason to believe one thing: that a lot of what we read and hear and watch is misleading, either by journalistic sloth or by design. I once heard a co-worker, a pretty bright guy, take issue with my questioning of some version of events. His argument: “But it was on the network news! Of course it’s true!” With that statement, it became evident that our world views were parallel. There’s a word that gets misused. What does it mean? Two lines are parallel only if they can never touch. ‘Parallel thinking’ doesn’t mean agreement, despite how people throw it around. His thinking and mine emanated from such different fundamental assumptions that common ground was elusive.

So, from deep inside me, thank you for keeping us free of partisan crap here at the ‘Lancer. Thank you for reading, commenting, liking, visiting, and for motivating me to write. When I begin to conceive a blog post, I am asking myself: “How will this inform, uplift, entertain?” I have aborted quite a few posts because they didn’t supply good answers to that question. Thanks for being the reasons for the question.

The Editorial Maverick