Edit This

Does anyone edit anymore? By anyone I mean editors, and by editors, I mean those ladies and gents at the big houses.

I'm reading lost boy, lost girl by Peter Straub, and bammo, right in the middle of the book, he slips out of the 3rd person omniscient narration for a paragraph of 1st person confessional. I read and reread the section: did I miss a piece of dialogue? Was I confused? No?

It seems this slip of perspective was purely accidental. Ouch. I haven't mentioned the unnecessary insertions of exposition. Talk about show vs. tell.

It's a good book, all in all. I won't run out to snatch A Dark Matter off the new releases table, though. I'm not sure Straub is my style. Too dense and forced at times...maybe that's an editing issue, too.

I've heard rumblings that editors (at the big houses) don't edit anymore. Usually, a writer and agent make this happen (once a writer has an agent); unagented writers edit themselves until landing said agent, and then...

So is this gossip or truth, sour grapes or reality?

The Act of Creation is an Expression of Madness

Les vielles (The Old Ladies)

Francisco de Goya

I'm crazy. Bonafide.

If writing is a business, I failed a long time ago. Think of the simple cost/benefits analysis: how much time have I spent writing, revising, reading...only to produce a few stories which truly work. And the money? (Go ahead, point and laugh)

Art is not business. Oh yes, it can be, but it isn't just by its nature alone. You can buy a print (technically a poster if you're in the "know") of Goya's painting. Someone will make a profit, but it won't be Goya. Someday, we might read J.D. Salinger's works from the vault, but he won't make a cent. (If you have never read Catcher in the Rye, do it. Just because.)

I don't grudge anyone making money with creative endeavors. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with being paid for art. But art is not business.

Art is basic.

Creation is primal.

It strikes at the core of being human.

I write to create. I may never have an agent, a major publishing deal, a bestseller...but if I keep creating, I win. It's the only game in which I get to make up the rules.

(click on the painting above for a big, scary version)

#fridayflash Poe's Basement

"Damn, Jack. I told you we should have rolled him up in the carpet first."

"We still can. You have no imagination."

I step away from the spreading pool of blood. "No, dumbass. If you wrap him first and shoot through the rug, it doesn't splatter so much. Easier clean up."

Jack runs a hand through his hair."Oh. Right. Sorry."

"Look, we gotta do something with this mess." I wave the gun toward the kitchen. "What's in there?"

A smile crawls across his lips. "Oh, I get it. Stairway to the basement." Jack nods. "Like that Poe story, right?"

"Not Poe again."

"The basement...we can hide the body down there. Poe used that one, too. 'The Black Cat' I think." Jack grabs Mr. Body's feet and pulls him across the hardwood, leaving a thick streak in his path.

"For fuck's sake, you're making it worse."

Jack pauses. "What?"

"The blood, dumbass. We gotta clean up."

His stare shifts from the blood to the body to me. "That's what the fire is for."

"Fire? Jeeee-sus."

Jack shakes his head. "Don't you read anything?"

__________

Remember, remember why they used the blender?

Sunshine This, Mr. Delany

Here I am, your big, cloudy ray of sunshine. Thanks to the magnificent Cate Gardner for the bestowment of the award. And yes, I know "bestowment" is not a word (thank you, Firefox, for pointing that out).

Now comes the part where I bestow the award on two deserving visitors to this blog. Quite frankly, you all rock. Each time one of these awards floats my way, I feel like the dude on stage at the Oscars, yammering away all the names I can while they start to play music and drag me off stage. So there. If you have ever commented on this blog, I award you with a little sunshine. 'cause you are. I wouldn't have continued writing so long without any of you. I know I cheat. I know it's no fun. But I did it anyway.

Maybe because I'm this dude:

I am: Samuel R. "Chip" Delany Few have had such broad commercial success with aggressively experimental prose techniques.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Yeah, I'd never heard of Samuel R. "Chip" Delany, which isn't saying much, but I'm evidently a black science fiction writer with a great bushy beard. Take that, experimental prose and all.

One of the questions on the quiz made me think about the nature of art, and I'm building up a good head of steam to discuss that in depth on Monday. Stay tuned, dear friends.

WIP Wednesday: I Can't Handle the Truth

Why do I get so worked up about the cost of books? (see the previous two posts) It's not like I have some major book deal and stand to gain/lose.

But I do love stories. I've written about that before, right?

Stories have life which stretches beyond the now. Stories can have life which stretches far beyond an author's. Stories are often the casualties of money grabs, even though words don't really belong to anyone or any business entity. Go ahead and fleece writers and readers. I have to believe they will find a way without you.

Okay, enough of that esoteric BS for now. I'm still stuck in short story mode despite the YA novel idea that has been knocking around in my skull like a marble in a metal can for the past few months. I hope to use short story mode to my advantage, buidling background for the novel by writing a flash story for each of the first tier characters. We shall see how that works. Maybe I can shift in March and make this novel happen.

For now, I give you a moment from "The Ghosts of Old Milford":

The others backed away—McHenry back to his loader to carry away the debris, but Nathan moved closer to the hole, remembering. His boots cracked fragments of glass and shards of wood as he stepped on the old floorboards. He counted back in his memory. Thirteen years. He was seven then, when they found the hole for the first time. Seven. He was seven when the men came back, looking for the opening under the floor, and they couldn’t find it. He wanted to look away, but the memory held him: the last time he saw Bobby Talbot’s face, white like a plastic mask at the craft shop, slipping into the black square as his fingers burned and ached and dropped the rope.

I also have a post up at Flash Fiction Chronicles today, more of me rambling about publishing ideas: Self-Publishing in the Era of Self-Publishing.