Variety: spice of life, or dangerous addiction?

I was going to start with a different question, but it prompted yet another question (dontcha love it when your mind just won't take "no" or "enough's 'nuff" for an answer?)...

so, whattaya think? Is variety truly the spice of life, or is it an endless quest for tantalization?

Okay, now that you've had a chance to think about that...the orig question(s):

Do you like to stick with just one genre of reading? What invites you to try something different? I need to know these answers, as a writer whooz trying to figger out ways to unobnoxiously, in fact, to charmingly and winsomely market my works...I'd deeply apprec yr comments.

Oh, and that bridges to another critical query--what moves you when buying books as gifts?

Okay, that's enough questions. My answers:
1. I think some variety is indeed the spice 'o life...but, a spice is not nourishing, it's just a little accentuation added to the principal ingred!
2. Ergo, our consumeristic culture, our crazed media, all are so addicted to variety, to change, to "new and diff and exciting," that they're selling mostly condiments and accretions.
3. I read several diff genres because I wanna be a Renaissance man, schooled in everything!
4. Gift buying--I'm the shopper who looks at something and says, "Aha, that is perfect for X-relative/friend." And if it's not gonna be warmly embraced, then buy something they can eat or drink or use up. But gifts for the sake of gifting? Bah, humbug.
5. Best Books ever...sez who? http://thegreatestbooks.org/

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY, part 6: The Grand Finale. Or, not?

 

“Writing a book is an adventure.  To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.”

    --Winston Churchill--

 

Well, Sir Winnie is right. Again.

 

Once I've done my second or third reading, looking for grammar, spelling, and sentences that just go "thud," I mail the thing off.

 

A crazed entity called an editor then makes changes. So far, most of the changes have been wrong. That's right: mistaken, erroneous, faulty, specious, spurious, and defective. Words were struck from the text (okay, I confess--I can be wordy) without adjustment of verb/noun/adjective, so the residue, whilst shorter, is grammatically incorrect. Or, a stray comma or period was introduced after an edit.

 

One editor (at a thankfully now-defunct press) took on the following that I had penned for JOURNEY TO THE HEART OF GOD (still available from me):

 

"Jesus said:

      --love one another,

      --serve one another,

      --now, go and do this."

 

The newly edited version read:

 

"Jesus said to love one another. Jesus said to serve one another. He then told us to go and do this."

 

You tell me...is that "editing" in any positive sense of the verb? Apparently, he never moved beyond his third-grade teacher's dictum to always write in complete sentences.

I told the editor, "A love a affair with the complete sentence is a good thing. Generally."

 

The same editor  perfectly reversed the meaning of another sentence in that book. I didn't think it was a badly-composed sentence, but there was something that pushed a button for the editor, and they "edited." I steamed and stewed, ranted and raved, fussed and fumed. After this "editing," I replied with a four-page, single-spaced list of my corrections to the editing...perhaps 20% of which was response to constructive change...that's right, about 80% was clean-up of their introduced errors. I've still got the letter, it steamed me so!

 

So, what's the process...when there's one of these "edits" every page or two?
--do a side by side comparison, both documents open. Find what was changed/deleted/added/questioned.
--Ah, yes, questions--thank you, thank you--when they're asking questions, there's usually a good reason, and a need for me to clarify, simplify, expand, or delete.

--Next, repair any damages, or rework as they suggested...then, thank them for pointing out the need for clarification, as moi always knew what moi intended but it wasn't always gonna be clear to the reader.

 

Submit the changes. Review their next draft, where some of my edits were accepted, and some not. Come up with arguments to support my grammar...oh, editors don't seem to like commas. Strange, because sometimes a panda merely "eats shoots and leaves," but you'd better watch out if it "eats, shoots, and leaves." And, grammarians are divided about the usage of the second comma, "eats, shoots, and leaves." I think it sets off the action better than, "...eats, shoots and leaves." 

 

By the time I get through arguing over commas, colons, (oh, I do try to not overuse the semicolon--being a bit of an academic pedant, it's easy to overdo), and sentence fragments, I'm at a rolling boil. I try to sit on my replies for 24 hours so that the cloud of steam has a chance to blow away. Not a bad strategy for any angry letter, response, or rebuttal.

 

So, by the end of the process, I am one with Sir Winston: cast the beast loose! I care not to ever lay eyes on it again--begone wi'ye!

 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 

PS: Of course there are great editors out there. Sadly, I've not yet worked with one.

PPS: David, beware hubris.

PPPS: I am...I'm just a fussy word-smithing grammarian from the outset. So, unless the editor is a FUSSIER word-smithing ultra-grammarian, I'll be arguing.

PPPPS: David, beware hubris.

 

 

 

 

Fantasy? Fantastic!

Fantasy.

What do you think of when you read that word?

Faeries? (of the classical sort?

...or, Tinkerbelle?

Hobbits, orcs, ents?

Talking carnivorous plants (Little Shop of Horrors)?

Space aliens who are thwarted only when reluctant heroes ally themselves with the village idiot (Dreamcatcher, S. King)?

My mind goes straight-way to Tolkien and CSLewis. Okay, shows my age, I know. Madeleine l'Engle just wasn't that popular when I was in those formative years as a reader. The greats of sci-fi were popular, so I read lotsa Asimov, Pohl, Bradbury...but, where does sci-fi stop and fantasy begin? I didn't catch up with Tolkien and Lewis' fantasies until college, courtesy of a close friend who became even closer over the yrs (she made a darn fine mother of our children...and she and I still read a lotta the same stuff together!)

Last month, I read: a mystery, a poetry collection, a romance, 2 biographies/memoires, 2 literary novels, a non-fiction (THE YR 1000: history of England), and two thrillers. In my mind, the wider or more old-fashioned definition of fantasy embraces almost all of these works--they are the works of the writers' imaginations--even the non-fiction still requires inventiveness and aptitude with phrases and creative ways of presenting history that made it that book a fun, lively read--so fun, I read several ppghs aloud while Elizabeth (pretended to?) listened as she cooked.

Do you like to stick with just one genre of reading? What invites you to try something different? I need to know these answers, as a writer and marketer of my works...I'd deeply apprec yr comments.

Oh, and that bridges to another critical query--what moves you when buying books as gifts...but, more on that for another day.

Again, pls take a sec to comment, below. Thnx, D.

A Well-composed Book: Magic Carpet or Tribute to Perseverance?

A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.

 

Caroline Gordon, author, critic.

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A well-composed melody or another work of art does the same, imho. But, isn't it fascinating: what I consider well-composed is someone else's compost!

Here are some examples of great authors who didn't give up, despite being compost-piled by (idiotic) publishers:

After 5 years of continual rejection, the writer finally lands a publishing deal: Agatha Christie. Her book sales are now in excess of $2 billion. Only William Shakespeare has sold more.
 
The Christopher Little Literary Agency receives 12 publishing rejections in a row for their new client, until the eight-year-old daughter of a Bloomsbury editor demands to read the rest of the book. The editor agrees to publish but advises the writer to get a day job since she has little chance of making money in children’s books. Yet Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone spawns a series where the last four novels consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history, on both sides of the Atlantic, with combined sales of 450 million.
 
Louis L’Amour received 200 rejections before Bantam took a chance on him. He is now their best ever selling author with 330 million sales.
 
“Too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.” A rejection letter sent to Dr Seuss. 300 million sales and the 9th best-selling fiction author of all time.
 
“You have no business being a writer and should give up.” Zane Grey ignores the advice. There are believed to be over 250 million copies of his books in print.
 
140 rejections stating “Anthologies don’t sell” until the Chicken Soup for the Soul series by Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen sells 125 million copies.
 
Years of rejection do not break his spirit. He only becomes more determined to succeed. When he eventually lands a publishing deal, such is the demand for his fiction that it is translated into over 47 languages, as The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis goes on to sell over 100 million copies.
 
“It is so badly written.” The author tries Doubleday instead and his little book makes an impression. The Da Vinci Code sells 80 million.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

 

As Sir Winston said--Never, never, never...don't ever give up.

 

PS: do you really need anything else said, some little spoon-fed summary or a pretty pink bow? If you cannot figger out some application for yourself, all by yourself...aw, heck, you read this fah...I think you got it!

 

Endless Possibilities.

cited in THE YELLOW-LIGHTED BOOKSHOP by Lewis Buzbee, p. 3.

   Standing in the middle of [any bookshop]...I can't help but feel the possibility of the universe unfolding a little, once upon a time.

   Or, as Stephen King stated, on being told by his Mom, "Stevie, write your own stories..."

  --I saw a world of endless possibilities open up before me. [S.K.]

=-=-=-=-=-=

That, to me, is the essence of both writing and of reading--it's open-ended. Completely and utterly full of potential. Reach in with both hands and grab!

Only one problem...shall I read now, or shall I write?

The Story Behind the Story: part 5. EDIT/REWRITE. AKA: Murder!

 

Kill your darlings.

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Editing: writer's bane and blessing.

It's easy to fall in love with my words...after all, I dreamed the dream and then crafted the tale. They're my words, used to make the dream visible to others...I'd better love 'em!

Problem: more ain't always better..."But, let me make myself perfectly clear by adding that there are times when a judicious word here or there actually renders greater clarity..."

Hah! The author's patron saint needs to should be  is Les Izmore. The favorite surgical instrument the scalpel, not the suture and needle.

William Faulkner is credited with the quote, "In writing, you must kill all your darlings."

By that, he not only means characters whom you love but whose utility to the story line has long ago ended, but also those lovely turns of phrase that flow trippingly off the tongue, blessing the reader with alliterative or allusive attribution that demonstrate your wit, style, humor, and prowess with the pen. Ahem, keyboard.

[An even better ppgh: By that he means, get rid of no-longer-useful characters as well as extra words or pretty phrases. Ruthlessly.]

Now, I dearly wish Mr. Faulkner had taken his own advice--recently, I tried rereading something of his him...I so wanted yearned to take out the blue pen and strike out ten or twenty or forty percent of the verbiage. Felt like I was wading waist-deep. In molasses.

Not that every writer can or should be Hemingway: "Nick entered the woods. The day was warm. It was good."

That said--may Hemingway's spirit live on. Faulkner deserves highest grades for creativity, local color, and characters...but his editing? far from such a high grade.

In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, write (paint, sculpt, sing, invent, create) a lot. Days or weeks later, delete all the crap and fluff. If you have anything left at all--huzzah!

Ah, good point. The critical part of our mind needs time to sift, filter, and assess. Going into editorial mode too quickly, we're more likely to mount a defensive action: "Nah, that's a good phrase, it builds the tension...not bad. I like it."

A week or two later, one might be able to say, "Wordy. Prune it a bit and rewrite. No--actually, just lop it right off."

Sorta like pruning a vine or fruit tree--if in doubt, cut it out.

In sum:
--creative, brilliant, insightful writing is half the battle;
--decisive, cold, and bold editing...that's the other, winning half of the battle!

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- ===== -- -- -- -- -- -- --

All that glitters is not gold.

(Wm. Shkspr. The Merchant of Venice.)



 

I Imagine, therefore, something is!

PHANTASY

"Remarkably, in the ancient traditions, the imagination or "phantasy" was considered a sense. In that psychology, in the detailed summary of Robert Burton's 1620 Anatomy of Melancholy, in addition to the outward senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch,
we have three inward senses: the Common Sense, Memory, and Phantasy. Burton stated:

Phantasy, or imagination...is an inward sense which doth more fully examine the species perceived by common sense, of things present or absent, and keeps them longer, recalling them to mind again, or making new of his own.

This old idea of imagination as a sense that produces "monstrous and prodigious things by recombining and re-forming the more orderly perceptions of memory and the other senses. As in dreams, the ingredients are familiar but the new reality is not."

--from: Robert Pinsky's SINGING SCHOOL: Learning to Write (and Read) Poetry by Studying with the Masters. 2013. pg 148.

. . . . . . .

I like "monstruous and prodigious things" --guess that's why I write fiction and poetry and am a Stephen King fan...and a Dean Koontz fan...and CSLewis and Tolkien and Asimov and...you get the drift.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I traveled far and wide today

   I did not take a cab

I took neither bus nor car

   nor trip on substance from a lab.

I rode in comfort, but not by train,

   nor boat nor aeroplane.

Departure...arrival--by seconds parted:

   Yes, I got there, as soon as I started.

No luggage, no seatbelt,

   and no need for "security,"

I arrived by conveyance

   of eld, not futurity.

Yes, book in my lap

   and others beside

I tip my cap

   to my magical ride.

--DLS 11/9/13



It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Henry David Thoreau

What did you see today?

I saw people paying rapt attention in church.

I saw people leave a wonderful concert at intermission--and not return.

I saw the sun reach its arms up over the mountainous horizon, steady itself, then throw itself into the morning sky, showering the land with pure, malleable gold!

Old H. D. Thoreau's quote makes me think of Simon and Garf..."people hearing w/o listening...writing songs that voices never share..."

I saw a friend, grinning at me like one or both of us was a pure nut-case...likely true--both!

----

Now for a serious thought--we often look and do not see,

but we still have hope that those who have honed the sharp edges of their eye/mind/heart/soul

will look and hear and see and listen,

and then convert that into....

 

poetry

prose

sculpture

visual imagery

etc.