 |
Oh I know, you think I'm mad for heaping good wishes upon such a dastardly group of 'literary demons,' but hey, they're not all bad. I too have had those pompous, self-indulgent few who have reduced me to a homicidal state over their opinionated dissection of a piece of my work, but I've also had those who have been a joy to work with. Those editors that have offered suggestion and direction that helped me to enrich my work rather than slice it to shreds with a red pen. I openly admit that I am guilty of run on sentences, I put 'e' before 'i' (or is that 'i' before 'e'?), and my use of the apostrophe drives people nuts, but there were determined editors that made me aware of it with a sizable measure of compassion. I'm human and I still make the same mistakes, but at least now I know I'm doing it and respect the assistance I get from a good and humane editor. I've always loved to write, but I've always been terrible with grammar and punctuation and continue to struggle with it to this day. The one thing I've learned, which has made my life much easier to live, is that there are trained professionals who are far better at the rules of writing than I can ever hope to be. I continue to be aware of the rules, but now I concentrate more on the words and images and less on the way it's supposed to be put together on the page. I now rely on editors to set me straight and make me look good to the reader. Giving up the idea that I was going to someday learn everything I needed to know about grammar and punctuation has been a wonderful burden lifted from my writer's soul. Now I just spew all sorts of ideas, images, and themes onto the page ever mindful that someday soon an editor will be cleaning up all the imperfections for me. Ain't life grand? I've found a lot of editors to be published authors or are caught up in the ongoing process of becoming published authors, yet in the meantime they pay the mortgage with the wages earned as editors. I think some resent it and it makes them grumpy and hard to deal with. Others seem to love the process of poking through the lines looking for the debris left behind by the sloppy or unknowledgeable writer; more power to them is what I say. I'm told, for I haven't had the opportunity to find out first hand, that the relationship between a writer and a good (read as humane and sympathetic) editor is one that can approach near bliss. I have a feeling that people like Stephen King and Dean Koontz or Billy Collins and Nina Giovanni all have these sort of editors offering suggestions and tidying up the loose ends for them; a good reason for a part of their on-going success too, I can imagine. The next time you get one of those preprinted 'rejection letters' from some faceless editor at a magazine publisher or publishing house, go ahead and be upset, grind your teeth, but remember that if you stay at it long enough you're going to make a friend. You're going to find an editor who will take you by the hand and walk you through the pitfalls of the literary format, through the jungle and quicksand of misplaced punctuation and gruesome grammar and end up being a 'friend,' or at least the closest thing you'll find to one in the dog eat dog world of published writers. By the way, if you happen to fit this description
as an editor with a big heart and a lot of clout, call me…I've
got all kinds of stuff for you to look at! Who is this Guy RCat? Currently, his duties include acting as the head of a family consisting of an overworked wife, a vibrating teenaged son, and an over stimulated housecat. An elder daughter resides at some distance with her own family; a husband, two sons, and a daughter. As head of this merry band of pranksters, the illusionary aspects of his carefree life are played out on the stage of daily routine. RCat is a self described "survivor," having lived through the "flower power" promises of the 1960's with the goals of world peace, universal brotherhood, free-love, and the legalization of certain organic herbs. Contrary to what others might say, he can still remember parts of it quite vividly. Sadly, those cosmic issues have now been reduced to the cliché. He now, more realistically, understands the world has gone quite mad and no longer cares to be a part of the continuing descent into oblivion. The thought of putting on a loincloth to venture forth and live out his days meditating in a tall tree in a distant forest sounds appealing. Of course, he isn't kidding himself. Chances are a noisy bunch of cretins will quickly invade the tree next to him. Ah well, such is the way of this planet we call home. In the meantime, he scribbles poetry, short stories, and essays, as well as a choppy stream of drawings, cartoons and works of art. All done with a grin as meditative mental therapy in an effort to hold onto what little remains of his sanity. Enjoy him while you can, he is the quintessential endangered species. Send RC a message either directly. For more from RCat visit the Word Catalyst archives or his online home. HTML Comment Box is loading comments...
|
|
|||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
|
  |
Here's one for you: May the promise of joy, happiness,
and prosperity come to pass for anyone who is, or ever was, an
editor.
R.
C. Arquette, "RCat" to friends and fellow writers,
is an aging hippie and practicing curmudgeon. He was dragged
into the world, kicking and screaming, back in the middle of
the last century; 1950 to be exact. His outburst clearly showed
his disdain for reality at the earliest of stages. He grew up
living in the sub-tropical splendor of the "Sunshine State,"
Florida, US of A, where he attended Jr. College and after twenty
years received his AA degree; what can I say, life kept getting
in the way.
Higher Ground
Cheshire Cat
Truly Calhoun
Songs of