Where Personal and Professional Life Collide...

Editing a short story this morning (wearing my freelancer hat), and I am reminded that there is a distinct difference between "not well-written" and "not how I would have written this story." The reader may have an opinion, the writer will certainly judge against their own inclinations, but the editor - even as a reader and a writer - must understand where you have no say on the story's choices, must think not subjectively about the work, but objectively.

It is not your work. You must accept the choices made by the author, even as you nudge them into ways to clarify or strengthen those choices.

This is an interesting balancing act, and one that creates an ongoing dialogue in my head between editor & writer, even as I'm working on the project....



[this is one of the things that makes editing - or deep beta-ing - so useful to the writer. When you can slip into an editorial mindset like that, it allows you to see your own weaknesses and work on them as well. And, likewise, when you see something positive, you can bring it into your own toolbox, suitably McGyvered for your own style and needs. Ideally, anyway. In theory. ;-)]

*blinks* Just figured one bit out, and the rest of the scene -- and follow-up -- fell into place. I LOVE those moments...

However, dear brain? If, when I first put that bit in, you had told me WHY it was there.... Oh never mind. It's a good bit, and now I know what to do with it.


ETA: oh god, this book sucks. It's so not what I wanted, it's nowhere near good enough, it will fall down on its nose and disappoint every reader... (grabs woe-voice and stuff it back into sack where it belongs)

ETA2: 2/3 done and I think I've fixed the stuff that was broken and maybe broken some stuff in the doing, but hey, that's what we have editors for, to point that stuff out and make us feel like idiots. And the manuscript has gone from 114,000 words to 101,000 words, so ooops?

Three ways I know it's autumn:

- the urge to cook returns full-force.
- I take the oversized fleecy sweatshirts out of the cedar chest and hang them within easy reach.
- when I wake up in the morning, I close the window in the office. Because brrrr, even with socks and a sweatshirt. Lovely. And no, I don't mean that ironically. Summer's over, and I'm not at all displeased.

Unlike the past two weekends of social frivolity, the plan for the next 72 hours is to stay close to home and knock things off the to-do list. My editors and agent will no doubt be pleased to hear this. (EtA: so pleased, they just piled more on my plate. *sighs, reaches for delivery menus* It's gonna be one of Those Weekends....)

And yes, I know it's International Talk like a Pirate Day. I'd make an investment banker joke, but my heart's just not in it, this year. So instead, here's a bit of a pirate story.

( from 'Mad Cats and Englishmen' )

Take the book seriously. Not yourself.

(no real anecedote behind this, just a reminder my brain gave me this morning I figured I'd pass along to anyone who hadn't gotten there yet, or might have forgotten)

EtA: also, I hear rumors that FREE FALL got not-unkind things said about it in this month's Locus. Anyone got a copy?

....Early in the morning, deep inside the building, rising through the grates, came the terrible sound. *Ka-Thump!Ka-thump!Ka-thud!*

"Momma Two Legs," Boomer cried, his tail fluffed and his whiskers worried. "What is it? Will it eat me? Should I attack?"

"Silly Boomer," Momma Two Legs said. "It's nothing to fear, merely the dragon that sleeps within the building, awakening with a bump and a stir."

"But will it eat me," Boomer worried, for he was a boy of small and focused brain.

"It will not eat you," Momma Two Legs said. "It has no interest in cats, but eats dogs instead. That is why we have none in the building."



Somewhere there's a story in that. *pokes brain* Let's get to that soonish, shall we? *brain pokes back* As soon as you finish all the stuff you've already promised people, sure, we'll hop right on that. Sheesh. Have some more coffee, Gilman, and get to work.

How suri observes Christmas Eve:

Perfectly poaching the biggest damn slab of coho salmon ever seen. Yum, and also, yum. The felines are circling like furry sharks. Half of the salmon will be turned into my justifiably drooled-after salmon mousse spread for tomorrow afternoon. The other half? Has scrambled eggs and hash browns in its very near future, ohyes.

Meanwhile, scones are packed for travel, cookies are cooling on racks, and I have been gifted with the most marvelous story to share with you on this dark winter night...

-------------------------------

"A New Christmas Spirit, or, What the Dickens?"

"To advance this tale it must be understood by all that I have been, off and on and for much of my life, a bookseller. And I am as prone as most others of that breed to fanciful notions and antique behavior.

So you will appreciate that when I dressed up that Christmas Eve, it was not at all unusual and it was in fact my habit and practice to do so for the weeks preceding each Christmas day. Clad in tailcoat, weskit and tophat, with ascot and stickpin, every bit the Victorian gentleman, I would greet customers into the store. I was always happy to bring a smile to holiday-stressed faces, and over the years the customers came to expect and appreciate my costuming. For those who inquired as to why I was garbed so I would reply:  "Why, to reflect the spirit of the season, of course!" And to those who inquired as to my identity, I would say that I was representing the spirit of Charles Dickens.

So it was that when Patricia and I were headed home on that Christmas Eve, after playing elf and delivering presents, I was still garbed as Dickens.

There is a wonderful tradition in parts of New Mexico:  on some important holidays, especially Halloween (Day of the Dead) and Christmas Eve, people decorate the graves of their loved ones. The graves are tidied and fresh flowers are set out, as are offerings of food and drink. On Christmas Eve small gifts, cards, and trees are left as well. And luminaria are set out around the graves, candle glow lending soft light to the cemetery. (On one night, the thought of which still brings tears to my eyes, we saw a mass of luminaria on a distant grave; on closer approach, we found that they spelled out "Love You".)

It is our custom to visit the cemetery late on Christmas Eve, to walk among the graves and witness the care given in honor of departed loved ones. On this particular Christmas Eve, we drove slowly through the parking lot of the cemetery to get an overall view, then headed up a short service road (amusingly and appropriately signed as a "Dead End") that heads up a slight rise beside the cemetery, to get another view.

To our surprise, there was a medium-sized Christmas tree lying in the middle of the dirt road. While we have often seen Christmas trees dumped along roads, it is usually after the event! It seemed a shame that this perfectly presentable tree should miss Christmas, so I got out and put it atop the car. Then we drove back down and parked in front of the cemetery gate.

In the Bernalillo cemetery, the area to the south is more recent and better-kept. Thus, on Christmas Eve it is the best lit, as it has the most luminaria about. By contrast, the older area to the northeast is dark and relatively gloomy, and a bit sad since the lack of light means that it has not had visitors.

While Patricia moved slowly through the southern part of the cemetery, reading the cards and messages and paying her respects, I took the tree down from atop the car and headed for the darker area of the cemetery, intent on finding the grave most in need of a Christmas tree. I wandered about until I found just the one:  deep in the unlit portion of the cemetery, not forlorn (someone had mounded the earth on the grave sometime in the last few years) but unmarked and obviously not recently visited. So I set about giving the unknown resident of the grave a tree.

I had nothing with which to dig a hole for the tree to stand in, but close at hand there was a 2-foot wooden cross, the bottom of which had broken off at an angle -- just the thing for scraping a hole into the mounded earth of the grave. Holding the tree upright with my left hand, I crouched down and started making a hole with the cross.

Just then a minivan pulled in through the gate of the cemetery and began driving along the loop road that runs through the middle of it, very likely a family coming to see the luminaria. As they reached the end of the road and were about to make the turn to loop back out, their headlight beams were about to fall across me. Just before the light reached me, I stood up straight and still.

The minivan stopped. I can only imagine what they thought when they saw me:  a very tall bearded man, alone at midnight in the dark section of the cemetery, clad in Victorian attire and tophat, eyeglasses reflecting blankly in the light from their headlights, a Christmas tree in one hand -- and a broken cross in the other. For a long timeless moment the van sat there; I stood perfectly still. Then the minivan left. Quickly.

So, my friends, if you are ever regaled with the tale of The Tree Specter of Christmas Eve (for, as we all know, tales grow in the telling), you will now know its source."

© 2007 Scott Denning. Retold with permission, and permission granted to retell and retell and retell…


However you spend tonight and tomorrow, may it be surrounded by warmth, love, and joy. And remember, on the 26th, the radio stations and stores and random elevators stop playing Christmas songs!

"Clean Up Your Room!" has just been posted to Escape Pod:

http://www.escapepod.info

Go, listen. No special software needed. I was dubious at first, but...

(he's not so good at getting bios rght, but everything else is pretty kickass, and I love the voice talent they got for this...)


And check out some of the other stories, too, while you're there!