Tag Archives: writing

advice, editorial

Confessions of an Editor: Schadenfruede

The German phrase schadenfruede means “pleasure taken from someone else’s misfortune.” I regularly indulge in this shameful practice by reading blogs like the sadly discontinued (but perpetually archived and available) Miss Snark.

What can I say? I enjoy reading about other people dealing with the same sort of nonsense I encounter…it makes me feel good to know that other writers, editors and publishers struggle with me. Lit Agent X provides one of the best I’ve read this week. In the post “Query Oops”, she discusses the bonehead blunders she gets in her query letters. People asking her to “bare with me”, discussing “cereal killers” without a trace of irony, and my all-time fave, the guy who enclosed a “synapses” of his novel.

To be fair, I am willing to bet that the “synapses” guy was a victim of his spell checker. But I don’t care. Its grounds for round-filing, if you ask me. Then again, I am guilty of my own moronic blunders, which are usually the result of hitting “Send” far too eagerly. The three things I have learned in my stint as a writer and editor:

1. Never submit while hungover.

2. Never submit before coffee.

3. Never submit before breakfast.

If you can heed these three very related warnings, chances are you will go much farther than I. One day, you’ll be sitting in a high-rise office building in Manhattan and you’ll be round-filing MY correspondence. And laughing.

Oh–and before you ask: there isn’t a writer worth a damn who doesn’t go overboard on the food, alcohol, smokes or other bad-for-you things. It’s just the way we’re wired. I insist on the no hungover submissions rule with this in mind. You can pickle your innards as much as you like when the day’s work is done, but don’t you dare let morning -after sludge brain screw you out of a paying gig.

reading, travel

Old-School Travel Writing

George Orwell had some misadventures, eh? Whenever I find myself in need of some inspiration I turn to a book like this to remind me just how bad it can get before you find a way to make the sale. No matter how desperate for cash you might become, chances are you won’t come anywhere near the levels discussed in this Orwell classic.

There aren’t any far-reaching government plots in this one, no telescreens and no Two Minutes Hate; just trying to scrape by as best one can. Real life, disguised as a novel. Before there could be any Henry Rollins travel journals (those in the know get my meaning here) there was Orwell telling it like it is, but unlike Rollins, Orwell attempts a thin veneer of “fiction” for respectability’s sake.

He needn’t have bothered, but apparently publisher T.S. Eliot disagreed–my research material says Eliot rejected the book regardless.

The real lessons for freelancers in this book–at least for me–have to do with recognizing that any experience can turn into a writing gold mine if you know how to look at them. Orwell certainly did.

If you haven’t read these classic tales of life and poverty in London and Paris, grab a copy and see how those lean years transform into literary gold. Some will be fascinated by the section on London gutter slang–worth the price of the book all by itself.

Buy Down and Out In Paris and London for $11.20

advice, editorial, lifestyle

Gas Prices Affect Indie Bands, Self-Publishers

An entry at Pampelmoose.com on the high price of gas affecting indie bands is also quite relevant to anyone planning a book tour or a bit of travel writing. The energy crunch is finally showing its effects across the board. Will self-publishers, indie-rockers and small press publishers find it necessary to team up with one another? This isn’t such a far-fetched idea when you consider that anyone who writes in the alternative press or publishes their own material has basically the same needs as a touring band. An audience, a place to sell your work, and a way to get there without breaking the bank are common needs. If your work fits in the same demographics as your local band, consider approaching them for a partnership of some kind.

What you’ll learn is that all bands need someone to work their merchandising table, and you need to find new readers to sell books to. Putting these two notions together in ingenious ways is NOT rocket science. Join forces and both communities–in print and on CD/digital downloads–are much better off for it.  The possibilities are endless.

editorial

Why the Chicago Tribune is Going To Fold

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Tonight, I watched an episode of a local news program called Chicago Tonight. One segment included a discussion with three guests about the future of newspapers. One of those guests was an editor from the venerable Tribune, another was a former writer for the Chicago Sun-Times. Needless to say, between these two gents the experience level was high.

The discussion was fairly gloomy–people in charge at the Tribune are desperate to save the paper from certain death, and have been brainstorming a variety of ideas on how to prevent its demise. Between the editor at the Trib and the former writer for the Sun-Times, I got the distinct impression that nobody in charge of one of Chicago’s most respected daily papers really understands why newspapers are getting slaughtered.

The worst example of this came when the editor at the Chicago Tribune stated quite clearly that he is “not Internet savvy”. I said out loud to the television, ‘And that’s why the Chicago Tribune is going to fold.”

The Internet is not killing newspapers–they are doing a fine job of committing suicide all by themselves. Any editor who does not understand and respect the ‘net is doomed just as surely as a woolly mammoth sinking into the La Brea tar pits. Bleat all you want, big fellah. You’re still going down.

But why?

I would love to pimp myself out to these newspapers as a consultant–or better yet as a new media ombudsman–and command a hefty fee to show them how NOT to get murdered in the age of the Internet. Since no offers are currently forthcoming, I’ll share a few “secrets” here. Continue reading Why the Chicago Tribune is Going To Fold →

advice, editorial

Confessions of an Editor, Part Four

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It’s called Karma. For me, it usually comes about a day after my cockiness factor has gone through the roof, my editorial hubris running amok. Every time I start getting the big ego, the over-inflated sense of self-importance, that feeling I can do no wrong, Karma comes in to give me a nice reboot. Then I am nice again. For a while.

A few weeks or months go by, and the idiotic practices I see in our beloved writing industry start irritating me. I begin complaining about stupid queries, brain-dead replies to job offers, idiotic and clueless dorks polluting an industry I depend on to pay my bills. Once I get to the top of fever, I start pushing near-rabid diatribes about the worst parts of being a freelancer.

Then, it happens. Continue reading Confessions of an Editor, Part Four →

advice, editorial

Confessions of an Editor, Part Three

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When I posted a call for writers on Craigslist recently, I was flooded with replies. Two of those replies stood out to me because of their exceptional writing samples.

Unfortunately, “exceptional” in this case does not equal “great writing”.

I recieved two e-mails from two different people who included sexual content in their samples. One writer’s first sample runs an opening sentence discussing his younger sister’s developing breasts, the second writer’s opening line included a reference to oral sex with a tongue piercing.

Neither of these two samples are “wrong” per se, unless of course you take the time to read what the actual job post is about. Nowhere in the Craigslist ad do you find anything about creative nonfiction, Hunter Thompson-style journalism, or whatever these two job seekers were aspiring to with these two samples. The ad uses phrases like “SEO optimized content”, “e-commerce” and “research”, so what these job seekers were thinking when they submitted such writing samples is a mystery.

Chances are, they weren’t thinking at all. Continue reading Confessions of an Editor, Part Three →