Storytellersunplugged

Just five minutes ago, I finished round three of edits on one of my novels. Round three. The first run of comments from the publisher was 49 pages long. The second was 14 pages total and the third is six pages. All in a small font to make the entire process appear less intimidating.

Rather than actually mark up the manuscript pages, this entire thing was done by sending back the latest version of the MS along with an attached file that referenced specific pages and the paragraphs in question as well as, in many cases, either quoting the work or telling me precisely which line of the manuscript I needed to look at.

Pain. In. My. Ass.

Every single time I have to look over an old manuscript and find the screw ups (that, yes, I admit are mine, but that’s not the point here) I have to stop what I’m writing and look over something that isn’t fresh any more. I can’t just automatically reference whatever the hell he wants me to think about at this point, because it’s old news. Oh, sure, no one else has read the damned thing yet, but I have and believe me, after the first fifteen or so times the love affair is over. I want to move on to my new ideas before they crawl out of my head while I’m asleep and fade away forever. Instead, I’m going over line edits, grumbling at the notion that anything I’ve written needs improvement (we all succumb to ego now and then and I’m guiltiest of that particular sin when I’m looking at line edits). Of course that line makes sense! It made sense when I wrote the damned thing and it makes sense now! No, no, a master of the English language would not speak that way, however, we’re dealing with a first person novel told from the perspective of a boat captain. So, leave it be please. Yes, there is a bias in this manuscript, because, as I’ve already stated, it was written from the perspective of a blue collar New Englander who happens to have some biases going into the novel. Also, he doesn’t speak in proper grammatical sentences, so, yes, I realize there’s a dangling participle right at the end of my sentence and no, I don’t much care. It’s dialogue!

See? Pain in my ass.

And I love my publisher for every single frustrating moment of it. Believe me, I mean it. It’s not easy going through an entire manuscript and looking for flaws, not when it’s someone else’s work and surely not when it’s your own.
There are several aspects of writing that feel more like work than the actual writing process. Editing is just one of them.

By the time I was done responding to the first batch of edits, I felt it necessary to forewarn the editor in question that he was probably going to think I was angry with him when he read a few of my comments and to also let him know that I was delighted to get such thorough notes.
Sure enough, he apologized, explaining that he wanted my book to be as perfect as possible. God love the man! I once again explained that I wasn’t in the least bit angry. I can see where he could get that idea, of course:

Editor: “Page 213, line 25: I imagine he figured it was the luck of the draw that had ended Belle’s life instead of Mary’s. (Why would one suppose that those two were the only candidates?)”

Me: “One wouldn’t, unless one were a husband who was realizing that it was mere luck that his wife survived and that other poor bastard’s wife was taken. Again, this is ego-centric, casual speech, not third person proper English.”

See? I can be a little bitchy. Hey, in my defense, this is my BABY he’s editing! I bled on those pages, I nurtured the poor little wretch into a semblance of life and now here comes Mr. High-And-Might Editor to pick my baby into pieces and show me every single flaw!!!!

Okay, breathe…

Okay, see? It can be a little frustrating.

Let me give you another example: in this particular case we’re dealing with the last name “Parsons.” How, exactly, does one make that a plural? How does one make that a plural possessive? Well, hell, don’t come looking to ME for answers. I barely passed high school English and I’ve been bluffing my way through this entire sordid affair. Let’s keep that between you and me though, okay?

So, the Parsons (or Parsonses) show up a lot of times and are mentioned together as they’re virtually joined at the hip. Would you like to know the number one editorial suggestion sent to me? “Page 215, line 13 ….. change “Parsons” to “Parsonses”. The page number and line changed a lot. That’s ALL that changed a lot. By the time I was done reading that line over the course of almost fifty pages, I swear I could feel my right eye twitching inside of my skull, and I’m fairly certain there was an ice pick right behind it, digging deeper into my brain with every pulse of my heart.

Did I mention, by the way, that I decided to edit this on day three of quitting cigarettes after 22 years? Just a reminder that some of my responses might SEEM over the top, but, really, I’m almost certain I wasn’t completely sane at that moment anyway.

So along I go. No, no, it was Tom who did the cooking. I know this. I wrote the scenes. No, Davey didn’t cook. Davey handled maintenance. And yet, here comes his Holiness, the Lord-God Editor, to put me in my place again and tell me I’m wrong.

That crunching sound? It’s my teeth breaking against each other. The NERVE of that man! I reach for a cigarette. There’s nothing there. I resist the immediate desire to ram my fist through the monitor and take a few deep, calming breaths. They’d work better if I had a big old cloud of nicotine going in with them, but, hey, the doctor said to cut that stuff out if I want to be alive when fame and fortune finally find me—like I haven’t been leaving trails of breadcrumbs and maps to my home all over the place for the bastards to find—okay, think of something else. You have coffee; coffee is calming, right? Yes! Another extra large cup should help!

After I write the scathing comment about the editor’s ancestral history and his woeful inability to actually read the words that I have put down on paper, I decide to look at the manuscript again, realize that I have, in fact, stated that Davey would be cooking as well as handling maintenance on the Isabella’s Dream (That’s the boat, people! pay attention to what I should have told you at the beginning of the article!) Apparently Tom was just along for his looks when I first started writing. I’d have sworn on a stack of Golden Age comic books that I had Tom doing the cooking since he was introduced, and I would have been sadly mistaken.

So I delete the comments regarding said editor/publisher’s dubious heritage(but I memorize the line in case I can use it later) and rewrite the introduction of Davey and Tom to clarify that Tom is, in fact, the damned cook.

My two most common responses to the editorial suggestions were “OK” and “Colloquialism. Leave it please.” Just for the record. Well, those were the most common phrases written down at any rate. What I said when no one else was around to hear it doesn’t really count, right?

You might think I’m exaggerating. I’m not. I really was in the process of quitting smoking (still am, actually) and I really had bucket loads of changes to make and I’m still grateful for every last suggestion made.

Not every editor is willing to take the time. I’ve had manuscripts come back to me with a few minor typos caught and nothing else. Hell, I’ve had manuscripts go to print where somewhere along the line the publisher or the printer screwed up and the first draft of the novel went to final print. You want to talk about ugly? We’re in the ulcer territory here! No, it’s not fun to spend a lot of time dealing with edits, but believe me, the pleasure is all mine in the long run. You only have to get crucified once on the editing of a book to never want to have it happen again. So, yes, despite the pain in my ponderous derriere, I’m delighted!

I’ve said before that I can look back on my earlier works and cringe. That doesn’t happen as much these days and the editors are part of the reason for that. There are a lot of people who work on books behind the scenes, and they can make our lives easier or they can make them harder. Either way, I try to remember that we’re all working toward the same goal: making the stories the best they can be.

On moderately less terrifying fronts, it’s October. The end of October is a personal favorite of mine. Halloween! I absolutely love the stuff. Every year there’s a cemetery in the front yard. Normally right around forty headstones, with names like H.P. LOVECRAFT, Herbert West, Godzilla, Vincent Price, Dr. Henry Jekyll (his stone is right next to Mr. Edward Hyde’s on most occasions) and a few others. There’s a grim reaper that towers eighteen feet above the lawn, he’s actually built onto a tree, which is the only way he’s staying up there, trust me.

There’s an industrial fog machine that set us back a few pennies and was worth each and every one of them. There are several people in costumes most years, all of us there with the sole intent of scaring the bejeezus out of as many children as possible. My wife is normally waiting at the front door, and every little cowboy, demon, angel, princess, nun, superhero or clown that gets past us can get a double handful of candy. I love Halloween. For me it’s all about scaring kids half to death and then rewarding them for their bravery. Of course, if they’re too scared, one of the people nice enough to hang around and help us will take the candy over to the car and give it to the, it happens, too. Easily three or four kids who’ve been waiting all year for this, ever since they heard about it from a friend or a neighbor or ever since the year before when they came to our place, will take one look at the admittedly tacky cemetery and the ghouls shambling around in it and decide that’s quite enough, thanks. There’s no reason to go any further.

They still get candy, too. Just sometimes they get it second hand.

When I was growing up my family moved a lot. I counted a while back and near as I can remember, I went to seventeen schools in my twelve years of schooling. There was at least one occasion where I went to three separate schools during the calendar year. Trust me, that’ll mess with your head when you’re young.

There were three constants in my life: My family, the holidays (running from Thanksgiving through Christmas and then ending with New Year’s Day) and before that, Halloween. No matter where we lived, I had those constants. I love them all. Halloween especially, because there were no special rules involved with it. It was just fun, and I got to watch a few extra cheesy horror movies on the TV and I got to dress up and be someone else for a while. Normally, that someone else was a monster, and the grislier the better.

And afterwards, there was CANDY!

I live in Georgia. One of the more predominant religions in this area believes that Halloween is the devil’s work. It was founded on a pagan holiday and therefore it must be bad. My answer remains the same now as it did then. “Feel free not to celebrate.”

I have a lot of neighbors who look at the house dubiously year round. They’re also the ones who often frown when they see, the decorations out front that pop up in the first week of October. They don’t say anything, but they don’t celebrate.

Come the Holidays, a lot of them will go all out decorating a Christmas tree and illuminating their yards. We’re normally a little more subdued during that span of time. The decorations are mostly on the inside of the house instead of in the lawn.

It has nothing to do with not liking Christmas or the holidays in general and everything to do with personal mindset. The holidays are a time for family. Halloween is a time for kids.

I’m all grown up these days. I shave regularly, I go to work and pay my bills and I putter around the house and contemplate the things I’d like to get done if I ever have the spare time. There’s never enough spare time. There never has been and there never will be.

For one day of the year, I’m a kid again. I’m dressed as something ghastly and waiting to scare other kids half out of their socks. There’s nothing demonic about it. There’s nothing malicious about it. I’m not out to steal souls, corrupt the innocent youth of the world or leave anyone with a scarred psyche. There’s quite enough of that going on already in the world. I certainly don’t intend to add to anyone’s misery.

For all of you who look at Halloween decorations and scoff. For everyone who feels that celebrating a long dead pagan ritual with candy and costumes is a waste of time or just possibly a danger to your child’s soul, I have this to say. Have a nice day, have a wonderful life and here’s hoping your child doesn’t resent you later (What can I say? I know a few kids who did and still do.). Feel free not to come into my yard and rant or rave about your beliefs being better than mine. I prosecute trespassers.

For the rest of you, pleasant screams and have a chilling, delightful and safe Halloween.

Me? I’ll be listening to children scream in fear or laugh with delight. I’ll be dealing with the ones who’ve decided that they’re old enough to look past the illusions and ready to face the next step on the journey to adulthood with their heads held high (and good luck to you, too, kids. You’ll need it) and I’ll be rewarding the brave with candy and hopefully a few pleasant memories.

Happy Halloween folks!

James A. Moore
Added bonus time!

Because it’s October and because we’ve done it before, I’m throwing in a short story. It pertains to this story of editors and the pain they cause, oddly enough, because it was written at the whim of an editor with an unusual phobia. She’s terrified of umbrellas and once said in jest that someone should write a story about how scary they were. Just for her, I did. She has shown the story to several of her friend as time has gone on, proud as punch over having her fears put on paper.
Mostly I wrote it for Liesa. But I also wrote it just to see if I could do a story that makes umbrellas even a little creepy. Here’s the resulting tale. Enjoy, and, happy Halloween again!

For Liesa
By James A. Moore

She eyed the contraption dubiously. “Nope, I still don’t trust them. It’s like they’re just waiting to close up around you.”

“You’re being silly. It’s an umbrella. It’s not a torture device.” He glanced at her as they walked along the stretch of beach, the sound of the water hissing softly as it rippled up along the sand and occasional jagged blade of stone. “You’re also getting wet.” His fingers caressed the ivory handle of the umbrella, the antiqued design of furls and folds that had been carved into organic swirls, not unlike the pattern on a seashell.

“It’s just water.” Her hand flicked dismissing the condensation that formed like dewdrops on her dark brown hair. “I’ll dry off.”

“Look, how can you expect to impress anyone at all if you’re soaking wet?”

“They pay swimsuit models lots of money to impress while soaking wet.”

“You’re not a swimsuit model.” He hastily added, “not that you couldn’t be,” when she shot him a half-playful glare.

“I have a raincoat. A little wet in the hair isn’t going to ruin the meeting.”

“I still think you’re being silly.”

“I still think you’re being an insensitive ass.” The wind picked up, and despite his comments, he watched her hair lift from its resting position and dance like the tail of a comet around her pretty face. She was beautiful, a thought he tried not to focus on.

She said something that he missed while he was focused on the shape of her nose. It was a very nice nose and fit her face remarkably well. Sometimes he wondered if she’d had plastic surgery, even knowing full well that she hadn’t. It was the way his mind worked when he was hungry and they hadn’t yet reached their lunch destination.

“I didn’t get that. What did you say?”

“I said I don’t make fun of your problem with germs and cleanliness, you shouldn’t make fun of my umbrella issues.”

“Well, they don’t make sense! I mean, what do you think it’s going to do?” He was trying not to laugh.

“Maybe take out an eye? Have you ever looked at those little metal tips?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Listen. I appreciate the gesture, but you can use your umbrella. Just don’t expect me to stand under it.”

“Maybe I only brought it along so I could be chivalrous and have an excuse to stand close to you.” He kept it light, his voice teasing. It was best not to actually think along those lines. He already had a reputation and was trying to behave himself now that he was engaged. There had been a few incidents involving coworkers at office parties that were best forgotten or even buried in a corner.

“Maybe you should remember Melanie and her promise to cut your balls off if she ever sees you trying anything stupid again with a co-worker.” Her voice was teasing too, or at least he thought it was. Sometimes it was hard to tell with her when she was serious and when she was kidding.

“Well, the offer stands either way. I promise to stop the big, bad umbrella from attacking your face. Beauty should be preserved.”

“Listen. I know you’re trying to be nice, but don’t. There’s nothing you can say that will get me under that death trap.”

“Suit yourself. I’m going to stay dry.” He stifled the disappointment. It would have been nice to have a reason to stay close to her. She was his little fixation at the office and he would have probably had serious trouble turning her down if she ever made an advance. He knew better than to make a play for her. She’d nuked him the three times he’d been pickled enough to try.

He slid his hand up to the release that opened the dark, leathery umbrella that Melanie had given him only last week, after their latest fight about him being a player instead of a husband-to-be. (She’d been right, of course, and he had been nailing Tiffany at work, but that wasn’t the point. In the long run she understood that he was at least trying to change for her.) It matched his leather raincoat perfectly and he loved it. The wind off the ocean seemed to roar for a second as it caught the black material and the umbrella opened.

She stepped back from him, her eyes growing wide for a moment as the membrane between the ivory spokes expanded like the folds of flesh on a bat’s wings.

“I don’t see how you can use that thing.” Her voice held an edge of disgust.

“It’s simple, you hold it over your head and it stops the rain from-” He stopped speaking, looking into the center of the umbrella’s darkness, studying the tightly stretched material. The leather was supple and well oiled, glistening beautifully even in the almost twilight conditions brought by the heavy clouds that hid the sun away. But he’d never noticed the pattern before, even when he’d first opened the gift from Melissa to admire it. With the faint light from above showing through, it almost looked like the umbrella had veins running through the taught leather. His eyes trailed down the finger-like ridge that ran down from the axis of the shelter, to the sharp point where it extended above him.

“Hey, you know, you were right. It really does look like a claw. The tips I mean. They look just like claws. I hadn’t noticed it before.”

She wasn’t listening. She was backing away from him, her hands moving up to cover her mouth as she shook her head from side to side, her eyes growing wide again.

“Oh, Dave…” Her voice was so small, so weak in comparison to the growing roar of the wind.

“Amy? What’s wrong?” Even as he spoke it finally occurred to him that the wind wasn’t blowing. For the moment at least the ocean had stopped breathing heavily toward the land and her hair, so wild a moment before, was now subdued.

Then where the hell is that sound coming from? It originated somewhere above his head. He looked up into the heart of the umbrella; then stared into madness. The thin ivory spokes had changed; grown thicker, with protruding growths that stretched into the leather of the gift. They really did look like fingers, only fingers with far too many joints. And the fine tips had grown longer, hooking in deeply toward the handle he still held in his hand. Dave let go of the carved ivory, only to see that it too had changed. As his fingers released the handle, the yellowed bone carvings exploded outward, sending thin barbs through the flesh of his hand, his wrist and his forearm like fishing hooks into a salmon.

He screamed, the pain sending flashes of lightning into his nerve ending and up through his arm.

Amy screamed too, a sharp piercing cry that was nothing at all like her normal voice. The sound was more like what he expected from Melissa when she was accusing him of banging half the office staff.

He tried to look at Amy but the dark tight leather of the umbrella was suddenly closing in on him. He watched, horrified, as the lethal fingers of the umbrella curled in, their heavy claws driving through his coat and the suit he wore beneath it. They caught the flesh just above his belt and tore inward and upward, slicing through him like the teeth of a bear trap.

Dave tried to suck in enough air for another wail of agony, but there was nothing there, no breath to be had and what little he still held inside of him spilled out easily as the barbs splintered his ribcage and punctured his lungs, his heart on their way to the spinal column where they joined together to shatter bone.

Amy screamed again, watching, horrified beyond reason as the black form folded in over her coworker. The mass collapsed in on itself, contracting more and more amid a rush of wet ripping sounds that sent ripples of gooseflesh crawling along her spine and her scalp.

She wanted to run, wanted to get as far away from the horror as she could, but her legs refused to work. Her pretty mouth—Dave had often accused her of having a perfect pouty mouth that was made for kissing, as if it were something she did to tease him and she guessed he’d never do that again, but oh, God, she never wanted to see him killed to make him shut up—was closed into a tight thin line and hidden behind her hands. Her fingers covered the lower part of her face, leaving only her eyes uncovered. She wanted to hide away but her hands refused to listen to her commands.

Her mouth was closed; sealed tightly for fear that the thing on the ground might suddenly come back to life and attack her. It looked so innocent now, folded up like little more than an ornate walking stick, but she knew better. She knew better and she always had, even when Dave—poor, sweet, stupid Dave—and the others had mocked her for her fear. Dave was gone, completely and utterly gone. Only the umbrella remained, lying on the boardwalk and gleaming darkly in the near-twilight.

Her perfect, pouty mouth was closed. But in her mind she was still screaming. The screams kept coming and coming, as relentless as the roaring ocean that grew bolder in the coming storm and threw itself relentlessly against the shore, cutting the land away one wave at a time.

She was still there when the storm broke, still shrieking blindly into the darkness as the sheets of hard rain wetted her dark hair to her scalp and ran like frozen fingers down her collar and over her skin chilling her body almost as well as her soul had already been chilled.