Welcome to the Club
Sometimes I watch the Twitter-stream and think the New Digital World is a beautiful place. A place of generosity. A place of kindness. In the Sometimes you can almost hear people listening, nodding, patiently waiting their turn to add to the chorus. In the Sometimes, the digital shell dissolves and we’re in a small room together, face to face. You mention a book. I say I know that book. You say isn’t it the best? I say it’s brilliant. I sip my orange juice (it’s morning here). You sip your wine (it’s evening there). How’s that novel of yours coming along? you ask. Slowly, I answer. Loved your last blog post, I say. I needed to hear that today, you say. I sip my orange juice. You sip your wine. We quietly slip back into our...
Your Book Reviews Are In
I’ve been to the future. I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Quintuple-stuff Oreos. The reanimation of Walt Disney*. Laundry robots. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. And the reviews for your novel. No, not the one you’re writing now, the next one. The one you’re certain is the best possible work you could ever do. (Wait, don’t scrap the one you’re currently writing. It’s the best possible work you could ever do. For now.) The Time Lords wouldn’t let me bring back a laundry robot, but they couldn’t stop me from memorizing what people will say about your novel. Here are just a few of the reviews. Most came from Amazon.com. Yeah, they totally own the future. I can’t tell you...
The Table in the Corner
There is a table in the corner of a small cafe where The Writer sits. It is a table for two, but one seat always remains empty, waiting. The table is next to a bookcase. The books there are dusty, but not forgotten. They have earned their dust. The ghosts would agree. The ghosts often sit in the empty chair, listening. Nodding sympathetically when they’re not nodding off. They understand the dust. Sometimes they draw their names in it. “It’s not easy,” they whisper. “This writing thing.” The Writer often responds aloud. “You’re telling me.” Someone at a nearby table will glance over, then quickly look away. A stymied writer is more frightening than ghosts. The Writer spends a lot of time staring at the books....
The Worst Book Ever. Or Not.
“Coldplay sucks!” I had my car window open (as required between blizzards by Colorado law). Mylo Xyloto was playing on a recently-purchased stereo that had doubled* the value of my 2000 Jetta. I didn’t see who shouted it. Probably not the elderly woman on the sidewalk who was attached by a taut pink leash to a matching taut pink poodle. And surely not the five-year-old doing donuts on his Big Wheel in the driveway across the street. It’s a pretty safe bet the Chris Martin hate came from someone in the huddle of teenagers admiring their generation’s ironic muscle car, a tricked out Scion tC. I ignored the shout and passed through the Norman Rockwell scene with a vehicular shrug. (The Jetta’s suspension needs work.) But a block...
A Day in the Life of a Freelance Editor
You might think what a freelance editor does all day is worthy of a blog post. That would be a classic example of wrong thinking. But for the sake of filling this space I’m going to tell you anyway and since I just established that a freelance editor’s day isn’t all that interesting, some of the details below will be complete fabrication. Feel free to decide which ones. 6:14 AM – Get urgent phone call from Stephen King pleading with you to be his editor for the upcoming sequel to Under the Dome, provisionally titled Under an Even Bigger Dome - a project that pays by the word. Say “yes,” then mumble something stupid like “my name is Stephen too, how cool is that!” 6:33 AM – Figure out how to defeat the army...
