Diary of a Mad Editor

Archive for the ‘Assholes’ Category

Bad Bodyguard or Author Behaving Badly?

The Associated Press is reporting today that Lit-Celeb, Salman Rushdie of The Satanic Verses fame is threatening to sue Ron Evans, one of his former policeman bodyguards over the impending publication of Evans’ memoir On Her Majesty’s Service because of some unkind disclosures about fellow policemen and Rushdie allegedly contained in the book.

Well, you know . . . I have no idea whether the allegations about Rushdie are true, although I’ve heard from the usual unreliable sources ( a friend of a friend of a friend’s cousin’s ex-girlfriend’s sister who heard it from a waiter in a NY restaurant) that Rushdie is an asshole. I’ve never met the man, so I’ll take that information with a grain of salt. Although, I did find it interesting that Rushdie’s the only one vehemently denying Evans’ version. The official spokesman for the Metropolitan Police in London didn’t deny the allegations, only stating that the publication of the book was “unfortunate.” That can easily be translated into “that book embarrasses us, but it embarrasses us because it’s true.” I can just picture a bunch of drunken police raiding Rushdie’s kitchen, stumbling down stairs or over home theater furniture. When I think about Evans’ story, I’m suddenly overcome with the image of the police from Irvine Welsh’s novel, Filth. Ha-Ha.

So, is the bodyguard the bad guy here or is Rushdie the real heavy? Undoubtedly, Evans wouldn’t have even mentioned Rushdie were he not a lit-celeb knighted by the Queen. Nonetheless, that doesn’t automatically make him a liar.

What is funny to me is that no one would even give a shit about this book had Rushdie not gone all Mr. Cranky-Pants about it. Now, if the book is published (and probably, even if it isn’t), Evans will get his fifteen minutes of fame and people will put Rushdie under the microscope.

You Are a Doo-Doo Head or, Do As I Say Not As I Doo-Doo

Dear Uptight Grammarian:

You know — honest to Christmas, I wasn’t originally going to respond to your email. It’s been sitting in my inbox for 2 weeks and I was going to delete it today. I get a little sick of reading the same complaints by knuckeheads like you who have nothing intelligent or substantive to say beyond the usual whining. It gets tiresome trying to come-up with witty retorts and there’s really very little sport in it for me these days. But, I was chatting with another literary editor yesterday and we were talking about the use of vulgarity in writing, so I thought I could cover that topic by way of a response to you.

Before I address your point about my use of “vulgarities” let me say this about my blog:

1) Yes, I do bend the rules of grammar/mechanics to some degree. This blog is written in a certain style and I bend those rules to fit that style. The manner in which I write this blog merely reinforces everything I’ve said about good writing. If you don’t understand that, I’d suggest you read through my blog more carefully.

2) My “snide, unprofessional attitude”? Is there some special edicate manual for literary editors I’m supposed to know about? I’ve read and responded to thousands and thousands of submissions over the years, and I’d defy but the tiniest percentage of those thousands to even suggest that I was ever unkind or unfair to them. And if I did trash that tiny percentage of writers, they had it coming as far as I’m concerned.

3) Last time I checked, this blog was called Diary of a Mad Editor — not Diary of the Warm, Fuzzy, Well-Manicured Editor so, get over it.

Now, about “vulgarities”:

Yes I do curse to some degree in this blog and elsewhere. But I only use obscenties when they seem appropriate. I’ve never said to any writer not to use obscenities in their writing — only that they use that language when necessary and not frivolously. Foul language, seemingly inappropriate subject matter, extreme violence, explicit sex, gallows humor, taboo subject matter of any kind — all of these things have a place in written communication. Anything that is a part of our human experience has a proper place in our literature. This was what I was discussing with my editor friend. When you write about a subject, you have to be true to that subject. You can’t sanitize it if the subject, by it’s very nature, is unsanitary. Fuck that. Fuck censorship. How are you going to write about something convincingly if you restrain yourself that way. As a writer, you have to embrace the idea of an appropriate level of language. That doesn’t mean that you write something purely for it’s apparent shock value. What it does mean is that if you are writing about a dock worker, for instance, that he walk, talk, dress and exhibit many of the traits of someone of his social class and experience. Same goes with soldiers or cops or anyone else. If you write about a pedophile, you have to capture all the things about him that make him creepy and wrong no matter how taboo.

Now, I realize I’ve deliberately strayed from your email’s topic, but only somewhat because, despite your protestations to the contrary, I think I’ve demonstrated in a roundabout way that I do very much practice what I’ve been preaching.

Can I get an “Amen”?

I Can Teach You to Write a Book in 24hrs

Well . . . no I can’t. But I bet I got your attention, didn’t I?

See, if you go around the Internet and read ads in writing magazines, you’ll find dozens of scams from these self-proclaimed writing “gurus” telling you how they can magically turn you into a writer.

According to these guys, writing is easy and everyone can do it. Hell, if writing was that easy, why would we need these gurus to teach us anything? We’d all be successful writers, wouldn’t we? But, that’s the thrust of every one of these writing scams — that once you learn all the insider secrets, you will be able to write that masterpiece.

One of these gurus is a man named Steven Manning who refers to himself as a “master writer.” Mr. Manning claims he can teach you to write a book in less than 14 days. How nice!

Now, before I even get to the part where I debunk the very notion that there even is an infallable, one-size-fits-all process to writing a book in 14 days or if it’s even possible, I’d like to know: Who the fuck is Steven Manning? As far as I can tell (assuming he is the same Steven Manning who’s contributed to The Nation and The LA Times), he’s had some success writing freelance articles, and he has this course he peddles to the aspiring nitwits who don’t know any better — but is he “famous” as his website claims? Where are all the books he’s written? Surely, if he’s followed his own advice, there must be hundreds (or at least dozens) of his own books in print. Maybe I was looking in all the wrong places (several online booksellers, 6 area libraries, 10 different brick ‘n’ mortar bookstores, Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves, Google books, etc.) but I couldn’t find a single title by this guy or a single reader who claims to have read him. I could be wrong — many of his books could be out-of-print and perhaps he’s written them under a psuedonym — but not one?! Not a single title with his name on the front cover showing up in any of these places? I think that’s hilarious, because I’m nobody — not even close to being “famous” and not only are my own poetry chapbooks listed and available some places, I’ve found collectors selling copies for as much as $100 online (that’s a gripe for another day). So you tell me — what’s up with that? More likely than not, if Manning has written any books, he’s published them himself and only sells them to the people who sign-up for his course.

And what about his course? Well, I don’t know about it, but if it’s anything like the articles he’s written on the subject that you can read for free, his advice ranges from the obvious and simplistic to the just plain dumb:

“If you haven’t written your book yet, the only difference between you and a published author is that they’ve written their book and you haven’t.”

No, not exactly. The only difference between you and a published author is that they’ve written a book and published their book and you haven’t. Being a successful, published author requires a bit more than simply finishing a manuscript. Published authors have a publisher, which you probably don’t. They usually have a literary agent, too. And perhaps, just perhaps, they are also good writers and you are not.

Manning is also a big advocate of free-writing — although, he doesn’t call it free-writing. Rather, it’s presented as one of those “secrets” only master writers like him seem to know about. Personally, I’ve always found free-writing to be a waste of time. But that’s the point isn’t it — just because it works for Manning, doesn’t mean it’ll work for you or me. The idea that you can distill the act of writing into a single unified theory of the creative process is retarded. Every writer approaches the craft differently and, while I know there are some who don’t want to hear this, not everyone can write well enough to be a good writer, much less a great one or even a modestly successful one. And I can pretty much guarantee you that even if you could learn “the secret” of successful writing, you couldn’t learn it from Steven Manning.