Now I Know Why Writers Hate [Some] Copy Editors

I truly didn't get it - because at Rodale, where I dealt in nonfiction, we had wonderful copy editors. (At lunchtime I would go running with my favorite one.) I learned enough about copyediting to do it myself, armed with a copy of The Chicago Manual of Style, when I wanted some freelance income.

But then I read this post by Louise Ure over at Murderati, whose LIARS ANONYMOUS comes out soon in trade paperback, and I understand why authors rail (okay, rant and rave) against some copy editors.

I cannot resist quoting from her post, but get over there and read the whole thing yourself.

From Page 72: I parked around the corner with a clear view of the back door through a tiny slice of space between a tree and a three-bay body shop. Felicia probably wouldn't recognize my truck from here and, parked behind the tree the way I was, she wouldn't be able to see my face either. I'd been there a half hour when the garage closed.
(Note to author: Three-bay body shop? Is this a brand name? I don’t drive so I don’t know.)
Response to copy editor: No, it’s not a brand name. And by the way, I don’t eat tofu but I still know what it is.

From Page 100: Beverly was just as petite as I remembered from our high school days -- soft, rounded curves and pouter pigeon breasts -- but her face had become that of a disappointed adult, with a built-in scowl and the onset of gray where she parted her hair.
(Note to author: What kind of breasts do pigeons have?)
Response to copy editor: Oh, my. Where to begin?

From Page 107: He put my keys and purse down on the concrete slab porch and stepped over to an ice chest near the sliding glass door. He pulled out two bottles of beer, opened them with a hinge on the side of the Igloo and held one out to me.
(Note to author: Are you calling the ice chest an igloo as a joke or is it a brand name of something?)
Response to copy editor: See above-referenced note about tofu. And the one that asks “where to begin?”

From Page 160: I heard the throaty roar of a big V8 outside, bragging on its horsepower and torque. I pulled the curtain to the side. The black low rider came around again and this time the song blasting from the windows was about the hazards of smuggling. The four bandanaed bobbleheads in the car nodded and swayed to the beat. The guy in the front passenger seat stared at the house, then finger-shot me the way he had at the intersection on Friday.
(Note to author: I cannot verify the meaning of “bobbleheads.”)
Response to copy editor: Well, there you go. I guess there are some mysteries in life that just aren’t meant to be solved.

From Page 198: The setting sun turned the sky to persimmon then to bruise.
(Note to author: Is bruise a color?)
Response to copy editor: In my world, yes. And a noun. And a verb. And a threat.

From Page 216: "I'm telling you, man. I only just heard about it. I was in Nogales when you and the chica came in. I heard you asking about Carlos. That's why I called." The kid was flop sweat-nervous, but I didn't know if he was afraid of Guillermo's temper or the Braceros' retribution.
(Note to author: Flop-sweat? What is this?)
Response to copy editor: It’s that unique combination of chills, stinky sweat and light-headedness that overcomes you when you see your career as a copy editor disappearing before your eyes.

Note: Louise didn't actually make these responses to her copy editor - she just imagined making them.

PS And I have worked as a copy editor - or at least passed as one - and I would absolutely never ever question anything that I could look up! And thanks to the internet, we can look up just about anything without leaving our desks.

No, I Don't Have One of These in My Kitchen

So I am talking to one of my New York City friends who is appalled that I live on a dirt road with no street lights. (This, in fact, presented a problem only once, after a get-together at a neighbor's house across the road when I discovered that it gets very very dark in those evenings when there's not a full moon - and if I haven't left lights on in my house and don't have a keychain flashlight, I can locate my driveway only by feel, reaching into space with my foot to try to find the ditch on either side of it.)

I am rattling on about my house and occasional power outages and mention the pump that brings water from the well and she says You have a pump in your kitchen? And I realize she is envisioning a Little House on the Prairie style hand pump.

After I recover from an extraordinarily rude fit of laughter, I explain that the pump is electric and brings the water into the plumbing system where it's carried into pipes and then comes out of completely normal faucets.

I also explain that no, I do not cook on my woodstove (although I do keep a kettle of water on it so I'll have some hot water if the power goes out) and have a perfectly boring normal electric kitchen stove.

And I'm going to try to get her to come up for a visit, so she can see that dirt-road living isn't all that bad.

But I won't mention the the beavers who come into my yard to fell small trees to drag into the river to build dams, or the porcupines or foxes that meander into my yard. Or the coyotes that sometimes howl horribly in the night.

The Trouble with Google Alerts

When you have a Google Alert set up for the title of your upcoming novel, LEARNING TO SWIM, it points to things like this.



Apparently this woman says her swimming cats look like beautiful dancers. I think they look like they are thinking vile thoughts about this whole swimming thing.

Just Call Me "Metrohaven of Love"

I decide to join a writers organization. I send in the payment via PayPal. I print the application, painstakingly fill it out, and call to find out if I need to submit a specific form. Fax it in the next 15 minutes, the woman says, and we can process it this month.

So I fire up my Epson 600 Workforce printer, which I got after the property tax form fax debacle when I resolved to never be without a fax machine. It's a refurb from Epson.com, with a full warranty. I've never used the fax, but it seems astoundingly simple, with an arrow showing me where to insert the pages and a screen directing me through the process. I press the Send button, and off it goes. Ahh. Then it prints a transmission receipt and I see the words, in all caps:

Name: METROHAVEN OF LOVE

Horrified, I look at the test fax I just sent to my eFax account, and across the top are the same three words: METROHAVEN OF LOVE.

I have just sent a fax to a professional writing organization who will now think this is either what I call myself or this is my home business.

There's a moment in life when you decide to either let things go and pretend they didn't happen, or you fess up. I decided to face this head on, and emailed the woman with an explanation. She found it all highly amusing (using the term ROTFL in her response).

It turns out this Metrohaven place isn't the den of iniquity I envisioned, but a home for drug and alcohol dependency. Still not what I would choose as my fax heading. I called Epson for help removing the name.

And I think my days of buying refurbished products are behind me.

Roo is Waiting for You in Nashville

Roo is an Australian cattle dog, or red heeler, needing a home. These are smart and devoted dogs (I have too many). Go on - take Roo for a walk and see if you fit. Email wcacangels@yahoo.com, call 615-790-5590, or visit the Williamson County Animal Shelter at 138 Claude Yates Dr., Franklin, Tennessee (next to Franklin High on Hillsboro); $65 adoption fee includes shots and neutering.

Recipe for Winning Over an Agent

Here it is - here's my secret. Here's how I got my wonderful agent: For our first meeting I took along fresh-baked ginger snaps.

These just happen to be melt-in-your-mouth delicious. And have the advantage of fooling the recipients into thinking I'm a phenomenal cook. I no longer eat them (I can't eat flour, and my prone-to-diabetes gene rebels at the sugar) but I make them for friends. And for my agent.

Here, courtesy of one of the Mollie Katzen cookbooks, is your recipe for winning over an agent:

AGENT-PLEASING GINGER SNAPS

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
1 cup sugar (I use slightly less)
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt (again, I use slightly less)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 cups unbleached white flour
1 to 2 tablespoons additional sugar

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease cookie sheets.
Melt butter over low heat. Transfer to medium-size bowl.
Beat in molasses and 1 cup sugar (I use slightly less). Beat the egg by itself in a small bowl and beat into the molasses mixture.
Sift together the dry ingredients (except the additional sugar) then add them to the wet mixture, stirring until well combined.
Use your hands (flour them if necessary) to form small balls of dough. Put 1-2 tablespoons sugar on a small plate or bowl, and drop the cookies in them before placing, sugar side up, on the cookie sheet (this provides the crackle).
Bake 12-15 minutes - take out before they are firm. Cool on a rack.

Amazingly delicious.

My Thermometer Has Apparently Gone South

I have a lovely La Crosse fancy indoor-outdoor wireless thermometer. Today it is telling me it is 72.7 degrees indoors and 59.8 degrees outdoors. My fingers, however, are almost too cold to type and I am huddled under two comforters and a blanket, so it seems that it's not telling me the truth. And since the snow outside is firm and crisp, it ain't no 59 degrees outside, not even in the sun.

Yep, I'm planning to go south in a week or two to visit friends and relatives, but I haven't left yet. Apparently my thermometer is already vicariously there.

A Town that Made Dreams Come True

Once upon a time there was a village in upstate New York that decided it could host the Winter Olympic Games, and in 1932 it did. Decades later, this village of less than three thousand people decided to do it again, and against all odds, brought the 1980 Olympics to Lake Placid.

So a tiny town in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains became home to some of the greatest moments in American sports history - Eric Heiden winning five gold medals, and the young US hockey team upsetting the Russian powerhouse in the Miracle on Ice and going on to win Olympic gold.

And years later, a former Lake Placid News reporter named Marc Nathanson decided to make a movie about it. And he did.

                       

                                               
                        Click To Play                       

                               

The movie, Small Town, Big Dreams: Lake Placid's Olympic Story, airs in February on PBS stations nationwide.

I'm proud to say I've helped around the edges of producing this film, and am doing PR for it. We're still in need of underwriting to help with production costs, so if you or anyone you know would like to be associated with this great project, we have some ad slots for the movie itself (which will air for the next two years on PBS nationwide), on the DVD, and on the movie's website. Just give me a holler.

Otherwise, watch for it on PBS, and I'll announce when the DVD is available for sale.

Note: Now available for pre-order on Amazon.

What It's Like Driving in this Neck of the Woods

I took this on yesterday's trek through upstate New York and back to Vermont - a video game of a journey that involved an overturned salt truck (requiring a lengthy detour on an even snowier road than this), getting stuck behind an overloaded rickety pick-up truck loaded skyhigh with bags of medicated animal feed (I could read only the word MEDICATED), and then a jackknifed tractor trailer on a slight downhill bend (an even more lengthy detour on even snowier roads to come out just past said truck). All this in the first 30 miles or so.

At this point I called the friend I was meeting for lunch in Lake Placid and told her I was going to be late.

Fortunately the rest of the trip was smooth sailing.

For YA and Middle Grade Authors in Search of an Agent

If you have a complete middle-grade or young adult novel and think you're ready for an agent (or at least lots of feedback), get ready for the Secret Agent contest on Monday, Jan. 11. All you do is submit the first 250 words of your manuscript. That's it. And, oh yeah, you have to comment on at least five of the other entries once they're posted.

The first 50 entries will be posted, without your name, and you'll get comments from readers at large as well as the agent. At the end, the agent selects a winner and usually a few others from whom she or he requests partials (at this point you'll know who the agent is).

But read this carefully. The contest opens at noon, and closes when 50 eligible entries are received. This may take only a minute or two. Seriously. So you have to have your entry ready and your fingers poised to hit Send as soon as your computer clock clicks to noon EST. If you're going to be at work and cannot send it, have a friend submit it, which is perfectly legal. I've done this for two friends, and one ended up with an agent and a book deal.

And this contest is free.

Submissions go to facelesswords(at)gmail.com. Type your name (or fake name, whatever you want to use), book title, and genre at the top of your email and then paste in the first 250 words, but don't stop in the middle of a sentence. Don't submit early, or you'll be disqualified. Here is a detailed explanation of the rules.

Go for it. What do you have to lose?

An SPCA that Sorely Needs Your Help

Usually on Friday I feature an adoptable dog of my favorite breed, Australian Cattle Dog. Today there's an SPCA in Solano County, California, in such need that I'd like to urge you to donate to them.

Nearly 100 puppies were seized from a pet store whose owners were arrested with charges of animal cruelty, and the SPCA took in all the dogs.

David Roth, president of the Solano County SPCA says

This is the largest number of animals the SPCA has taken in any one day since the poodle rescue some 10 years ago. That event disabled us to the point we were temporarily unable to provide the services those animals so desperately needed and deserved.  With this increased pet population will come an extreme drain on our current resources so we appeal to everyone for any donations possible be it monetary or in goods such as puppy food, blankets, towels or kenneling materials.  Our very little new additions need our help and SPCA is here to serve them for as long as they need us -- but we cannot do it without the community's support. 

The puppies are all in quarantine and cannot be seen or adopted, but they're going through many supplies. Here's a recent list of needs:

• Cleaning Supplies: Simple Green, bleach, scrub brushes, sponges, newspaper with shiny ads removed, large trash bags, latex or non-latex gloves, shop vac
• Puppy Care: Blankets, towels, sheets, carpet squares, puppy shampoo, puppy food (Kirkland from Costco or Healthwise from Western Ranch 448-6568), puppy toys (used and clean is fine), food and water dishes (preferably ones that clip to the side of a kennel), water bottles (type used for rabbit cages), polar fleece (they use it to make toys)
• Other: Heating pads. laundry detergent, dish soap, crates or kennels of any size, gift certificates to any pet store, Costco, or Sam's Club

You can take items or mail donations to the SPCA at 2200 Peabody Road, Vacaville, CA  95687. (Generally open Monday-Wednesday 11 am-4 pm for donations; Thursday-Friday noon-6 pm and weekends 11 am-5 pm for donations and adoptions.) You can also donate through PayPal by clicking on the "Make a Donation" button on this page.

If you can help, even a tiny amount - please do.