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| The author/publisher, Dane F. Baylis |
MUST BE SOMETHING IN THE AIR.
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Here we are once again. Depending on your particular bent, this could be the Christmas Season, the Holiday Season, or that time of year when you feel sorry for yourself and how the tough old world of writing and getting published has treated you. If you're in that latter category, you may be one of the people I've scanned in the last few days who just had to tell everyone about your harsh treatment at the hands of those nasty editors.
Didn't you do everything they wanted? You waited until you had the whole manuscript before you submitted. You made the corrections and did the rewrites, even when you disagreed. You did them again, and possibly once more. Still, you just couldn't make it come out the way they wanted - Whatever that was. You put in soooo much work!
Well, sorry to say, get over yourself. That was your signal that it's time to get the knot out of your knickers and do more hard work. For a start, how about finding your own literary voice. I've seen so many excerpts and chapters that sounded so much like a thousand other excerpts and chapters, and none of them represented more than poorly written rips from somebody else's writing. Why are you so stricken when an editor just can't find that kernel of originality you might have committed by accident? Did you think they were holding their collective breath until you came along?
Next, how about joining a writer's group where the main intent is the improvement of craft and not the comforting patting of each other's rightfully spanked asses? I do mean the type of people who practice face-to-face, at times even brutal, honesty in the physical world. Yes, there are groups on-line, and the bulk of them exist to waste time telling each other how unique and deserving each and everyone of them must be. Oh, huge, heart felt sigh.
Horse shit! The reality is damned few writers are that noteworthy. Some of the rest are almost able to pull off well crafted tales with strong voice, and the majority are sad ranters trying to put off their lack of ability on the gatekeepers they couldn't impress. You need to choose what group you want to belong to. (Hint: The published ones are in the group that comprehend the order in which work and success occur.)
Lastly, get your nose out of that drivel you have been mimicking. Pick up some solid, well recognized, and lauded works by the top authors. Don't read them to be entertained. Read them to learn how they were written. Then, take the mechanics of the craft and try to apply it in something that doesn't sound like a cheap knock-off.
But you say you enjoy drivel? Well, it's a lot like that old programmer's adage, "Garbage in. Garbage out!" So why be surprised if your next manuscript goes out with the garbage?
Just some helpful hints from your Uncle Dane.
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Meanwhile...live, love, write. No, don't whine - WRITE!
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