Does anyone remember that scene from The Rescuers Down Under where the jesus lizzard (I don't remember the scientific name, you'll remember this lizard because it runs on water, supposedly) unlocks his cage with his tail, and then realizing that he's released himself, runs around shouting "I'm Free, I'm FREE!!!" in that funny voice?
Well, that's how I feel, funny voice and all. I have quit my job, and been fired, all at once. My resignation letter was so full of young-adult's-damaged-idealism-snippy-attitude that PublishAmerica (whose name I will joyfully bandy about now, in the cruelest of tones) was so affronted that they demanded---oh yes, demanded---an apology. I'm contemplating sending these letters to the Post as a sort of digestif for the ravenous sharks of the literary sea, who are currently making a meal of my erstwhile employers. Oh, how I lick my chops at the thought.
I most likely will not, but this has been a remarkably liberating experience, and not only in the most obvious sense. The typical Catholic guilt that I am consistently riddled with is conspicuously absent; a trembling feeling of relief is slowly making its rounds through my innards after I found that the email marked "M___ M_____: termination" was curiously blank (and also addressed to my company email address, which I found odd because doubtless, at the moment they deleted my company address, they incapacitated my accessing that email, which means any CC: to me at that address is useless. That, my friends, is our office manager for you. Bottle blond, and I'm talking peroxide here, folks).
But how creepy is it to receive a letter subjected: "Termination"? I mean, really, I expect robotic types in full battle gear with strange lazer guns to be crawling out my root cellar at any moment, repeating hollowly and electronically, "Terminate, terminate, terminate..." at any moment. I hope they find the dead whatever it is down there, too, because god KNOWS that thing reeks.
Anyway, point being, out of the kindness of my heart I'm finishing the last of my work for good ol' PublishAmerica. One of my final authors has bitched to no end because she thinks I haven't read her book, or else I would have noticed that major portions of the plot were missing. Hmmm, news flash:
1) The majority of books I have "edited" at PublishAmerica have not been troubled by any sort of constriction such as plot structure or continuity. It is in the contract (as the rebuttal to my resignation so conscientiously pointed out) that the editors of PublishAmerica are to stick to editing for punctuation and grammar only. So in the midst of this Cujo knock-off, if aliens had landed and begun an assault on three previously unintroduced characters, and then allowed room for the author to expound her theories on the reincarnation of Lee Iacocca and the inherent evil of abortion, it would have neither surprised nor fazed me. Not in the least. So to pretend like I'm supposed to pay attention to continuity, well, re-read your contract, my suffering dove with fibromyalgia. And check with your doctor on that, too. I'm pretty sure it doesn't affect your son, who's supposed to be your co-author and could certainly take some time to look over this "book" as well...unless his feelings have been too hurt by the fact that I misspelled his name. How many times have people misspelled mine? Get over it.
2) I did read every page, every WORD of her wretched, senseless, "blind dog eating the intestines of people, including catalogue of what these people ate before being eaten and how much the dog enjoyes eating these things as well as the intestine itself..." novel. I am glad I will never have to do it again. Some other poor bastard (perhaps one of the 3 males in my office of 26 will---maybe they'll be able to stomach it better) will have to slog through it AND your contentions that chapters 34 through 37 (which have appeared to my obviously blessed eyes, since they were the only chapters that didn't involve dogs eating anyone or crazy old ladies picking at their psoriasis sores) have disappeared.
In summary, however, this may well signify the end of the blog. Not that I'd really kept up with it, and I'm sure to insult some of my former authors who will doubtless dig up this blog through the wide "PublishAmerica" net so many of you have cast off the USS Google, but at this point, let the record show that I no longer give a flying rat's rear end. You should have known what to expect when you sign up to have your book published at a house which performs the literary equivalent of editing with a band-aid where amputation and stitches are required.
Okay, I have recently gotten in influx of theme novels...it's become increasingly apparent to me that our authors are all essentially inspired by the same narrow span of "stuff":
And Survivalists, you should know, seem to have quite the grudge against France. An unprecedented percentage of survivalist books I've edited have all (fictionally, of course) relegated France to a smoking mass, a cannibalistic terror zone, a desperate famine-ridden area.
I'm wondering if this is some kind of resentful, "they're not paying enough attention, so they'll be the first to go when the end of the world comes..." attitude.
The one worthwhile book I've done here (and not just because she's sent me a copy of her book, but because it is in fact GOOD) is Ute Carson's Colt Tailing. If you come across it, you should read it.
The one I'm working on right now would be a good book.......
In digging myself out from under the past 10 years of papers I'm not sure why I keep, I ran across this poem and was about to throw it away when I realized that I really liked it for good reason and, rather than take up more paperspace when the thing could be recycled, I'd just put it online for people to discover and enjoy or else despise but at least it's all electronic now.
Curiosity
may have killed the cat. More likely,
the cat was just unlucky, or else curious
to see what death was like, having no cause
to go on licking paws, or fathering
litter on litter of kittens, predictably.
Nevertheless, to be curious
is dangerous enough. To distrust
what is always said, what seems,
to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,
to smell rats, leave home, have hunches,
does not endear cats to those doggy circles
where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches
are the order of things, and where prevails
much wagging of incurous heads and tails.
Face it. Curiosity
will not cause us to die --
only lack of it will.
Never to want to see
the other side of the hill
or the improbable country
where living is an idyll
(although a probable hell)
would kill us all.
Only the curious
have if they live a tale
worth telling at all.
Dogs say cats love too much, are irresponsible
are dangerous, marry too many wives,
desert their children, chill all dinner tables
with tales of their nine lives.
Well, they are lucky. Let them be
nine-lived and contradictory,
curious enough to change, prepared to pay
the cat-price, which is to die
and die again and again,
each time with no less pain.
A cat-minority of one
is all that can be counted on
to tell the truth; and what cats have to tell
on each return from hell
is this: that dying is what the living do,
that dying is what the loving do,
and that dead dogs are those who never know
that dying is what, to live, each has to do.
Comparing and contrasting sensationalism, insulting vs. insipid:
my two current books are nothing but overdoses of melodrama to the tenth power---but both reside on the complete opposite ends of the gender spectrum.
My first is a book about the R.U.C. (royal ulster constabulary) and is little more than a compilation of anecdotes from this man's career, thinly veiled as a novel depicting the goings-on of one almost Robo-Copesque inspector whose tactics are uncannily flawless and whose humanity I continue to question. I have a hard time believing that he has been so dead-on throughout his tenure with this crack-team of SS-type guards. As much as I've been railing against the undue accumulation of power by the Dept. of Defense and the U.S. gov't in general, I very much appreciate the rights exercised by American citizens as set down in our constitution, which make search and seizure, w/out a warrant, screamingly illegal. Oh, and I dig the fact that we get to choose the timing of our own auto-inspections and are not subjected to random roadstops where you get cited for having bald tires. Regardless, my opinions are diametrically opposed to those of my author's and I'm having a hard time not only editing his bleeding run-on sentences but simply reading his drivel which echo with a longing for the good ol' martial law days.
My second book is an estrogen-riddled mini-soap opera which will defile the dignity of the paper it's printed upon from the moment it comes out. And I thought I liked Canadians...this is not an invective against all Canadians, as I'm fond of hockey and good beer and men who speak with a rising inflection at the end of their sentences (oh, and say "eh" without even realizing it). But this uber-heartwrenching story about a girl who becomes pregnant with her dying poet of a best friend's baby is disgusting, particularly as they spend the entire story hanging all over each other and fondling each other under the pretext of being best friends. And the fact that he's not in love with her but is instead in love with some exotic princess of an Egyptian, and the fact that his brother is the one in love with the heroine---and the heroine's mother is an uber-bitch who beats her for getting pregnant and the poet's father is emotionally frigid and withdrawn, leaving the poet to suffer the cold lonely winter of love-starvation, christ!!!!!!!!!! Paging As the goddamned World Turns!! And can i just say that, for a straight poet, the descriptions of this dude's outfit would make normal men think he's gay, and gay men shudder with disgust.
there's no balance here. I'm bouncing back and forth between the two, but when 1 is rife with run-on sentences and 2 seems unable to properly spell the word "yeah," it's questionable as to whether i shall retain my sanity.
I just wanted to share a deep and moving sentiment with you, one that my author has so potently and passionately put into words in the following poem...
why, oh god, why??????
***
Death
I use to be afraid
Now I’m not
Times in my life
Make me wish
"Damn, why can’t it come sooner
Why can’t I be free?
Of worries
Everything that is called
Life."
I have a new idea. Because I rarely post much, I'm going to start placing the ranting-and-raving emails I send to my co-workers regarding my authors on this blog. It should give everyone a better idea of what these are all about. To any authors who might stumble upon their works herein, I'm sorry. But the truth hurts.
