Eating an Elephant by Andy Scheer

How do you eat an elephant, asks the old joke. One bite at a time.

Much the same way you complete a writing or editorial project: one word at a time.

This past month and a half I've been eating an elephant, editing a 105,000-word novel for a repeat client.

I told him this past fall that my recent day job meant I couldn't edit the book on short notice with a quick turnaround. I could work on it only evenings and weekends.

He agreed and promised to send me the manuscript via installments as he finished polishing the text.

I got the first installment six weeks ago and dug into it right away, sending him the next a day a tracked changes version of the first chapter that showed the level of work I felt the manuscript required. He agreed.

The next evening I invested an hour in the project. And the evening after that. I gave myself a few days off when other events demanded my spare time. Otherwise I tried to accomplish something every day, if only a half-dozen pages.

Fifty editing sessions later, I just sent my client the full, final polished text.

Much as I would have liked to work on it for 10 days from 8 to 5, that wasn't possible. So I did what I could, one bite at a time.

Key Details by Andy Scheer

I came away from five hours at the car show with three particular photos. Each was a detail shot, taken from an unusual perspective.

Yes, I also took a good number of conventional photos of the three hundred vehicles at the Veteran Motor Car Club of America show this weekend at the Abbey in Canon City, Colorado.

But I wanted more than just conventional shots. I wanted images that captured the essence of three special cars. A single shot that could show what made each unique. Much the way a novelist, with a well-drawn word picture, captures a character.

I chose my cast carefully. None of the usual suspects that fade into the background as just one more 1957 Chevrolet or 1930 Ford.

In the swap-meet lot sat a faded red 1937 Hudson Terraplane coupe. I caught a break. Its position on a trailer forced me to take photos from a low angle—the best perspective to accentuate its art-deco grille.

That perspective also served me in capturing the “goddess of speed” hood ornament on a 1939 Packard. Kneeling, I could isolate the chrome sculpture against the sky—and with some adjustments, contrasting cumulus clouds. There's more to learn about Packard Motor Cars. But I think this image conveys the sense of stylish luxury.

That photo didn't happen on the first try. But I knew I was close, so I kept shooting, changing one detail at a time. Finally the tenth image communicated what I wanted to say. I'm grateful for digital technology. There's no extra cost of materials to make one more attempt, only a small investment of time.

I wanted an image that said late 1950s American luxury barge. The white 1959 Cadillac didn't quite work. The owners had the trunk open, keeping me from isolating the fin and rocket-exhaust stoplight. But a few rows over sat a wine-red 1957 Chrysler 300C, with equally glorious tailfins. Even if I'd had room, I didn't want a shot of the entire car, just that one trademark image that sums up not only this car, but the entire era.

Communicating the essence of a car, or a person, doesn't take a thousand words. The secret lies in isolating that essential detail.

Don't Shoot the Messenger by Diana Flegal

It is difficult to hear that the manuscript you labored over and birthed has been rejected. Or to meet with your critique partners only to see their red ink bleeding all over the pages of your best efforts.

But the worst thing you can do is shoot the messenger.

This past weekend I had the privilege of teaching at a Mini-Fiction Workshop at the Anderson Library, Anderson, SC. organized by Elva Cobb Martin.

One of the workshops I delivered was First Lines, First Pages. Authors brought the first pages of their work in progress. (WIP). We read them and let the authors know if we would read on, and if not- we made suggestions that might better 'hook' their reader.

I reminded them that the author of THE HELP, Kathryn Stockett, had faced rejection 61 times before her title was accepted and published. That is a lot of rejection and yet Kathryn did not quit. And I am glad she did not. Her literary voice is one I am thankful to know.

Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg address. In reading Matthew Pinsker's article, I smiled to learn that Lincoln wrote several drafts of his speech. So many that they can not be absolutely sure which version was the one read so long ago. After his speech, many requests were made for copies. Each one was originally penned by hand by President Lincoln, known for rewrites and self editing.

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved."

Ralph Waldo Emerson from the Quotationspage.com

I'm sure Kathryn Stockett's first page in her published book, was not at all the same as the first page she began with. She took the suggestions and rejections to heart, made the needed and necessary improvements, and ended up with a bestseller.

 

 

 

So rather than let your words slip down the drain, or blame others for your rejections; revise, rewrite and retry.
 

When you wear the flower of impatience in your heart instead of the flower of acceptance with joy, you will always find your enemies get an advantage over you."
Hannah Hurnard wrote in Hinds Feet in High Places- spoken to much afraid as she battled her enemies discouragement and despair.

Never give up on your dreams. With every journey round the mountain, you will find hinds feet growing until you will leap over every obstacle with ease.

 

 

 

 

 

Editor's Choice by Andy Scheer

“Don't make the editor's decision for her by not submitting.” I thought of that quote from Victoria Janssen this past Wednesday as I read an editor's email.

“I’m the new editor at [XYZ Publishers],” she said, “handling [Jane Doe’s] former responsibilities. … We would like to circulate this manuscript to our publications committee to take a look at it. Is there a full manuscript available?”

I'd almost not sent the proposal to XYZ. None of the previous proposals I'd sent them had generated any kind of response, even an acknowledgment they'd been received.

But when I considered the houses to which I might send a proposal for this client's project, XYZ came to mind. Still when I initially tried to send it, my email bounced back as having a bad address. So I checked with my Hartline colleagues.

Their response wasn't encouraging. Like another few editors at other houses, Jane Doe had a reputation as a correspondence black hole. Nevertheless I tried an alternate address.

True to form, XYZ gave no response to my initial inquiry. Other houses did. They said nice things about the concept and the proposal — and that they were either full in this category or had given up on it because for them it didn't sell.

Time passed. I checked with the houses that had not yet replied, including XYZ. A few more responded, some with compliments, but all with rejections. But from XYZ, only silence.

Until Wednesday. As I sent the editor the full manuscript, I reflected on the reasons I'd included XYZ on my list — against strong evidence to the contrary.

In the end they may still say no. But at this point they're the only publisher saying yes. Good thing I decided to leave the decision to them.

Where'd That Come From? by Andy Scheer

Yesterday I pulled a late-nighter.

I was on deadline for a book editing project. My normally reliable computer had decided it was time for my word-processing software to begin freezing—requiring a system restart each time.

Because the nonfiction project tipped the scales at just under 34,000 words, I'd scheduled myself to nibble away at the manuscript each day over the course of a month.

So by the time I finished editing the back-matter and began my final polishing pass through the entire manuscript, it had been some time since I'd reviewed much of it.

I knew that as I'd gone along, I'd used Track Changes to mark for the author the places where I felt an expanded example would help.

But I wasn't prepared for the surprise some of those insertions brought me. It's not that they were off-topic. Just the opposite. As the writer examined different fiction genres' special demands for dialogue, setting, research, and the like, I'd been able to pull examples out of my hat.

I hadn't particularly realized I was doing it. I'd just been applying the principle of FOKSIC (fingers on keyboard, seat in chair). But there on the screen in front of me last night I found an insertion about the use of symbolism in Frank Herbert's Dune—a book I've not read in thirty years. I'm grateful I had that in me, along with all the other memorable books I've read.

Amazing what you can accomplish a little at a time—especially with a looming deadline.

Just Write It by Andy Scheer

Have you written anything today? Will you? What about yesterday—or tomorrow?

This past week a friend sent me a set of quotes from famous writers. My eyes gravitated to a statement by science fiction writer Ray Bradbury:

Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you're doomed.

I've been reading Emperor Norton's Hunch,* a history of trumpet player Lu Watters, who sparked a revolution in jazz in the 1940s and early '50s. Like many of his generation, his career was deferred as he answered his country's call to arms. But rather than abandon his dreams or put them on a shelf, he did what he could during the war to prepare to launch a reconstituted band in peacetime.

Serving in the Navy aboard a slow transport, the S.S. Antigua, bound for Hawaii, he forced himself to engage in what became his most productive period as a composer.

Every day, just to get away from everything . . . I went to the bow of the ship . . . and I wrote a tune a day. Some of them weren't very good, and . . . of course I knew this. When you write a tune, once in a while you get a wild inspiration and you outline a tune and if you have any sense after that initial stage you'll play around with it a little bit, but anyway I wrote one a day.

Those “tunes,” the author notes, were not just simple compositions, but ones of some complexity. And thanks to Watters's postwar band, The Yerba Buena Jazz Band, and others they influenced, many become traditional jazz standards.

A photo caption in the book identifies the dates that Watters, at the bow of the S.S. Antigua, wrote these tunes:

“Annie Street Rock”—Sept. 10, 1944

“Sage Hen Strut”—Sept. 11, 1944

“Antigua Blues”—Sept. 12, 1944

“Big Bear Stomp”—Sept. 13, 1944

“Hambone Kelly”—Sept. 14. 1944

If you want to write something good, you have to write something. To avoid writing mistakes, false starts, and material you'll have to discard, don't write anything.

The acronym comes in several forms, but the one I know is FOKSIC. Fingers on keyboard, seat in chair.

Your turn.

* See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTUjnl5C5l8 for a video of the Yerba Buena Stompers, a Lu Watters tribute band, playing “Emperor Norton's Hunch,” composed aboard the S.S. Antigua.