Last week I considered some of the incorrect advice often given to writers.  Now I’d like to consider some editing myths.  Some of these have been created by people with an agenda (for example, a copy editor wants to make money, after all); some have been created by traditional publishers who are threatened by the indie writing movement; and some are just old warhorses that should be eradicated once and for all.

Self-published books and indie writers often fight negative stereotypes.  Every stereotype has some basis in fact, but they’re often nasty extremes designed to insult.  Irishmen are drunks (yes, we tend to like our liquor).  Writers are nerds (yes, we tend to be introverts, but not always nerds).  Psychiatrists are nuts (I won’t touch that one).  Women are distracted drivers (most men could never compete with Danica Patrick).  Men never ask for directions on a road trip (why should we?  We always know where we’re going.  Sure!).

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(John Betcher, The Critical Element, Amazon Digital Services, ASIN B00EARNQ2I)

This author continues to release entertaining and interesting thrillers in his James Becker series.  For those readers not familiar with previous books, the protagonist Beck, now a lawyer, was a special ops type.  He’s aging now but still managing to get into trouble.

This time Beck is dueling with North Korean agents in home state Minnesota.  They are intent on carrying out their revered leader’s plan for mass murder on American soil.  Confusing the issue is a financially stressed veterinary supplies salesman bent on initiating a plague of foot-and-mouth disease in U.S. livestock.  The first plan is more of a stretch than the second (except for the target), but the reader will find Beck’s analysis of a terrorist’s mindset at the end of the book is spot on.  This analysis effectively explains that no idea is too absurd for a sick, psychotic person with his mental wires frayed and crossed.  (The “underwear bomber” offers more real-life evidence if you need it.)

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Confused by all the blogs, magazines, and books claiming to tell you what you need to do to be a successful writer?  I used to be, because often advice from different sources is contradictory.  I’ve said it before in this blog: there are no sufficient conditions for writing success!  To use a cliché, there are no silver bullets.  There are some necessary conditions.  You have to be able to write, for example.  I’ll limit this discussion to writing fiction because that’s what I do.  I’m guessing what I have to say is partially applicable to non-fiction, but you might want to look elsewhere.

First, let me start by tilting at the windmills of word games often used in writing advice.  Writer’s Digest plays these games all the time.  For fiction, writer and author are interchangeable.  Yes, I know, advice columnists often play the game of saying anyone can be a writer, but only some can be an author.  There’s a bit of dishonest snobbery in that, but also an implied degree of commitment.  If you’ve writing any piece of fiction—short story, novella, novel, flash fiction, biography, etc—you’re the author of that piece.  You own it.  The government even says you own it.  You’re also a writer.  Maybe you’re not a full-time writer—many people can’t make a living at it—but you’ve sat down and put words into your word processor or even on a napkin to get there.

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#307: Curious phenomenon.  About the same time that Amazon bought the Washington Post, the New York Times had an editorial toning down its support for Apple’s position in the ebook price-fixing scandal.  A bit before that, the Boston Globe was sold to the owner of the Boston Red Sox.  Perhaps the Times, which I commend for having a digital edition for a while, is quivering a little.  They might prefer to work with Bezos than the New York Yankees’ organization?  The amount left on A-Rod’s salary would be a good down payment if the Yankees were interested.  Just sayin’….

#308: Calling all sci-fi addicts.  People have read my Survivors of the Chaos.  It even has a 5-star review on Amazon by a Pulitzer-nominated author, David Menefee.  That said, I don’t understand the neglect of the other two books in the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy,” Sing a Samba Galactica and Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand!  Maybe this is just non-productive whining, but this trilogy is my Foundation series, with the International Trade Union of Independent Planets (ITUIP) taking the place of the Foundation, and a power-hungry shipping magnate taking the place of the Mule (I didn’t write my trilogy with the Foundation trilogy in mind, of course—it just grew into a trilogy by itself, more or less, as often happens).  If you haven’t read Asimov’s trilogy (and later books in the series that meld it with the robot books and The End of Eternity), you have definitely missed some classics.  I’ll just say that my themes and settings are a bit more modern and there are ETs in my novels.

#309: Coming soon!  The next book in the “Clones and Mutants Series,” No Amber Waves of Grain, and a new anthology of speculative fiction, Paso Dobles in a Quantum Stringscape, are in final editing.  Look for them.  I’m hoping for a fall release.  Pricing is yet to be determined, but they will be a bargain.  I might even open with a freebie promo on KDP Select, so stay tuned.

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In the U.S., one of the myths we have lived with is that everyone has access to a basic education, grades 1 through 12.  Another myth is that if you want to go to college, there’s a way for you to do it.  Social engineers, often in service of elites, love to parade these myths, but they are myths.  Like religion, they promise a better tomorrow.  The problem with the first myth is in the definition of “basic education.”  The problem with the second is that it’s just not true.  And the problem with both is that the elites, that famous 1% (you pick the percentage you want—it depends on your stats), want to make sure that neither one is true.

The definition of “basic education” has been forever a moving target.  In colonial days, neither women nor slaves went to public schools (at that time, you could just lump both those two groups together as slaves as far as voting rights were concerned, because women were also treated as property).  Those few who went to these schools learned the basics: the famous three R’s.  Most of the “learning” was through rote memorization and repetition.  If you happened to be a leftie, you were whipped until you wrote with your right hand, not the left; but, oh my goodness, what penmanship they had (e.g. the signature of John Hancock).  But heaven forbid you learned to think!  That was the job of the private schools that taught the children of the wealthy elites.

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(R. Ira Harris, Island of the White Rose, Bridge Works Publishing, 2013, ISBN 978-0-9816175-5-8)

“We’ve been duped—we’ve all been duped, I tell you!” says Harris’ character, Maria Guerra, summarizing her frustration with Castro’s revolution to her friend and lover Father Pedro Villanueva.  These protagonists sink deep into intrigue as they plan to aid the guerrilla and topple Batista.  They soon learn that revolutions often only exchange one set of despots for another, especially in Latin America.

The Castro brothers’ duplicity and the bloodlust of the folk hero Che Guevara remind us of modern day Latin American regimes where constitutions are rewritten by fiat and organized opposition to the people in power is not allowed and often leads to torture or death.  The author also portrays the Batista regime’s similar brutality and the ineptness and apathetic attitude of the Church, reminding us of things to come in Argentina and Chile.  There are also tragic and comic moments like when Ed Sullivan interviews Fidel Castro.  (I saw that interview—we were also duped into thinking that Castro had finally brought democracy to the troubled island.)

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Activists often just protest and offer no solutions to fix the problems they’re protesting about.  It’s a sign of the times, I suppose.  During the era of the Vietnam War draft, we were willing to go to jail or flee to Canada for our beliefs that the war was unjust—that probably wasn’t a solution either, but it was more effective than simple protest.  People of all races put their bodies where their mouths were too, just like in the civil rights movements.  Thousands still work quietly behind the scenes trying to solve problems, not simply pointing them out—working towards peace and tolerance of others.

There’s one lost cause you don’t hear much about anymore, even at the level of protest.  We continue to wreak havoc on our environment in many ways.  We’re not attacking Gaia with drones and special forces.  We’re attacking Her on all fronts and the innocent victims will be measured in the millions unless we change our ways, not just the few innocents that the terrorists make march along with them as human shields.  A simple protest falls on deaf ears in cases involving the environment much more than any of the protests against the treatment of Manning, Snowden, and the folk hero, Julian Assange, which often get media attention but accomplish very little.  Moreover, protestors need to prioritize their causes and work on issues that can bring the greatest good for the greatest number, and not protest for protest’s sake.

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