To Hell with Preciousness

 

The Evil Gatekeeper 

A message for all you would-be fiction writers out there who think your words are too precious to alter: Be prepared to rewrite or be prepared to self-publish. It's that simple. Don't wanna work with the so-called "Gatekeepers" who don't "get" you or who you believe want to squash your vast talent? Cool. Keep banging away on those keyboards and tablets and maybe, just maybe, you will find one or two people willing to publish your work as-is every single time. You might even hit the Big Time that way, except you most likely won't.

Writing for an audience doesn't mean whatever you write is what the audience should accept. While I'm no fan of writing specifically for other people, I am aware that other people are the ultimate goal for anyone sending their work out for consideration. Do you think singers only want to hear themselves in the shower? Of course not. And any singer who wants to leave that shower and be heard isn't going to tell everyone they audition for how stupid they are and how they don't recognize talent when they hear it.

I'm sure you can find a story or two to "prove me wrong" as if such an infinitesimal number proves anything.

Ultimately, writing is a craft. Crafts involve being scrutinized and going back to the drawing board. I'm sorry if your parents told you everything you wrote was brilliant and refused to stifle your imagination when you were out in public and should have been in the moment. Participation trophies are awesome, but they don't mean much more than, "I showed up and failed to distinguish myself." Translating that mentality to submitting fiction will not get you far.

Recently, I submitted a short story to a publisher who wrote back telling me they enjoyed the story but felt it dragged in the beginning and needed some rewriting to fit better with the types of stories they publish. Well, I don't mind telling you I was offended as all hell! I fired up the old PC and let loose with a string of invective that would make John McEnroe blush! I told this gatekeeper they were a fool with limited vision who didn't understand the brilliance they had been handed. How dare you, I wrote, tell me my story needs work? That's just an opinion! You are not worthy of my time or my very stable genius.

I don't mind telling you all of that because it's absolute bullshit. I would never and have never done that.

Have I encountered publishers and editors I determined were not very intelligent based on the feedback they provided? Of course. This field is like any other. Not everybody deserves their job. But I kept my mouth shut and moved on to someone else. That's how it works. Anything else is a temper tantrum.

So, yes. I am rewriting the story for this publication. Within the context of this publication's esthetic, the feedback is spot-on. There's a reason an editor would write the following, "You are a very talented writer and I have published you many times because of that. Would you be willing to rewrite your story to streamline it and pick up the pace?"

I earned that by taking feedback and applying it. Preciousness gets you nowhere except the back of the bitter barn.

That's my feedback. Take it for it's worth or condemn me for misunderstanding your stunning brilliance. it's up to you.

My Letter to Governor Whitmer

 Below is a copy of the letter I sent Michigan Governor Whitmer regarding her abrupt about-face in light of a pandemic that has actually gotten worse since last year:

Governor Whitmer, With all due respect, I feel that you have abandoned your constituency. Last year, when the pandemic was new and you sided with logic and reason, your decisions were sound and your unwavering support of mitigation measures was an inspiration to those of us dealing with the science deniers and gun-totin' extremists. However, since your ability to effectively order lockdowns was taken away by an opportunistic Republican legislature, you have slowly begun acting as if the pandemic has become little more than a minor inconvenience. Gone are the briefings, the recommendations to MDHHS and, frankly, any real acknowledgement of what you so fervently supported in 2020. It is as if you were replaced by an imposter. All I see now is your smiling face in photo op after photo op, dancing amidst the flames of reality. Michigan is worse off now than it was last year. Your tone deaf refrain about vaccinations is meaningless when we already know the latest variant isn't halted by the vaccine. And for those of us who have several months to go before we qualify for a booster, your flippant attitude feels like a betrayal. There are only two things that have changed since last year, and anyone with the ability to observe can see them both. One, Donald Trump is no longer in office. While this is a positive change and President Biden is indeed taking the pandemic seriously, he is also facing a resistant Republican effort to curtail his intentions. Second, you are facing reelection. In fact, you have been in reelection mode since the end of 2020. I won't speculate on your motivations because that would be arrogant, but I doubt my suspicions are too far off the mark. Governor, we need you more this year than last. People are dying in greater numbers and hospitals are full. Please don't try to spin these deaths as only the unvaccinated because that is a patently false claim. My wife's vital surgery was rescheduled because of this latest variant. She was one of your most ardent supporters but now I fear you are close to losing both of us as well as many others who once stood behind "That Woman From Michigan."

Thank you for your time~

A Song in Mah Heart

 You're about to read something I have not spoken of to anyone in a very long time. In fact, it's safe to say none of you knew anything about this side of me because most of you "met" me well after I had already put an end to it. So, it never came up in those conversations where people asked me about my writing and nobody ever got the chance to read any of it.

That's right. It was written work. But not the kind you're used to seeing from me. These were songs.

I started writing them when I was thirteen and experiencing several different types of awakenings my peers had not. My growing disgust with them and with myself for being one of them and at society in general spawned some of the most glorious failures ever put to verse. I had neither the life experience nor the skillset to make most of them work, but the songs demanded to be written. And so I wrote them. I got better, too. Much better. By the time I was an adult, I'd written well over a hundred "albums'" worth of material, some of if pretty damn good, too. 

My gaze directed ever inward, I wrote songs about unrequited love, (a huge theme in my shy days) songs about that never-ending feeling of unfulfillment that had dogged me since puberty, songs about relationships I'd not even experienced yet, and songs about human apathy and greed. I also experimented heavily with first person narrative in my songwriting, often presenting the singer as the subject of a song about someone truly reprehensible. For example, in a song I called "The Corporate Kingdom," the narrator unapologetically refrains, "I am just a man with ambition/On an economic mission" in a mock Country-Western warble. The subject isn't just greed; it's also the celebratory manner with which some people extoll the virtues of that greed and have no problem being all alone in the world. 

Thanks to Talking Heads and XTC and later on King Missile and Cake, I was comfortable with satire and even self-parody, something that has informed my fiction and non-fiction writing for years now. 

One of my favorites, "Echoes in the Dust," has lyrics my father could not comprehend. He grew more and more frustrated as he read the lines, "A fragile world of glass comes crashing down/And all the lies of love start flying around/He lied to her and she lied in return/Now there's nothing left, watch it all burn." I felt the meaning was clear as a newborn baby's phlegm, but my father just grunted. If only I had performed it for him. 

That's where things get a little weird. Since I became a fan of music in the New Wave era, I was obsessed with lyrics. I wouldn't go as far as Talking Heads guitarist Jerry Harrison and say music without words in meaningless, but I definitely feel music with words is much more meaningful. That's especially true if the words have a true meaning beyond, "My boyfriend is a prick" or "That bitch owe me money." I wanted to tell stories with my songs. And sometimes I wanted to vent all my impotent rage. These were lyrical snapshots of moments and moods I could revisit and reexperience whenever I felt the need or desire. But what about the music?

I never learned to play an instrument or how to write music. Every song I ever wrote resided in my head. There were moments where I thought about sitting down with a musician and working them out, but I never had the confidence to go through with it. Then life got in the way. 

If you're wondering where all those hundreds of songs wound up, might I suggest you check the landfill? Yes, I destroyed them. All of them. 

I won't go into great detail about that except to say that when you've had your heart ripped from your chest, squeezed in front of you until the blood is gone, and then thrust back in, the desire to write songs can be the greatest casualty. I never wrote another song.

Or did I?

A few weeks ago, something strange happened. That sound, that distant musical sound I hadn't heard in years, returned. I ignored it at first, figuring it was little more than an echo of a previous time, a part of me that no longer existed. But it persisted and soon I had song titles written down. Once again, that was where things seemed to end. I decided that was fine. But the music would not be denied. 

I have now written five songs in a tiny notebook the size of the palm of my hand. I damn near cried when it started happening. I'd thought that part of me long dead, not simply asleep. I find myself unable to stop now. In fact, as I write this, the chorus to a song I called "Temporary" is incessantly playing itself over and over in my head. 

These songs gaze inward in ways I was incapable of accomplishing in my younger years. My anger isn't gone, but it doesn't control the direction of the songs as much as it once did. There is a song about human apathy called "Big Release" but its tone is decidedly sympathetic to the idiots in the song. With lyrics such as, "Look to your right/What do you see?/The misinformed yearning to be free" it feels as if I have compassion for people I also find reprehensible. We are, after all, human beings desperately craving relevance.

Who knows what other songs I will write before I have what would be considered an album's worth of material? What I do know is I feel alive in ways I have not for years. Perhaps that is the greatest song o them all~