Just recently my editor taught me when to use “elder daughter” instead of “eldest.” Today my copyeditor taught me that these {} are called French braces. Sometimes I get questions about the “adversarial” relationship between writers and editors, and I say, sure, sometimes you have to stick up for your stuff, but most of the time (if you’re working with good folks, as I am), editors and copyeditors are in the business fo making me look smartest than I am.
Yes, those two typos were for fun.
Part of writing about Montaigne (click on “Montaigne” tag to see more…all kinda fishy-wishy at this point, still taking form) is that I will be writing some about [looks left, looks right, whispers] s-e-x, because Montaigne wrote about it just like he wrote about pretty much everything else from philosophers to killer pigs. This really is tricky for me because the subject deserves a balance of frankness and discretion. And even that I’m not saying quite right. Somewhere between healthy openness and libidinous oversharing lies wisdom?
I’ll have to figure it out soon, because I’m on deadline. Back to work…
For the students of PCIS, here are the images we worked with today when we spoke about writing and revision (if you click on the pictures, you will see a few comments).
Tweet triggered by book passage I’m working on: Sometimes you need a little patchouli to go with your logger boots #ShamanGirlDrivingAPickupTruck #MyWife #LuckyOldMe
Revision: my favorite stage in the writing process. This is when the obsessive-compulsive tendencies that frustrate me to the edge of madness throughout the rest of the process (and daily life itself) suddenly become an asset. This is the inky equivalent of a musician tinkering with the mix.
After an all-nighter, time for lunch: more coffee, and dry sugar-bomb cereal in a mug.
…getting there. Using a friend’s dining room table. Thank you friend(s).
My two brothers and I are all self-employed and used to taking our work where we can find it. As such I am at this moment working on a book while sitting in a hotel lobby. While considering the pros and cons of the portability of my job, I was given to think of my brother Jed trying to log in a hotel lobby. Knowing him as I do, I can tell you he would get quite a kick out of the attempt. I can almost smell the two-cycle exhaust. And I think we could snake the skidder cables in through the automatic doors, although one assumes the SWAT teams would have arrived by then.
My next book (no title yet, earliest it will be out is August 2012) is much more focused on a man named Tom than it is on me or my family. But anyone who read Truck knows I have a soft spot for pickup trucks and girls, so here’s an excerpt from the current draft in which I am accompanied by my then 3-year-old, who is resolutely sucking her thumb as we hammer down the backroads:
Jane and I are on our way to visit Tom Hartwig. He’s going to cut and bend some steel for me. Normally the truck would be rolling on blacktop, but crews are resurfacing and reshaping the curves along this stretch of county road, so they have chomped and removed the asphalt. Gravel rattles in the wheel wells, and a whorl of dust spins from beneath the back bumper to drift in our wake. It’s good to drive a dirt road, especially in a pickup truck. You get a whole different feel coming up through the wheel. There’s a little give, a little float to the curves. You feel like maybe life is more liveable when everything doesn’t have to be all double-yellow perfect. Given time and good spirits in the company of a child I believe you should converse with that child, but right now Jane’s thumb is well-planted and furthermore I can cultivate in her worse habits than the love of watching farm fields slide past an open truck window to the tune of yesteryear’s country music legends, so I punch the radio button and dial up Moose Country 106.7. I do my best to raise my children right, but some lessons are best imparted by ladies, specifically among them Patsy, Tammy, Loretta, and even – especially – Dolly.
Current book project moving along…one more big deadline to hit, and if I hit it, the book will be out in August 2012. Fingers not crossed, because that makes it tough to type. All writers should be blessed with an editor like mine. She has mastered the ability to tolerate my false starts and wish-wash and perplexitude and yet she knows just when to brandish the figurative ball peen hammer…wrapped in velvet, of course.
from $8.99
from $13.50
from $13.50