Writerly Banter With Screenshots

Once again, arguing with screenshots about writing, because it’s an easy post.

This screenshot was posted on a Facebook page called Writers About Writing. Like a lot of these things, it serves as a jumping-off point for a self-interview and reflection on process:

I don’t have a giant crate, just a stack of clean hardcover journals in the children’s shrine bookcase downstairs, and a larger pile of spiral notebooks from back in the day that I’ve ripped the written pages from to transcribe digitally. I might use the notebooks if I ever find myself outside the house for extended periods—they exist to stave off boredom while waiting in doctors’ offices, auto repair shops, etc., more than anything. 

Where I live, the nearest doctor I can afford is 200 miles away in Colorado Springs. I can walk home from the auto shop here in Monte Vista. It is therefore likely the notebooks and hardbound journals will go unsullied until one of my children, or, more likely, someone from the thrift store does something with them. 

Gifts over various birthdays and Christmases. I’ve attempted making entries, but I prefer typing into a digital file I can amend.

As regards the Oxford comma, I like it. What others choose to do is up to them. Just write something I might want to read, all right?

A strong opinion? It’s robust. It’s not going anywhere. 

I’m pleased to report the last time I lost an unsaved draft was in 1987. I was merrily typing away at a story and was close to finishing. I leaned back in my chair, thinking of saving the file when the power blinked. Hours of what felt like the best writing of my then-embryonic career were gone. 

It took another week to finish the story and I still wonder about what I lost. Suffice to say I saved after every other sentence and printed multiple draft copies as a matter of course afterward. Losing text to power outages hasn’t been an issue since.

Image source unknown. I wish I was clever enough to make something like this.

As for novelty coffee mugs, I have a drawer full of them. Dear old Dad’s seen his share of birthdays and Christmases. I generally tend to use the largest one I can put in the microwave. I had a large one before that I couldn’t put in the microwave, but used frequently, because my office is upstairs. 

As for why I don’t keep the coffee maker in my office, it’s because I don’t want to spend too much time sitting down in here. ‘Tis a far, far better thing to get up once in a while and say hi to the other people living in my house than to stay inside, only coming out to use the rest room. If I have to explain this to you, forget it, don’t worry about it, you’re better off not knowing what you miss. 

I was going to take a photo of my coffee mug drawer but this old classic makes for a better segue, especially given how much I hate myself now for even thinking of taking a photo of my coffee mug drawer. Some things should be sacrosanct.

I’ve only suffered impostor syndrome once, and that was upon the announcement my first paid writing work in 1990. I shared the table of contents with Watchmen creator Alan Moore and French comics legend Moebius. It was a lame story and I was only there because the artist who drew it wanted to show off how much pull he had with the editor. That I was never paid again for my fiction writing until 23 years later seals the case.

It's in the lower center spotlighted Taboo #4 where you'll find a couple of recognizable names. This Diamond Comics' Previews came out on 11 May 1990. I took it to show off at the same party I met the woman Ito whom I've been married for 30 years this August.

I've read enough bad fiction since then, however, that I'm not at all hung up about it anymore. I laugh to think of the editor on Grace Among the Dead and how much she complained about my use of exclamation points. Yes, I did overuse them, but she missed everything else in her obsession. After a while, you could tell there was a point in which she gave up. I was on my own for catching errors.

After a while you learn to be grateful for your forced self-reliance. It’s more than mere cliché, it’s an eternal truth that if you want something done right, you must do it yourself. All of it. The great editors along the lines of Maxwell Perkins are no longer with us. We must learn a degree of self-awareness ordinary mortals rarely master. 

Last week I finished a book by a second-tier horror author published by one of the big five publishing houses. The book enjoyed rave blurbs from the likes of Clive Barker and other top-tier writers. The story was competently plotted, and a fine example of the nonsense you can get away with if your story moves fast enough. You can forgive cardboard characters and contrivances so long as something is happening.

What raised my eyebrow was the use of ALL CAPS!!!!! and multiple exclamation marks during violent confrontations. Sometimes the situation would escalate to ALL CAPS!!!! in italic. Sometimes multiple question marks were used to indicate the point-of-view character was really confused. Like, what??????

It was quite the very thing that would get you laughed out of an amateur press association back in the day. Yet here’s Mr. Tier 2 Horror Guy getting away with it, and within the auspices of a major publishing house. I think of those snobs who made their smuggy stink about self-publishing and indie publishing as it overtook the market. As if no one ever read a truly dreadful thing out of a Big Five publishing house, ever.

Which is all to say, What impostor syndrome? I’ve met worse frauds. Once again, thanks to the random People of Twitter for the blog fodder. We’ll do this again sometime.