April | 2015 | Saying nothing in particular

Are you really, really ready to publish this book?

I missed Shakespeare’s birthday celebration because I was in the middle of final, final edits. Those of you who are writers are keenly aware of the abject horror of final, final edits. Basically the publisher says to you: “Here is your last chance to catch embarrassing typos, missing words, misplaced commas, etc. After you sign off, your work will be paraded naked through Amazon and, if you missed anything, you will be the laughing stock of the literary world. But what do we care. You’re not making us any money.”

And you know, don’t you know, don’t you know, that despite the many, many, many times you and your editor and the proofreader go over the manuscript, as night follows day, something will be missed.

It was . . . The Typo That Got Away!

Oh yes. That nasty little bugger – the Typo That Got Away – is hiding somewhere in the text, somewhere weary eyes haven’t a chance of finding him.

However, that first reviewer, oh yes, never fear. Your first reviewer will find it. And they’ll dangle it in front of your face as if to say – “what kind of a writer are you anyway?”

Buy my book! Review my book!

Sigh. The second worst thing about final, final edits is – guess what – it’s Circus Barker time because you know if you don’t start out of the gate with 35 five star reviews well, you might as well have never written the book at all. You’ve just frigging wasted all the years of your life you devoted to writing it.

I’m not a huge fan of Kafka but when it’s Circus Barker time I feel like I’m devolving into a giant praying mantis, sliming all my friends and colleagues.

Write me a review or else!

The Typo That Got Away

I know what. This time I’ll do it a little differently. I’ll offer a reward for the Typo that Got Away. Dead or Alive. Or better yet, I’ll sell my soul to . . . Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice

By pure coincidence, in the last couple of months I’ve seen two movies based on Truman Capote’s life at the time he wrote the book IN COLD BLOOD: Truman starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Infamous starring Toby Jones. Both excellent movies. Hoffman had the more difficult role because he had five or six inches on Capote and didn’t really look that much like him. However, he did an amazing job of capturing the angst of a writer trapped by his ambition.

The late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman as Capote agonizing over what he knows he must do to get the story.

Writing about an actual crime must always bring angst. Will you get the details accurately? How will the victims be affected by what you write? No doubt there are cold-blooded writers and journalists out there who put their own ambitions above the feelings of those affected by what they publish, but, both these movies suggest Truman Capote was not one of them. However, he was keenly aware that in order to finish his book (which he called a“nonfiction novel”) the killer he’d come to know would have to die. He also knew that his book would have more authenticity if he could pry the details of the Cutter family’s seemingly random slaughter out of a death row convict. Not an easy job. It would take Capote four years to cajole and dance his way into the man’s heart and soul until finally gaining his trust. His passion to create a masterpiece overrode any moral objections to duping someone into believing that you care about them when all you really care about is improving your story. Of course, there’s no way of knowing how Capote actually felt but as the appeals process dragged out the execution day, he was forced to face the ghoulishness of the situation and his own “cold-bloodedness.”

I know writers who believe that this sort of ambition, this willingness to sacrifice all – including one’s self-respect – is necessary to write great fiction. I must admit when I create a character based on a real person, I shudder and stammer and fall all over myself with dread. I don’t have it in me to befriend someone just so I could expose their story to the world, even for that coveted Best Seller status. What do you think? Are there limits beyond which you will refuse to go? Or, in the pursuit of art are there no limits?