BLOOD ON THE KEYS | 2006-11-01
I just explained to Mark something he already knows:
Mark, the Mantra and HERESY! did not spring out of my typewriter fully grown, as you well know. They are so good htat nobody NOTICES it outside our little circle.
One thing that makes writing a book such a misery is that you do it ALONE. I have over 23,000 words in draft. The big question is, is it still on an understandable subject in an understandable direction or have I wandered too far?
I dread submitting it to anybody for a read.
First, I will have to listen to their ritual bit about they "have a life" several times. Then they will tell me I should read oneof the two books they have read since I gave them the manuscript.
Finally, at long last, I will call them the fifth time and they will say, yes, they read it last week.
The reason I am so exhausted and so anxious is that writing 23,000 words for publication is hard work. But it may all need to be started again from scratch. Whether or no I can proceed depends on my getting someone else to read it over. This is a BIG deal.
After the ritual "I've got a life" and "Why don't you read the books I have read since you sent me this" comes the announcement that they did read it last week. Now comes ANOTHER painful ritual.
I want to know. I NEED to know, if it makes sense when someone reads it over the way a regular eader would. Everybody knows that a writer has a hard time proffing his own spelling. You need someone ELSE to edit it.
So, finally, this person has read it, though they didn't bother to tell me so. Now comes the NEXT ritual:
"I read it and I've been thinking about it."
"Yes, yes, what's the verdict?"
"Well, I know you ran it through your spellchecker, but I still can't decide whether you spelled "peanut butter" right. Shouldn't there be a hyphen in there?
In the movie "Telefon" someone was able to kill the person on the other end of the line. I want to find out how to do that.
No, I did not write the book so people could check my spellchecker. I want to know if people can read it and if it follows. The time you spent reading magazines last week would be enough to read it over quickly, which what the reader will do, not even taking those two books into account.
How is the book coming? I put the intro here. I put a later chapter here.
Nothing back about whether it flowed or makes sense.
I am taking them out. I need a reader who will READ the damned thing.
And I am going to stop writing this before I bust a gut.