Blood on the Page Mind

The picture on the left shows typing mistakes (I got a few in typing class) and for some reason editing is on my mind. It happens every time I read a book. Words out of place, awkward sentences, repetition, repetition, and using the wrong word sear my eyes and I itch for a red (or blue) pencil to edit.

Most of the time, mistakes are the result of laziness or lack of understanding (or education/training). Often the mistakes are a result of inspiration unwilling to stop and wait for the rational part of the brain to kick in and slow everything down. Many writers lock up the editorial and critical part of the mind in order to keep the writing flowing. If the flow stops, the writing may never get done -- or the writer off the ground. A few writers are determined to break and/or disregard the rules because they are artists and depicting the world as they see it, a world without the hassle and convention of rules to tie them to some outdated way of writing, and people unwilling to see the world as they see it -- without rules, eschewing convention and banality to avoid the petty, bourgeois mind. As if . . . !

And then there are the writers too poor or too lazy to hire an editor because they can do it themselves and the ones that never learned the rules and still sold a lot of stories and articles, believing "if it ain't broke, I ain't gonna fix it".

Whatever the reason for mistakes, typos, and a general disregard for polishing until you're so sick of it you cannot bring yourself to look at the work One. More. Time. I understand you, but I do not accept your excuses.

Or rather, the editor who lives in my mind won't accept anything less than the best, firm in the knowledge that pointing out mistakes, awkward sentences and paragraphs, sloppy punctuation, and repetitive writing are all an opportunity for the writer to learn and improve. It's a humanitarian endeavor -- and not a little kick of satisfaction when writing (and author) improve and change their previous bad habits. And then there is the blood on the page; that soothes a bloody mind.

I admit it. I mentally red pencil the books I read -- unless the writing is so good I am far more interested in what happens next than reaching for my red pencil. It happens rarely, but it does happen, and yet I still note the errors, just without the overwhelming need to feel a newly sharpened red pencil in my fingers poised to strike.

Maybe it is all those years spent as an editor (some of which are ongoing) helping writers make their prose tighter and their descriptions so real the reader wants to open themselves up and drown in the evocative writing that has me aching to show the writer where the book or story could be better. Whatever the reason, I accept that I am an editor at heart that loves books and enjoys writing reviews and critiques with the satisfaction of a gourmand served a meal at a brand new restaurant and still savoring the results. I am an editor at heart.

I am also a reviewer and writer and these facets of my psyche shall not be separated no matter how much time I take off from writing, editing, and reviewing because I am first and foremost a lover of books and words who cannot remember not being able to read. And that ain't Alzheimer's or senile dementia talking either.

That is all. Disperse.

Death is a Woman

Yesterday, or maybe it was Saturday, a chance comment set me right in the midele of a story that was unreeling in my head. I had to start writing. So I wrote and wrote and wrote and the story consumes me. Consume my time, my thoughts, and the images are clear and colored in mourning.

I haven't been this excited about a story for a long time. This is the way I used to write, in a white heat with no conception of time or food or day. I often do my best writing when everything comes at me like a broken pitching machine at a batting cage, and I'm ready, bat poised to strike and catch each one at the right spot to send the horsehide hurtling over the wall and into the ether.

Finding an illustration for this short post is something else again. That took time. The art is called Death is a Woman and is by embraced1 available at DeviantArt.com. That should give you an idea of the tone of this story. It's not horror, but it is definitely from the shadowy side of the mind and about a dark, cold-hearted murderer.

I thought about posted it in serial form here, but decided to wait until it was all written and edited and published to let people in on what I've been writing. This one needs to make an entrance like Red Death at Prospero's private ball or The Phantom at the masquerade. This story is not like anything I've written in years. You can be the judge of whether it is worth the wait and worth waiting for.

I've waited for a story to fire my imagination like this for a long time. I enjoy writing fictionalized versions of my life, like Among Women and the soon to be released sequel, Among Men, or even a bit of wish fulfillment like Past Imperfect, which began life as a plan for revenge and became something more. It's not even like the story of a woman who sees death as he takes someone close to her and she chases after him to beg him to take her, rather like stalking death. That's an interesting title, Stalking Death.

Other stories and books have languished because I can't get back into the world I created, like Whitechapel Hearts, although I do keep adding to it here and there, and it has some historical context since Jack the Ripper is central to the story, as is Robert Louis Stevenson and a woman. Isn't there always a woman?

No matter how men marginalize and revile women, keeping them in psychological, physical, and societal chains, at the heart of everything is a woman, and some women are quite adept at playing the innocent -- or at least beleaguered and abused so there is a reason for their violence. Puts me in mind of the woman who set her husband on fire while he slept after being abused for years. Marriage has a way of uplifting and destroying people and some people imagine they are being destroyed, or want a way out to start their lives over. Getting away with murder is difficult, even for the so-called geniuses of crime, but to get away with murder and have no one suspect you is a great feat. That is unless something sets the wheels of memory turning until the events of a decade before are shown in a much different light. It's a good thing there is no statute of limitations on murder.

Some murderers get a taste for the violence and decide it is the best -- and most lucrative -- way to solve all their problems. That is where they set themselves up for failure. It's a variation on: fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice, shame on you.  The murderer might get away with once, but getting away with murderer again under similar circumstances? Spider senses will be tingling all over the place.

Okay, so no more hints and no more clues. Keep an eye out for one woman's story of suicide, gossip, and murder. It'll be a killer.