Clip clop, clip clop. I've submitted my edited story to my editor. It's probably about my eighth edit masquerading as a "second draft." My "first draft" was perhaps my third edit. She never saw the in-between ones.

I think I've done far more than she initially suggested, and I do believe it's a lot better than the "first draft." Is it there yet? No effin' way. I can point to many things I've fixed, but just as many that she never raised that I just know are "problem areas." I simply don't know how to fix everything without some good guidance from a professional editor.

Friends can help as end-users (i.e. readers), but are way too vague to be of real help. They are not editors. Their opinions are valuable, but not invaluable. There's a huge difference. If I were to let a bookworm friend take over, and blue pencil it to death, it would no longer be my story.

I'll defer to my professional editor any day. She knows what she's doing. I trust her. I'm still feeling my way (groping in the dark is more like it) in fiction, but here's my deal:

• I currently suck at fiction, and feel far more comfortable getting my research-oriented articles published in trade journals. Those are easy! The editors almost never change a word or phrase.
  
• I really want to learn and improve at fiction. I'm not a "difficult" person with whom to work.
  
• I've always made my "real" living doing math, not writing.
• I'm not giving up my day job, even if my short story gets published in e-copy and hard copy as part of an anthology. Math is my bread and butter.
  
• If my story never gets published, it's okay with me--I have no manhood points at stake!
• There are at least a half dozen things still wrong with the revised draft I sent my editor. I brought them to her attention, not vice-versa. I might actually be a harsher critic of my own writing than she is.
  
• If I don't want to read my own story, then nobody else will.
• It must be entertaining for a few minutes. That's all it takes to read a short story.

Do I have a really crappy attitude toward having a fiction piece being published? I think it's realistic.

I like this Euphorbia. Some German expert on them at Gardenweb's cacti & succulents forum said the growth habit looked like one particular species of Euphorbia, but that those don't bloom, so he didn't know what this one is. The entire plant comes up to my waist from the ground, and the flowers are less than 1/4" across. Given summers outside on my patio, it does bloom every Fall.

I spoke with my editor via IMs last night. She gave me a couple of extra evenings to tidy up my rewrite/editing job some more before resubmitting it to her. Jess Patrick gave me some vague comments, but nothing concrete enough to put to much use. My editor agrees that that's where a good editor can be of use to point out specifics. She started out as a writer and journalist, then later learned over the years to edit under tutelage.

I got caught in the office tonight until 7pm, so I'm not alert enough to work on it this evening. Tomorrow evening/night will have to suffice. The next-to-last business day of the month is usually like this. Sales has recognized the revenue for my deliverables for the month, therefore, I have to have them to the client by COB the last business day. That would be tomorrow.

There isn't any specific deadline for my story, but I'd really rather not dilly-dally on it. I have faith in Jan's editing skills.

Note to self: do not give up your day job.

This is Vespula areanaria, commonly known as a "Sandhills Hornet." I have problems with them nesting here every few years or so. One year, they got into a window frame, and got in the house a few at a time over the winter. This time, they got in via the cable box lead through the brick, nested inside, and ate their way through the sheetrock into the garage. Hundreds, if not thousands, of them were nesting there. We discovered it because all the debris from the drywall was piled up on the ledge of the foundation behind a huge ugly oil painting the previous owner left there almost 13 years ago.

This meant war. Haul out the Raid "Ant & Roach" spray, and a vacuum cleaner. Half a can of Raid sprayed into the hole in the wall seemed to do a pretty good job on whatever the vacuum cleaner couldn't get.

The funniest reaction was from the neighbors. Instead of staring and coming over to ask what was happening, they looked, immediately looked away, stuck their snoots up in the air and marched away really quickly. Their message: "I'll pretend I never saw that. Nobody performs such an operation in our hoity-toity neighborhood."

Guess what, folks? If it happened in your garage, you'd call an exterminator, rather than take care of it yourself. That's the only difference. This cost us a whole lot less.

I've edited my short story. My editor was kind enough to edit the first page of my first draft, just to give me an idea, and send it back just over a week ago. For my next trick, I've enlisted SteveJ/Jess Patrick to give it a read for his thoughts.

Steve usually has good suggestions. He's not an author nor an editor, but he is a better writer than I. No doubt I'll need to do more editing before I submit my "second" draft to my editor.

The one thing that's encouraging is that neither my real editor nor Steve has pointed out anything major that is wrong with it. Both liked the plot and the concept behind it. "Go forth and edit" was my initial feedback, to paraphrase.

Give a story to five different editors, and each will highlight different things to be fixed. It's the nature of writing. Proofreaders are more interested in fixing typos, grammatical, and punctuation errors. Editors can sometimes shred a story to its core, conceptually, or otherwise.

I paid a great deal of attention to continuity and fact checking when I initially wrote it, right down to whether a particular town had its own police force or relied on county mounties. An editor would catch most continuity problems: "Dick pulled out his only weapon, a .45 magnum," then later "stabbed his adversary in the heart with a shiv." Fact checking errors are not so obvious to catch, unless someone were to misstate the years of the Civil War by a few decades. In any event, fact checking is the author's job, IMHO.

My editor may send it back to me for another edit, and half expects that to be the case. That's fine. She knows I've never before written fiction, and wouldn't have solicited a story from me if she didn't think I could write one, given her guidance.

I'm making progress!

I've been neglecting this blog. It's because I've been distracted lately, by work and the short story. I hope to post something more interesting by then end of the weekend.

Until then, take care, everyone. I wish you and yours the best.

I totally PWNed the horrible writer earlier this evening. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned--big time!

He admitted to me that he never trashes anything he writes. I trash most of my writing. I lost him when I mentioned getting paid for writing, and paying for my own writing as an "acid test."

What a moron. If you think that you can never improve on your craft, whatever that might be, then you are consigned to loserhood. If you are willing to work on it, well then, I wish you all the best of luck!

~Froggie

Campanile

We ate at Campanile Wednesday night, at company expense, as a follow-up to the Leadership Committee meeting. I couldn't gracefully get out of it.

I had the house salad, which was huge. If I'd made one at home, it would have been dinner, not a starter course. Then for an entree, I had dover sole. I love fish. I can buy sole around here, but it's lemon sole, not the more delicate dover sole. The Brit Londoner guy (Paul) sitting next to me ordered the dover sole as well. Paul and I get along really well. He's a great guy.

We both were astounded at how much food the saleswomen at the table could pack into their maws. One of them ordered two huge appetizers, a huge entree, and a capuccino and chocolate truffle cake for dessert. She'd already eaten two rather large meals that day, before dinner. Bloody hell! There's a reason why neither one of them weigh in at less than 200 lbs., and one of them only comes up to my chin, wearing high heels.

I think 5'5", topping out on a fat day at 115 lbs. is plenty! I was in awe of those two women's stomach capacites, and total disregard for calorie content. I eat whatever I want whenever I feel hungry, but I just don't consume mass quantities of anything. I can't do it.

Sorry for the "jaggedies." The pixelation is courtesy of Amazon.com. I just bought this new CD of Pete Yorn's. It's Pete Yorn--how could you possibly not like his music? I didn't need to listen to his new clip tracks before deciding to fork out my money. It's Pete Yorn! Good stuff.

If you've never listened to this man, please go find some of his clips.

This is music you can pop in for a short drive to the train station, or pop in for a longer road trip.

Deni or Bud would probably win my immediate attention on a road trip, handed the option of CDs, but Mr. Yorn would figure in there somewhere.

So now you know my dirty little secret. I like Pete Yorn's music.

My editor is good. She nailed everything I thought was wrong with my first page or so, plus a couple of other things that hadn't occurred to me, then tossed it back for me to edit. I didn't expect her to get to it so quickly.

Interestingly enough, she told me that she could see my math mind working away in its construction. I've never read any Larry Niven, but I love Arthur C. Clarke's work. My little "piece of shit" short story obviously is not on par with theirs, but they were her point of reference for her remark. I could do worse.

I need to do some serious editing. The main thing is that she thinks the story is solid. She actually likes it, as well. Phew. Fiction is a huge challenge for me. I have no "manhood points" at stake here, so I'll follow instructions without complaint.

I'm dispassionate about my story. That probably will work to my advantage. The worst that can happen is that it won't make it into the anthology. The best that can happen is that it will, thus making me eligable for "affiliate" status in the HWA.

"Horror" indeed--my story's not even very scary. I wouldn't read it to a five year old before bedtime, but I wouldn't read an article from the newspaper to a kid, either. ;)

The waiting begins. I submitted my second draft to my editor last night. She said she'd read it sometime today. Whenever she gets to it is okay with me. I'm not going to push it.

For now, I've fulfilled my obligation. I had fun writing it--that's the main thing, anyway. There are a good half dozen things still wrong with it that I can identify, but at this point, it's up to my editor. She's brutally honest. I appreciate that.

Notice that the guy following behind the buggy's zipping along on in-line skates? Hey, why not? Amish drive buggies and carts, pull horse drawn farm equipment, etc., but they also ride bicycles, scooters, and rollerskate. This photo was taken in Lancaster County, PA. I went to college in PA, but about an hour north of Harrisburg, so it wasn't really in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country. Still, there were plenty of Amish and Mennonites around the area. I miss those Wednesday farmers' markets. We have roadside stands around here, and a few farmers' markets, but all you really find are truck goods. The Lewisburg, PA farmers' market had shoo-fly and strawberry pies, jams and jellies, apple butter, etc., for sale.

Why would I bring up Amish and Mennonites out of the blue? It's because I'm in the middle of writing a short story for an anthology, assuming my story is editable enough to be included. Inclusion, plus a payment to me of $25 is enough to garner a membership in the Horror Writer's Association. The anthology's theme is "mimicry," or to put it another way, "things are not as they seem."

Not to give too much away, but my story involves a couple of kidnapings and murders in the heart of an Amish community. I started on the story yesterday afternoon, and had a little over 4000 words by the time I packed it in for the evening. It took some research along the way to get a number of details correct.

No doubt it will need some serious editing on my part once it's finished, even before I hand it over to my editor, but she's good. She'll catch some things I don't, and has a better idea of what paragraphs or sections may simply not add anything to the story. I'm not a writer, so I can't afford to have an ego about such things.

Who is this spokesdude for Tanqueray? Why, Tony Sinclair of course. "Tony who?" you might ask. I certainly did. Upon seeing the same commercial a number of times, I put on my "Detective Froggie" hat and got to work. Diageo's new ad agency for Tanqueray is Grey Worldwide. Incidentally, that's one of the few large U.S. based agencies for which I have not worked. Remember in the early '90s Tanqueray had a white haired gentleman it called "Mr. Jenkins" act as spokesperson? Jenkins might have been fine advertising to the core gin drinkers (older white men), but he did nothing to expand the market, and quietly faded away a few years later.

As the Tanqueray site says:

Tony Sinclair. Socialite extraordinaire, world traveler and the TANQUERAY Gin company’s best find ever. Armed with a witty line and a cocktail shaker, Tony is the master of the mix for TANQUERAY Gin.

Um, right. He's witty. He's urbane. He's a socialite. He's the master of the mix. He's young and black. He's the very antithesis of a gin drinker. Will he work as a spokes-character? I doubt it. There are four different ads featuring the Tony character.

If Diageo were as serious about expanding its market into the hip young urban set, it'd be better off hiring a rapper. Look what happened to cognac sales after Busta Rhymes came out with his song "Pass the Courvoisier." Now, in all fairness, in the late '80s "Yak & coke" was really popular among black 20- and 30-somethings. I used to work on the Hennessy account in those days, and that was the cognac demographic. Evidently, it still is.

A Diageo marketing bigwig claims the campaign hopes "to introduce a more contemporary and urban consumer to the house of Tanqueray." I trust at this point we all know what "urban" really means. It's going after the cognac demographic.

Back to Tony Sinclair: the guy's a foppish dude, so how on earth will he sell gin? Snoop Dogg already has a song called "Gin & Juice" in which he raps about the potency of "Tanqueray and chronic." Why not just hire Snoop Dogg?

Diageo has succeeded in getting people talking about the commercials, but are they buying the product? I tend to doubt it. Our friend Tony is always shown as the only black guy mingling at parties surrounded by a sea of white. Is Diageo trying to revive Tanqueray sales by turning it into the gin equivalent of Grey Goose, a brand of vodka that does sell well among young hipster white 20- and 30-somethings? Then why throw in a black spokes-character? It's as if the powers that be at Diageo don't really want to alienate the Grey Goose crowd, but want to hedge their bets by throwing in an unexpected spokesperson. My bet is that it works to sell gin to neither crowd.

How many times have you read on people's blogs that they're "throwing in the towel" because they're sick of blogging? I keep reading this, and wonder why people even go to the trouble of making such a dramatic announcement, if, in fact, it's the truth. Why not just fade away for a few weeks? I suspect these people aren't really serious about not blogging anymore.

From my perspective, if someone really is serious about quitting blogging, he or she should just remove the blog. Sooner or later the search engine bots will catch up with the fact that the URL no longer exists. Any pages that have been cached somewhere may or may not eventually go away. I don't think it makes any sense to just let a dead blog stay there and mummify. Go ahead and break other bloggers' links to it. If enough readers let the other bloggers know the link is broken, it might be removed from their sites.

If someone just needs a break from blogging, my advice is to take a break. Come back to it weeks or even months later; it's a disservice to readers to simply throw up some dreck because you think they expect a new entry. Yes, you risk them going away and eventually forgetting to return, but you will pick up new readers once you resume.