The Buie Knife

In Praise of A Vanishing Breed: Copy Editors

Listening to a repeat of a story from the public radio show, "On the Media" about under-appreciated copy editors, I appreciate how lucky I was to have THREE copy editors for my book, Teacher of Our Town. One of them scrutinized the manuscript for content, organization and factual errors, making positive suggestions for improvement, and two scrutinized the manuscript primarily for spelling and grammar errors, but also for factual errors.

Every writer needs good editors. Just as every lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client, every writer who tries to be his own editor has a fool for an editor.

The sad news at newspapers, magazines and book publishers is that copy editors are a vanishing breed. This is a long-term trend, going back to the 1980s, and accelerated in this recession, even at such industry leaders as The Washington Post. Copy editors have been laid off in droves, with publishers hoping the public won't notice. But the public does notice that newspapers, magazines and books these days have MORE ERRORS. 

A major drawback of blogs and the fast pace of online publishing is that no time is built in for copy editing or for rewriting. If newspapers with their daily deadlines have historically been the "first draft of history," online journalism with a deadline every minute is "the first draft of newspapers."In other words, it's often half-baked.

Newspapers' standard-setters, fact-checkers, and nitpickers who used to demand quality control are a dying breed. As a consequence, language and discourse have been impoverished. In "real-time" interactive media, writers are increasingly dependent on READERS to spot errors that can be easily corrected quickly online.

What Reading Great Literature Gives You

The late David Foster Wallace said great literature makes him feel “unalone—intellectually, emotionally, spiritually.” New Yorker remembrance of Wallace.

Making a Good Living as a Writer Requires Constantly Expanding Repertoire of Skills

Is the Internet good for writers? Yes and No, according to 10 writers sought out by RU Sirius, in a piece that's essential reading for people trying to make a living as writers, or thinking of doing so. Douglas Rushkoff summed it up best in my opinion: "Many writers — even good ones — will have to accept the fact that books can be loss-leaders or break-even propositions in a highly mediated world where showing up in person generates the most income." Hat tip to Ed Cone for this article.

In my own case, I find that making a good living as a writer requires additional skills beyond what j-school taught me -- to write concisely and quickly, report fairly and accurately, and to edit precisely.

I spent six years working for daily newspapers. It was great training, a way to witness life at its most interesting and exciting, and I wrote for the largest audiences I've ever had. Getting a front-page byline made me feel like I was at the center of the universe.

I must say, however, that I don't generally regret leaving the newspaper business. The long hours and  low pay, once you have a family to support, the emphasis in most daily newspapers on crime news and fluff, without much time to probe below the surface of subjects led me to seek out more specialized communications work. The audiences are smaller but more interested, engaged and knowledgeable of the subject matter. 

To survive as a writer in the long run, you must constantly expand your skills and ultimately must have the ability to provide communications management to organizations. To stay current and competitive in the field of communications, I find that I need to constantly expand my repertoire, to provide web site construction and management, media relations, online community-building and fundraising, video production and editing, digital storytelling, online and off-line slide shows, desktop publishing, online and offline newsletters, and the ability to produce books on demand. I find that I must have in-depth knowledge of specific subjects, such as civil rights, health care, and technology, and the ability to write both short pieces for blogs and newsletters and long pieces for magazines and books.

And even if you develop good skills and a good clientele,

• unless you can garner contracts specifying an ongoing professional relationship lasting a year or more and
• unless you have a spouse whose job provides your health care and benefits,

you may find that the cost of health care coverage as a self-employed person and the lack of benefits drives you into a job with a communications company, corporation, non-profit or advocacy organization.

Madeleine L'Engle on Storytelling, Theology, and 'A Wrinkle in Time'

“Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith, faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.” -- author Madeleine L'Engle, who died September 6, 2007, at the age of 88, quoted in The New York Times. She was one of my mother's favorite authors. They shared a similar view of each life as a spiritual journey to be meditated upon and written about. Mom attended at least one retreat with L'Engle and her husband Hugh Franklin back in the 1980s.

According to a Washington Post obituary, L'Engle told one interviewer that her favorite theologian was a scientist, Albert Einstein, who said: "Anyone who is not lost in rapturous awe at the power and glory of the mind behind the universe is as good as a burned-out candle."

L'Engle's most widely read book was, and remains, A Wrinkle in Time. Poet Cynthia Zarin observed in The New Yorker that the book can be read as "science fiction, a warm tale of family life, a response to the Cold War, a book about a search for a father, a feminist tract, a religious fable, a coming-of-age novel, a work of Satanism" -- Ms. L'Engle said that Christian fundamentalists continually tried to ban it -- "or a prescient meditation on the future of the United States after the Kennedy assassination."

Encounter with Bestselling Author

It was good to see that fame and fortune have not changed, and are not likely to change, Charles Frazier, author of the bestselling novel, Cold Mountain, and whose recent release, Thirteen Moons, has rocketed to The New York Times bestseller list to rave reviews. A native of Asheville, NC and stlll a resident there, he has a charming, self-effacing modesty about him. I found him signing books at McIntyre's Bookstore in Fearrington Vllage, and had quite a nice chat with him last night. In his way of being and style of speaking, he so much reminds me of Inman, the main character of Cold Mountain, which was a great read. Turns out our paths crossed briefly at UNC in the 1970s, though I don't remember him from then. More later. (That's me on the left and him on the right, taken with my camera phone.)

New Author's Nightmare

Many half-aspiring authors want the prestige of "having written" a book, but they often do not have compelling and original things to say. Joel Achenbach humorously captures the mindset of this crowd.

Writing Every Day As a Prescription for Grief

"I have been listening to you for some time, and it has occurred to me that you are an extremely lucky person, since you are a writer, because it is possible for you to enter into a narrative not your own, for extended periods of time. To live in someone else's story, as it were. I want you to do this every day for two hours. I believe that it will be good for you." -- Psychiatrist to author Lee Smith, in response to her son's death. As a result, she wrote "On Agate Hill." "Showing Up for Work: A Writer Deals With Grief," in The News and Observer. She concludes:

As Anne Tyler once said, "I write because I want to have more than one life." I do, too. But writing is also a source of nourishment and strength. It cannot bring our loved ones back, but it can sometimes fix them in our fleeting memories as they were in life, and it can always help us make it through the night.

My psychiatrist's prescription may benefit us all. Whether we are writing fiction or nonfiction, journaling or writing for publication, writing itself is an inherently therapeutic activity. Simply to line up words one after another upon a page is to create some order where it did not exist, to give a recognizable shape to the sadness and chaos of our lives.

Read the whole article.

Journal-keeping May Improve Memory, Thinking Performance, and Quality of Life for Senior Citizens

Can journal-keeping improve memory and thinking performance in senior citizens? North Carolina State University professors Jason Allaire and Katherine Kline are collaborating on a NIH-funded study, reports Andrea Howe in the Cary (NC) News. The study has already found that journal-keeping helps cancer patients face their fears and concerns, make better decisions, and improve their quality of life.

How to Concentrate on Writing

By Matthew Stibbe. Click. (Linked from Newley.com)

Everyone Has Stories to Tell

"I have met many [people] who think they can't be writers because their lives aren't interesting enough to write about. This is simply untrue. Everyone's life is mysterious, beautiful,
stunning magic. It doesn't matter if you've lived in the same town your whole life or traveled around the world seven times. What matters is your ability to open up to the breathtaking and spectacular adventure that happens to be your life. Your job is to experience it, see it, feel it, live it, and write it down." --Lesléa Newman, on Laura Davis's writing workshop site.