Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Okay! I'll Talk!



Okay, Detective! I‘ll talk, just move that light from my eyes, will ya? Yeah, I’ve always been an SF junkie, is that a crime ?? Sure, I’ve also enjoyed seeing my own words on paper. But I didn’t write the bastard… at least not yet !

When I got curiously mixed in with this wormhole thing as an editor ( down the wormhole if you will ) it was to strictly be a behind the scenes gig. Funny though, as an “ editor” I started to feel that it was almost pretentious and even maybe preposterous to hold forth in a supposedly authoritative manner on other peoples’s works - it was sorta like, you know, a 16 year old Justin Beiber writing his inspirational and insightful life story. Say what !!

I was also a bit haunted by observations made by a couple of past literary high-rollers who were also scoundrels in varying degrees. George Bernard Shaw observed “Those who can’t do, teach” and Brendan Behan noted that critics ( who gotta be on a branch close to the editors’ branch on the literary tree ) are like eunuchs in a harem, they know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they can’t do it themselves.

Finally, I was slightly reminded of my late older brother who got himself booted from our Grade nine Catholic high school religion class by calling the celebate priest on his qualifications as a teacher authority vis-à-vis marriage related topics and issues.

So I began to figure that if I’m gonna edit other writers stuff, I gotta be doing the writing thing myself if I want any credibility. So that’s what I’m gonna do.

I have had some ideas swirling about since, and even before, the ever-present effervescent Ms. Varvel got a hold of me online and said I should attempt to bake a story cake from them - I’ll bet she says that to all the wordsmith wannabees ! Anyhow, in the next while I will try to take them further. I’d be happy ( gulp) to let the others who peek in weigh in on what I’m up to as well.

Hmmmm, never thought I had masochistic tendencies before !
 
Don

1 comment:

  1. You edited some of my essays in High School- cavalierly dismissing them as "wordy and verbose" -and we'd howl because that was how the UWO professor had dismissed something you had handed in. It is one of the favorite phrases I've carried through the years- even using it on my kid's essays- though they never got the joke. It's about time you got down to business...

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