Author: photog

What’s the Deal with Book Editing?

photog My Fiction, photog's Corner, Science Fiction / Fantasy , , ,

Tuesday morning, I have a telecom with a book editor. My marketer provided me with the name and I’m going into this with absolutely no expectations and only slightly more understanding of the services.
As is now my habit I went to Grok and asked it. “What are the various types of editing that a fiction author might contract for his book.”
And the LLM responded in part:

“Below is a breakdown of the main types of professional editing that fiction authors typically contract for, listed in the usual order they occur during the publishing process. Each level assumes the previous one(s) have been completed.

Now, this is a lot of stuff. And if you add it all up for even a short 65,000-word novel (like mine), it’s at least, several thousand dollars.”

That’s a lotta dough.
So, my intent is to listen and take notes and see just how much in the way of editing I want and/or can afford. I intend to be open about my lack of a trust fund and my unwavering faith in my literary muse. So that should eliminate the developmental editing and line editing functions from the discussion. And honestly, even if I had endless cash to spend, I think I want the words and ideas to be my own and in the voices that I’ve invented.
As far as copyediting and proofreading, I guess I’ll decide whether the benefits justify the costs. After all, I can spell pretty well and for the most part spellcheck does tell me what bothers it. And I did do a pass through the manuscript myself already so I think it would have to be a reasonable fee to win me over.
But regardless of all my reservations I find it stimulating to go through these processes in publishing a book. After all, I’ve been reading professionally published books all my life and I’ve never seriously considered what value was added by the editor. I mean, if the author had terrible spelling and didn’t pay attention to normal grammar and orthography maybe that would have bothered me as a reader. But I’m guessing that the golden age sf writers were all pretty reasonably literate and capable of providing a clean manuscript.
But now I’ll speak to someone who does this for a living and maybe I’ll get a perspective I didn’t consider. Well, we’ll see. Maybe I’ll decide to buy some editing.
And I’m still waiting for the cover artist to get back to me to discuss that piece of the puzzle. Well, one thing at a time.

The First Fruits of Mamdani

photog Current Events ,

Less than a week after New York City elected Zohran Mamdani mayor, his first reality check surfaces.  New York State Governess Kathy Hochul declared that she has no intention of funding free busses in New York City.

https://x.com/libbyemmons/status/1987532950284451991?s=20

While herself running for reelection and under pressure to avoid any new taxes the laundry list of freebies that Mamdani has promised represents a death sentence for her chances to win the election.

So, let’s think of how all of this will play out.  Well, one thing, I’m pretty sure of is that Zohran will be a one term mayor.  When Albany refuses to pay for all of his gimmees and the middle class flees his sabotage of the public schools and destruction of the police and emptying of the prisons I can see some really bad things going down in the “Big Apple.”

What I’m not sure of is what will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.  If I were to guess I think it’ll be the city-owned grocery stores.  I think however he gets involved in that ridiculous idea it’s going to create actual chaos.  And that includes the scenario where he does nothing at all.  Just claiming that he’s working on it will cause enormous anger in the indigent population when it never occurs.  Probably he’ll open up a couple of storefronts where homeless people will be handed free food and riots will break out when the supply of food runs out.  After that the cold hard truth will become clear even to an idealistic moron such as himself.

I’ve heard that a substantial portion of the New York Police Department is planning to retire once Zohran is sworn in.  I think this will accelerate the breakdown in law and order and that will increase the white flight from the city.  How quickly all of this will spiral out of control is hard to say.  But I’m pretty confident that four years is not the amount of time it will take.  I’m guessing next summer is going to be a hot one in New York and bad things will begin to happen then.

But then again maybe I’m just indulging in some early schadenfreude at Zohran’s expense.  Maybe when it becomes apparent that all the things he promised are ridiculous impossibilities he’ll snap out of his adolescent fantasy and turn into a brilliant realistic urban leader ushering New York City into a new golden age with rich and poor coming together into a united coalition that provides inclusion, equity and diversity for all New Yorkers and without any necessity for jails, SAT exams, police or ICE agents.  And this will catapult Zohran Mamdani into the spotlight in a way that will galvanize the American people into amending the Constitution to allow a foreign-born president and this will allow him to win the Democratic nomination for president of the United States and bring him to the White House as our first Muslim, immigrant, communist president.

Yeah right.  If you believe all that then I have a bridge that goes to Brooklyn that I’d like to you to take a look at.

So, Bring It On

photog Current Events, photog's Corner , ,

Ever since humans began to practice an agricultural lifestyle, we have become entwined in a larger social structure than the family or tribe.  The much greater population density made possible by agriculture guarantees that independent existence disappears.  You live in a town or a district along with other farmers and tradesmen and the employees of the government that guarantee that the king (or duke or headman) gets his piece of the pie from your harvest.  And then there’s the Temple of the Gods and their priests who also need to be paid.

But in exchange for this taxation, you are protected by the king’s soldiers.  And the priests pray to the gods for you.  And living in this society you have access to coinage which simplifies the process of buying and selling the things you have and want.  And in this society, there are doctors (sort of) and craftsmen of all kinds producing products made of wood, stone, glass, clay, copper, bronze, iron and all the other materials that men work.  And if you happen to live in a really enlightened place you might get to watch a dramatic, poetry or music performance.  And if you are among the elite, you might even become a scholar and learn to read.

And over the centuries, the advantages of living in a civilized state have grown increasingly valuable.  If you live in an advanced society like ours, you will have access to cutting edge healthcare that has the potential to extend your lifetime to close to a century.  You can board an airplane and fly to a country halfway around the Earth within the same day.  You can learn science that explains the secrets of the universe.

But you can never be free.  You can never be independent.  You are tied to this society with ten thousand threads that bind you to the gigantic machine that is our civilization.  No single man.  No grouping of men can ignore the rules and the requirements of our human world.  Not even someone like Elon Musk can just do what he wants.  We all exist in the matrix of this human construct that carries us all along in a direction that we don’t control and can’t even predict.  We’re like cells in a collective organism.  We think of ourselves as independent entities.  But we are pulled along by the collective and must live in its shadow and survive its actions.

But how does it get better?  Well, human society is only something less than ten thousand years old.  So, this new multicellular organism is in its infancy.  It hasn’t had a chance to evolve very much yet.  And that is the hope.  That we will evolve this organism into an efficient and healthy creature that keeps all of its component cells healthy (and mentally happy).  It’s possible democracy is a mutation that will improve the self-regulation feedback loops that keep the organism healthy.  Or maybe not.  Maybe it will be replaced by something else.  From inside the beast, it’s hard to tell whether any progress is being made.  Mostly it feels like chaos.  But after all, the whole thing’s a miracle to start with.  So, bring it on.