There was a time when printers lamented:
The typographical error is a slippery thing and sly
You can hunt til you are dizzy, but it somehow will get by.
Til the forms are off the presses, it is strange how still it keeps.
It shrinks down in a corner and it never stirs or peeps.
That typographical error, too small for human eyes.
Til the ink is on the paper, when it grows to mountain size.
The boss, he stares with horror, then he grabs his hair and groans.
The copyreader drops his head upon his hands and moans.
The remainder of the issue may be clean as clean can be,
But the typographical error is the only thing you see.
Printers used to set every word by hand: they picked metal letters out of a box of two cases (upper case and lower case — get it?); and typographical errors (we call them typos today) crept in, some said at the behest of a creature known as the “printer’s devil.” I rather like the idea of a small horned form coming in at night and moving those metal letters around at will, but then, I’m not a printer.
Typos are everywhere, and aren’t new to the modern world of computers, though they’ve certainly multiplied since the advent of rapid typing and even more rapid sending. In 1631, some print versions of the Old Testament showed up without the fairly vital word “not” in this injunction: “Thou shalt commit adultery.” The devils were having a fine time for themselves that night!
You do it. I do it. Anyone who has ever set keyboard to paper, so to speak, has done it: and we can’t all blame the printer’s devil. Take a few minutes next time your finger hovers over the “send” button and make sure that what you wanted to say is, in fact, what you did say. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in About Writing, Words on May 29th, 2008
If you’ve ever wondered what poetry can mean to those who don’t always have the chance to be heard, here’s a video to open your eyes…. last year, Bill Moyers interviewed the American poet Martin Espada, a nominee for the Pulitzer prize.
Please do listen to the whole thing, because voice is perhaps more important in poetry than in any other kind of writing. But I’ll still share a couple of excerpts:
We’re talking about a young Latina. A young Dominican from the inner city. There are millions of people in this country who have all kinds of prejudices and mistaken assumptions about such an individual. Among other things, they believe she doesn’t belong here. Among other things, they believe she represents a threat both economic and cultural to the fabric of this society. There are all kinds of invisible pressures upon this person to prove them wrong. And I believe it’s absolutely essential for somebody like that to write poetry. Because poetry humanizes.
That was Martin Espada speaking. One of his own poems, Return says:
245 Whitman Avenue, east New York, Brooklyn. Forty years ago, I bled in this hallway. Half-light dimmed the brick like the angel of public housing. That night, I called and listened at every door: In 1966, there was a war on television.
Blood leaked on the floor like oil from the engine of me. Blood rushed through a crack in my scalp; blood foamed in both hands; blood ruined my shoes. The boy who fired the can off my head in the street pumped what blood he could into his fleeing legs. I banged on every door for help, spreading a plague of bloody fingerprints all the way home to Apartment 14F.
Forty years later, I stand in the hallway. The dim angel of public housing is too exhausted to welcome me. My hand presses against the door at Apartment 14F like an octopus stuck to aquarium glass; blood drums behind my ears. Listen to every door. There is a war on television.
My writing group includes two poets, and I am constantly amazed by the way poetry can cut through all the unnecessary stuff––not just words, but thoughts, feelings, all the accoutrements that we think need to be part of writing. They’re not, necessarily: stripping down to the bone, to the bare necessity of what needs to be communicated, can be a liberating thing.
Poetry, Espada says, is a political tool:
Both involve advocacy. Speaking on behalf of those without an opportunity to be heard. Not that they couldn’t speak for themselves given the chance. They just don’t get the chance. And to me, there’s no contradiction between being an advocate as a lawyer and being an advocate as a poet. I mean, to me, it was all in the same spectrum.
And that understanding will bring anybody … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Process Matters, Creativity, Words on May 25th, 2008
I want to post a very short note today for both readers and authors, alerting you (should you not already know about it) to the online presence of Book Tour, where, as the tagline would have it, “authors and audiences meet.”
Book Tour is a free online clearinghouse for information about authors who are touring. It was started by Chris Anderson, the author of NYT bestseller The Long Tail, who knows a thing or two about marketing.
If you’re a reader, you can sign up to be alerted when authors visit your local booksellers. If you’re an author, you can list all of your appearances, show a picture of your latest book cover, and other nice perks.
From the Book Tour website:
As the world’s largest, 100% free directory of author events, BookTour.com makes book tours better.In just a few minutes any author can create a page showcasing their biography, books, and upcoming engagements. Listing new events is as easy as answering a few questions. Publishers, booksellers, and events managers can upload tour dates en masse using a simple Excel spreadsheet.
Most importantly, readers can peruse our database of author events for the best of what’s nearby, or they can track their favorite authors on tour.
Readers can invite faraway authors to their town, or get in touch with authors already scheduled to appear locally to address additional groups, from company speaker series to book group meetings.
For authors, BookTour.com serves as a one-stop tool for book promotion, allowing authors at all levels of their careers to locate receptive live audiences.
For readers and audiences, BookTour.com makes finding when a favorite author is coming to your town as easy as checking the weather.
BookTour is based in San Francisco, the city that buys more books (and wine) per capita than any in America.
Check out Book Tour, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, Books, Tools, The Writing Life, Reading on May 22nd, 2008
All authors know that a good book review is worth its reviewer’s weight in gold. Reviews can be posted on the web at bookselling sites to encourage potential readers to buy; they can be used on book jackets as blurbs to encourage potential readers to buy; they can be quoted in sig lines to encourage potential readers to buy. Yeah, there’s a theme here: while it’s great ego candy to read a terrific review of one’s work, the bottom line is still, always, the bottom line: to keep selling, to stay in print, to make a living.
And reviews help. One of my publishers, in fact, absolutely swears by reviews, believing that they, more than anything else, are what sell the book. Whether reality is that extreme or whether success is a mix of many factors, book reviews still count.
Getting a reviewer to look at your book, however, may be a lot easier said than done.
There are certain good places to start. Your local newspaper or regional magazine is best: be sure to obtain the name of the correct person to send a review copy to, and add a very big note that says, “LOCAL AUTHOR.” Short of already being on the bestseller list, this is your best bet for reviews.
Don’t overlook Amazon. Amazon has a list of top-hundred reviewers, whose reviews carry more weight than those of your Aunt Edna who was “happy, dear, to write something nice about your little book.” With a little sleuthing, you can obtain their email addresses and politely request a review (and, of course, offer to send a review copy!).
The Big Boys of book reviews are tougher to get to, and I’m going to leave it to your ingenuity to figure out how; but I’ll start you off with a gift — the venues themselves:
So there it is. Write a fabulous book, get it critiqued via an online or real-time group, get it professionally edited, interest a publisher, sign a contract –– and start getting those reviews! And then you’ll be … beyonf the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, Books, Words on May 18th, 2008
Google anything, and chances are the first page of results will come up with a Wikipedia article. And it’s an incredibly quick and convenient way to look things up, there’s no question about that. I was reading an article that referenced Langrangian points, and the Wikipedia article (first in Google’s search returns) explained them in language that was accessible to a non-scientist like me. So far, so good.
There’s a catch, of course. As you probably know, anyone can write or edit a Wikipedia entry. That leaves a lot of room for erroneous and/or biased information to be included in any of the thousands of entries. And, yes, readers are encouraged to edit entries, either to correct mistakes or to add information not already there, the hope being that slanted material and inaccurate material will eventually get sifted out.
Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. And we tend to get seduced by the former, and ignore the latter.
Besides all that, thinking about Wikipedia raises the perennial issue of web anonymity. It’s been observed that, when shielded by anonymity, people will say and do things that they’d probably never dream of doing were their real name associated with the statement or act. We see this all over the web: some anonymous users are trolls, some are hateful, some are probably dangerous (as we saw with the horrible threats made to a female IT blogger last year). None are very nice. Just as people seem to morph into the lowest common denominator when in groups, so too do they seem to lose all civility and accountability when posting anonymously on the web.
What does this have to do with Wikipedia? Plenty, when you stop to realize that edits can be made anonymously there. Imagine the individual with an axe to grind and plenty of time on his hands, and you can imagine what havoc can be wreaked … and we’re not talking chatrooms here, we’re talking about a site that is perceived by many (including Google) as an authority site.
CIT graduate student Virgil Griffith did us all a service, I think, when he coded and released a tool called Wikiscanner; it allows one to see who has been editing Wikipedia entries anonymously. When Wikiscanner first came out, the expectation around the net was that the annymous posters who were furtively changing articles were what journalist Annalee Newitz has referred to as “some blogger writing in his basement in his pajamas.” Not so, as it turned out: Big Names were involved. As Newitz noted in a 2007 article on AlterNet:
“Turns out that all the anonymous propagansa nad lies on Wikipedia aren’t coming from basement dwellers at all––they’re coming from Congress, the CIA, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the ACLU. Somebody at Halliburton deleted key information from an entry on war crimes; Diebold, an electronic-voting machine manufacturer, deleted sections of its entry about a lawsuit filed against it. Someone at Pepsi deleted information about health problems caused by the soft drink. (…) And of course, the CIA has been editing the entry on the Iraq war.”
So there it is. The political ramifications of this discovery can be discussed ad infinitum, ad nauseaum, but the point for this particular blog (which is, after all, about words) is this: check out biases before you’re quick to see a source as authoritative. I recently edited two books that relied on Wikipedia for their source material, and had to have very long, very candid discussions with the authors over the wisdom of using something that is in many ways a moving target, to back up one’s points.
Don’t trust the net. It’s a fabulous tool but it can take over one’s thinking very quickly and very insidiously. When you receive a chain email, check Snopes before forwarding it to 346 of your closest friends. And use Wikipedia as a beginning for your research … but never as an end.
And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Tools, Process Matters, About Writing, Words on May 15th, 2008
Okay, at the risk of losing some of you, I have to once again say that if you’re writing — doing any kind of writing — you need to be working with a Mac. End of discussion.
Cost an issue? I always used to tell people that if it costs a little more to get a machine that just works, then it’s worth it. But the reality is that even some years ago Apple was comparable to many pcs when one considered how much the pc user would have to add to her machine to make it comparable to the Mac. And in fact in the past 18 months there have been numerous articles about the many Mac models that are less expensive than many pcs with the same specs. A number of articles can be Googled that compare Dell’s prices for tower pcs, for example, with MacPro towers: they find very often that the Macs come out cheaper. (In some cases, hundreds of dollars cheaper!)
But even putting the cost issues aside, think about what a writer can do with the Leopard operating system:
- Edit and annotate pdfs from Preview (that’s right, no more need to pay Adobe a small fortune in order to obtain a version of Acrobat that can write to pdfs);
- Juggle several screens at once (particularly important for those of us whose laptop is our only computer), quickly and seamlessly, using Spaces;
- Place folders that normally clutter the desktop in the Dock, one of the most wonderful of inventions, ever;
- Work with Word documents without owning Word through the new TextEdit … and, yes, it exports as a Word doc;
(There’s also a fabulous new personal-use database program available called Bento, though I can’t comment on it, as I’m already pretty much married to the combination of DEVONThink Pro and my ScanSnap document scanner. Let’s hear it for the nearly paperless office!)
All this to say that if you haven’t looked at a Mac lately, you might want to consider it now. You can buy refurbished models at the online Apple Store, and old Macs retain their value to an amazing degree. I upgrade every two years or so by buying a new Mac and selling my old one on eBay … and it rarely costs me more than a few hundred dollars. Seriously. It’s not just a computer, it’s a decent investment. Try doing that with a pc!
I’m not a programmer, and don’t want to have to feel like one. I want my computer to be invisible, intuitive, a non-issue. It happens with a Mac. It just works.
And that pretty much puts me … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Tools, Technology on May 9th, 2008
My guest blogger today is Meg Westley, who has this to say about a critique group for novels:
“The group I joined - Deadly Prose - is seeking new members and I couldn’t help think of all the great writers and critters who might be interested in getting whole novel feedback,” even if they’ve been done chapter-by-chapter in other critique groups.
“The Deadly Prose Critique Group consists of published and unpublished novelists dedicated to the full-novel critique and career-building. We exchange critiques using a detailed template. Deadly Prose is designed for people who have completed novel drafts and are ready to deliver and receive honest critiques.
“Critiquing sessions are scheduled for six- to eight-week periods. Your entire novel is critiqued in a few weeks (pretty intense when you’re doing the critting, but terrific when you’re receiving the crits!). You receive feedback on character, plot, pace, opening and closing of scenes, prose, dialogue, setting & point of view, as well as in-line nits –– all with the view of giving you the information you need to polish your work.
“The group is designed for serious novelists working towards a career, and there is an application process to join. If you are a published author (any genre), you’re asked to submit a list of publishing credits and a critique of a flawed chapter (that is supplied to you.) If you are an unpublished novelist with a completed novel, you’re asked to submit a writing sample (the first chapter of your novel) and a sample critique. An admissions committee of five reads submissions and votes on whether to admit the applicant or not.
“If you are interested in knowing more, you can check out the group’s public website. If you want to apply, it would be best to contact me directly: megwestley@gmail.com.
“In any case, I thought you might be interested in hearing about this group.”
(Jeannette writing now) I have to say that it sounds terrific. Most critique groups (IWW, Zoetrope, etc.) go through novels a chapter or so at a time, which really doesn’t allow for complete critiques — it’s a little like basing your opinion of someone’s physique on only having seen his or her foot, for example.
Aspiring novelists should check out the website, perhaps consider joining. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in About Writing, Words on May 6th, 2008
From Wikipedia:
“Spam blogs, sometimes referred to by the neologism splogs, are artificially created weblog sites which the author uses to promote affiliated websites or to increase the search engine rankings of associated sites. The purpose of a splog can be to increase the PageRank or backlink portfolio of affiliate websites, to artificially inflate paid ad impressions from visitors, and/or use the blog as a link outlet to get new sites indexed.
“Spam blogs are usually a type of scraper site, where content is often either inauthentic text or merely stolen (see blog scraping) from other websites. These blogs usually contain a high number of links to sites associated with the splog creator which are often disreputable or otherwise useless websites.
“There is frequent confusion between the terms “splog” and “spam in blogs”. Splogs are blogs where the articles are fake, and are only created for search engine spamming. To spam in blogs, conversely, is to include random comments on the blogs of innocent bystanders, in which spammers take advantage of a site’s ability to allow visitors to post comments that may include links.”
I want to say a little more about this, because it is a problem and has in a sense hijacked the public’s perception of search engine optimization. And since a) Customline Wordware does SEO and b) I continue to work ethically, it’s worth talking a little more about it.
Here’s Wired’s take on the issue: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.09/splogs.html (or http://tinyurl.com/knra7)
From the article: “Extreme vulnerability to spam, he says, is a defining characteristic of Web 2.0, and splogs are its first manifestation.”
SEO unfortunately got a lot of early bad publicity through those who abused it, and some of the dirt sticks; but like any other business technique, it can be used correctly and ethically, or it can be abused. Splogs (whether generated by people hired to write them or, as is done more frequently, stolen from other sites via bots) are indeed proliferating, and it’s hard to see where it will end. The author of the Wired piece seems to think that it could end the net as we know it. Stay tuned to see…
It’s worthwhile to occasionally put a long, unique phrase from your web copy into Google and see if it is being copied anywhere. I’ve found my posts copied elsewhere, and have had varying success in getting them removed, depending on the site owners and/or hosting company.
What can you do? Try this: Copyscape.com is a service with free and paid modes where you can check for pages that are duplicating the content from a particular URL.
And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Doing the Right Thing, search engine optimization, SEO on May 4th, 2008
Just a quick thought today for those of you who may be looking for work (and if you’re like me, you’re always thinking about the next gig, no matter how terrific the one you’re doing now may be).
Anyway, something you may not have considered is the blogosphere. You probably know blogs for their literary, political, or professional content, but did you know that some blogs post gigs for freelancers? All you need to do is make a list of tags that fit your criteria (for example, depending on your freelance specialization, you might use writer, editor, SEO marketing, publishing, etc.).
Here are a few blog search engines you can try:
- Technorati: http://www.technorati.com/tag
- Google: http://blogsearch.google.com
- Icerocket: http://www.icerocket.com
- Blog Search Engine: http://www.blogsearchengine.com
- Blog Digger: http://blogdigger.com
- Fast Buzz: http://fastbuzz.com
And while you’re at it, make sure that you add your blog to their listings!
Using all the resources available to you is the best way to get work –– and keep getting it. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Submissions, Tools, About Writing on May 1st, 2008
