Category Archives: journalism

Poetry Keeps Knocking

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When I was a kid I was sure I was going to be a poet. Or a bus driver. Or an FBI agent. Or a stewardess. Some of those ambitions faded away and others were squelched by reality.

Whenever I take one of those right brain/left brain test I always come out in the middle. Half my brain is scientific and half is artistic.

Mostly, the artistic side has expressed itself over the years. As far back as grade school I remember writing poems. As I got older my poetry tended toward the free verse and the depressing. As many teenagers do, I let my angst, fueled by undiagnosed bipolar disorder, take over. I studied creative writing in high school and took poetry classes as in college.

I even came in second in a poetry contest run by the local newspaper after I graduated. My poems were printed in the paper along with an interview in which I snarked at Helen Steiner Rice and Rod McKuen. I still have some of those poems – somewhere – and I still think some of them are pretty good.

But as life went on my writing changed. The more I wrote in free verse – without rhyme or meter (which Robert Frost famously called “playing tennis without a net”), the more my poetry came to resemble prose. Eventually I gave up on poetry and simply wrote prose instead.

This natural evolution of my writing proved to be a good thing, since everyone knows no one makes any money at poetry unless you’re Helen Steiner Rice or Rod McKuen. Prose has served me well. I have written for many magazines (including Catechist and Black Belt) and for textbooks and now for blogs. For some of these I’ve even gotten paid.

Also I have occasionally made attempts at longer pieces of writing – books. I wrote a mystery novel in which I killed off my Rotten Ex-Boyfriend Who Almost Ruined My Life. I had a proposal going around for a nonfiction book about Lisa Simpson. I have not given up the ambition of writing a book. I am currently 25,000 words into a mystery that involves no one I have ever known, and a memoir which includes the person I know best.

I find, however, that my desire to write poetry has not completely disappeared. Sometimes I find myself playing around with various poetic forms, usually in my blogs. Some of them are the kind of free verse poetry I used to write, but I have learned that I need structure in my life and now it seems I need structure in my poetry too.

I started out simply with a group of haikus – not that haikus are really simple. Later I had a go at a sonnet. I would love to write a sestina but I am afraid to jump into anything that large. I would love to write a villanelle but I am afraid to jump into anything that tightly crafted. And once you’ve read “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” everything else seems – is – inferior. So I continue with my blogs and my editing and my book proposals and my novel and memoir, but poetry lurks at the back of my brain and now and then threatens to break free.

I think that’s the way of poetry. If you suppress it too long, it finds some way to knock on your brain until you answer.

Writing Advice From an Editor

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Want to know more about the writing and editing process? I’ve been a writer and an editor for most of my life. Of the two, editing is easier – looking at a piece of writing and seeing what it needs, rather than producing something worthwhile from scratch.

I’ve learned a lot about editing from other editors, but I’ve also learned a lot about writing from them. Here is some advice, primarily about writing for magazines, which is where I spent most of my career.

Every piece of writing needs editing. Without exception. There is nothing that cannot be improved. I don’t care if you’re Hemingway (who said, “Write drunk. Edit sober.”). Many times pieces of writing don’t get the editing they need, whether because the editor is too lazy or the writer is too famous. I cringed when I heard that an unedited version of Stephen King’s The Stand was going to be released. The original version was seriously overwritten and needed a good editing. I gave up reading King after that. Every piece of published writing gets edited. Or should, anyway.

There are different kinds of editing. Many people think that editing is all about putting the commas in the right place. They’re right, but they’re also wrong. Editing comprises several levels: acquisitions editing (choosing or commissioning pieces of writing for publication); content editing (preparing a piece of writing for publication, including additions and deletions, errors of fact or grammar, and more); copy editing (correcting grammar and punctuation errors and making suggestions regarding style). What most people think of as editing is either proofreading or copy editing. Of course, at a small magazine, an editor may perform more than one of these functions.

There are many reasons a piece of writing gets changed. Not all of them imply that the writing is bad. The editor is not your enemy. Sometimes editing makes a good piece of writing better – or more in line with what the publication needs. A piece can be edited because it’s too long or too short for the space allotted. Cuts may be a word or two here and there, or entire paragraphs.

Work with your editor. If he or she requests revisions, it’s best not to argue. Magazine editors won’t have the time for much back-and-forth. A request for revisions means the editor trusts you enough to fix your own work. Most of the time the editor just goes ahead and makes the changes. If you’re difficult about revising, you likely won’t be asked back.

The first and last paragraphs of a piece of writing often need the most editing. Too many writers write “In the beginning” first paragraphs that start too far in the background. The first paragraph should answer the question, “Why should I read this article?” The last paragraph should tie back to the first paragraph, ask a relevant question, or do anything but say, “Time will tell.”

Your own work is the most difficult to edit. It’s hard to gain enough distance from your own writing to analyze it. One thing you can try is to put the piece away for a day or two, or at the very least a few hours. Work on something else, preferably something entirely different. Then come back to the first piece with a clear mind and more perspective. You could also try reading your writing aloud. If a sentence is difficult to say, if it rambles, or if you lose the thread of it, it probably needs shortening or rewriting.

Don’t spend too long trying to fix a stubborn sentence. Make it into two shorter sentences, or reframe the thought and write it a different way. There’s always more than one way to express a thought. You can express a thought in many ways. Thoughts are adaptable to many grammatical forms. If a sentence doesn’t work, find some other way to say it. Your first attempt at a sentence doesn’t have to be your last. Stay open to alternate modes of expression. Your sentences aren’t chiseled in granite.

(See what I did there?)

Editing is a process. If you edit your own work, you may want to make more than one editing pass. The first time, read for meaning. The second time, read for grammar and style. Then read for punctuation. If you try to do all of them at once, you’re sure to miss something – especially if you’ve already found an error on a page.

Do not trust spelling or grammar checkers. A spell checker can’t tell whether you meant “form” or “from” and accepts either as a valid word. You may have used a sentence fragment on purpose, to achieve a particular effect. That’s why you need a human editor as well as a machine.

Love them or hate them, editors are not going to go away. They are the gatekeepers of published writing and, at their best, they are resources to help you make your writing more effective, more correct – and more publishable.

 

What’s in a Number?

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The Top 5 Breakfast Sandwiches in L.A.

12 Reasons to Hire a Wedding Planner

11 Grammar Lessons From the CIA Stylebook

10 Fun Uses for Old Card Catalogs

9 Bizarre New Snacks to Try

5 Weirdest Gins and Vodkas You Can Buy

4 Words Parents and Kids Should Never Say

What do all these headlines have in common? That’s right – numbers.(1) Now read them again without the numbers. Are the headlines any better or worse? Reasons to Hire a Wedding Planner. Fun Uses for Old Card Catalogs. Weirdest Gins and Vodkas You Can Buy. What’s wrong with those?(2)

I never understand number-crunching headlines.(3) I always find myself asking, “Why 10 fun uses and not 9 or 11? And couldn’t the Wedding Planner have stopped at 10? Or bumped it up to a baker’s dozen?”(4) Someone somewhere must have done a study revealing that if a headline has a number, more people will read it.(5)

Maybe it helps people plan their day: “5 breakfast sandwiches and I’m done! That should be just about right for my morning dump. I’ll save the CIA grammar one for lunch hour.”

There are a few things I know after years of editing, and one of them is this:(6) If you mention a number in the headline, it is a solemn vow to the reader. There should be that many fun uses for old card catalogs – no more, no less. All the readers with OCD are checking.(7)

Even more annoying are the headlines that combine letters and numbers: The 3 Cs of Forklift Safety.(8) Or worse, the ones that try to help you remember the number of points with a stupid acronym: The CHILD Plan for Preventing Tantrums. Invariably, one of the letters is an Elastic Man Stretch (I – Invent something for the child to do.), or the author calls it the CHiLD Plan because she can’t think up an I any better than “Invent something for the child to do.” (9)

Maybe this fixation with numbers began with David Letterman’s top 10 lists. Maybe it was Keith Olbermann’s Countdown. Maybe it was even pop music’s Top 20 or childhood’s Ten Little Indians rhyme (or, I suppose, Agatha Christie’s mystery novel).(10)

However it started, it doesn’t look to be going away anytime soon. There are probably 5 or 14 or 600 reasons for that. I’m sure I’ll be reading about them all by next month, if not sooner.(11)

(1)  Also, they’re all real headlines, even the one about the CIA Stylebook.

(2) Nothing. Except the gin and vodka one. The only flavored gin you need is lime and the only flavor to add to vodka is more vodka. A friend once wrote a song in which he mentioned “cranapple schnapps.” He had no idea how prophetic he was being.

(3) Though I am fond of numbers. I even celebrate Pi Day, March 14, yearly.

(4) 2 Reasons No One Says “Baker’s Dozen Anymore.” No one knows that it means 13, and bakers don’t give away free cupcakes anyway, especially if they’re for a gay wedding. Plus, the bakery boxes are all made to hold 12. Oops. I guess that would be 3 reasons.

(5) There’s probably also a study that says whether the number should be odd or even, though our sample headline writers don’t seem to have read it. I know that in graphic design, odd numbers are preferred – 3 bubbles filled with text, 7 scallops in the top border, and so on. I think it’s a rule invented by the same people who insist on 3-letter acronyms: LOL, FTW, AAA, WWW, TIL, RLS, IBS, OCD, ADD, WTF? I’m just glad there’s a website where I can look up what they all mean.

(6) Another one is this: Those hyper-annoying cards that fall out on your feet when you’re thumbing through magazines? They have a name. They’re blow-in cards. No one knows who invented them, so you can’t send hate mail. The kind that don’t fall out on your feet are called bind-in cards. No one knows who invented those either, so you can’t send a thank-you card.

(7) With any luck, the editors, nearly all of whom are at least a little OCD, will be checking.

(8) Conceal the keys. Conceal the keys. Conceal the keys.

(9) Invest in a sugarless candy’s stock. Insist your spouse take your child to the grocery. Instruct your child in anger management. Increase your dosage of Xanax.

(10) Although I expect that today’s children recite more politically correct counting rhymes and no mystery editor would let such a title through these days.

(11) Sorry about all the footnote numbers. They probably made this post more complicated than necessary.

Mental Illness in the News: Some Questions

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One of the notable headlines last week that wasn’t about a celebrity celebrity, ridiculous politician, or even the passing of a great and inspiring actor, concerned mental disorders and how society treats those who have them. Those of us who have or care about people with mental disorders may have noticed this story online:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/truly-barbaric-florida-deputy-drags-mentally-ill-woman-through-courthouse-by-shackled-feet/#.VOyTNKh2Gbc.facebook

For those of you who haven’t read it or seen the video, here’s the gist. A woman, Ms. Rios, was declared mentally incompetent at a hearing for a minor offense and not allowed to say goodbye to her mother. She wanted to sit on a bench and cry for a bit. When she did not go promptly with the officer, he dragged her through the courthouse by her shackled feet. A video was taken on a cellphone camera by a lawyer who happened to be present, but had nothing to do with Ms. Rios’s case. If you watch the video clip you can see and hear her distress.

As the headline says, this was barbaric.

But there’s lots neither the headline nor the story says. I have questions.

What is the woman’s mental illness? Or why is she mentally incompetent? The stories vary, usually calling her “mentally ill,” which is shorter for the headline writers, but so far I have seen nothing more specific. One could get the impression that in the mind of the media – and therefore their readers – that the two terms mean the same thing. Was she medicated or unmedicated or off her prescribed meds? Does she have a developmental disability? An autism spectrum disorder? An emotional or behavioral disorder? We don’t know. But does whatever label make her automatically suspected of potential violence? The woman did not behave like an animal even when she was treated like one.

I think we all know people who have mental disorders but are still mentally competent to conduct their own affairs, up to and including court proceedings. In fact, I know you know one – me. I have bipolar disorder, type 2. But who among us, even the sanest and most stable of the general public, wouldn’t have needed to sit on a bench and cry before going to wherever the officer thought we should go? Who wouldn’t yell and protest and try to hold on to a table if we were dragged anywhere by our shackled feet?

Is that the way to calm someone who’s upset?

No?

Why is the officer’s action called “truly barbaric”? I’m not saying it wasn’t barbaric. But how was it more barbaric than other things routinely done to the incarcerated mentally ill (or incompetent)? Could it be “truly” barbaric instead of just regularly barbaric because the officer’s actions were caught on tape? How many everyday barbaric actions aren’t? And putting aside simple human compassion (which he did), didn’t the officer’s actions create a larger, potentially more dangerous disturbance with someone being dragged and thrashing about?

Why did the other officers present do nothing? You can see them on the video. They are spectators. No one says, “Hey, do you have to do that?” or “Give her a minute to calm down” or “Here, let me take care of this” or “You know, there are other ways to handle this” or even “Are you sure you want to do that with the camera rolling?” Nothing. Nada. Zippety. Doo-dah.

Why weren’t the officers and other courthouse personnel trained to handle situations like that? They obviously happen occasionally. Officers are (supposedly) trained to handle situations involving dangerous felons (which Ms. Rios wasn’t), domestic violence, and how to restrain suspects properly. Some even get sensitivity training on race, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. Where’s the training for interacting with the mentally ill (or mentally incompetent)? For de-escalating a situation instead of throwing gas on the fire? How about anger management before incidents like this one happen instead of after? Shouldn’t every law enforcement official be able to control or channel his or her anger and not take it out on the public?

Why the hell aren’t police officers required to wear body cameras – and have someone whose job it is to, oh, I don’t know, review the tapes occasionally? Certainly when there’s been a complaint, but spot checks might also do some good. Why are civilians subject to increasing surveillance, while law enforcement personnel – who are also civilians, by the way – perform their jobs with minimal oversight.

And why is the Golden Rule suspended when the “others” have a mental disturbance? I’d really like to know.