ZOMBIEPUBLICATIONSZOMBIEPUBLICATIONSZOMBIE
The
next ebook to be released by Zombie Publications is another short collection of
shorts originally written back in 2006. 10,000 words have been trimmed off the
36,000 to begin with. One of the reasons is to reduce ambiguity. Much of the
flash was written on the spur of the moment, straight into the machine, for
self-entertainment. Not for an agent, not for a friend or family member, not for an
audience, but for moi. For the sake, or heck, or love of, writing. There are
some stories you only tell yourself. These are the best kinds of stories.
But
there’s a problem when you have characters telling each other private jokes
only the author knows about! Your private jokes are funny too I’ll bet, but go
repeating them to anybody and your inner personal humour will most probably fall
on flat faces.
Certain
bunches of stuff have to be cut when you’re dreaming of customers in Baton
Rouge. I’ve identified vagueness as a problem. So too conflict. Vagueness and
conflict. Less of and more of. It’s a thin line between truly great and shite,
but being brave and facing facts is a winning track.
Because
six years have passed it is nice to go back and get inside it again. Enough of
proof reading with fingers spread over the CAPS LOCK, DELETE, BACKSPACE and
SPACEBAR (sounds like a rap to me), right-tracking the flashing cursor along as
I read. No. It’s best to read with your arms folded and enjoy rolling back the
years. If you have to edit a technicality, lean forward and do it, but then sit
back again, because be aware, if you rewrite as you reread then you will have to
reread the rewrite.
If
you rewrite as you reread then you will have to reread the rewrite.
Ever
wonder where all those errors come from? They kinda creep out from the woodwork
and evolve during your edit. That’s because they OCCUR during the edit! I believe
in keeping things very closely to how they were. I take great pride in saying
here’s something I wrote six years ago. If I totally revamp it beyond all
recognition in 2012, can I still say that? Did I write it now, or then?
This is minority advice, but a rewrite for me should only
take place when you lose the damn thing. Otherwise a brief technical read-over
edit will suffice. Wanna shove a new sentence in? Hey, no problem
with that. Go whole hog and bung a new paragraph in there. Hell, START AGAIN if the fever grips you. But here’s the thing: Most of the
writing takes place in your head anyway.
And here’s another thing:
As 'artistes', we’re clinging to the past. Believe. We’re clinging by our little finger nails. Everyone is. Think about it. Diaries, photographs, home video. Memories are all we have, and vintage is best. Go and write a how-to manual for the development of free energy in Arabic, and it may well outsell all that ghost-written bollocks in the Xmas charts, but it will never be that ode to nostalgia from yesteryear.
Nothing will. Ever again. Not without hypnotic regression and automatic dictation. Now try on peacing out already. Or even better, try on peacing in with your friends or the wife.
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AND REMEMBER: If you reread as you rewrite you will then have to retweet the rehype.
