COPYEDITOR'S HANDBOOK, Beyond Grammar: February 23, 2015

In the chapter, “Beyond Grammar,” our book analyzes the four primary areas with which copyeditors struggle including, organization, expository style, bias-free language, and publishing law. First, we learn the regulations regarding organization and the means by which material is segmented in order to accentuate a certain kind of structure. There of course are countless forms of organizations. Different techniques such as, alphabetical organization, chronological order, numerical order, and others have separate guidelines. Second, we learn of the importance of expository style and how it is imperative that a copyeditor not influence or several impress their own style upon the piece with which they’re reviewing. Judgments about a writer’s style are often extremely difficult for a copyeditor and certainly a sensitive subject. The copyeditor commonly has to pause and reflect on whether their motivation to correct something in a manuscript stems from the unavoidable fact that the writer has made an error or if their motivation is propelled by their own certain sense of style.

Then, we learn about bias-free language, which is especially significant seeing as it negates any outlet for stereotyping certain classes, religions, orientations within the text of a document. The purpose is certainly not to discourage an author’s point-of-view, but rather prevent them from offending, sidelining, or ignoring an entire group of people. Finally, the chapter explores the importance publishing law. The chapter asserts that it’s commonly the book copyeditor’s responsibility to alert the editorial coordinator whether or not there is material within a manuscript that might prompt a lawsuit. This is an especially significant aspect of not only the copyediting process, but the publishing process in general as legal issues are a very common threat to any newly published material.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: February 22, 2015

Although I've already included a sample of text from Ballard's provocative 1973 novel, Crash, I feel compelled to include example of his remarkable prose. Another equally unsettling work from Ballard is his 1970 release, The Atrocity Exhibition. The work is often regarded as "experimental fiction" and rightfully so. Seemingly  random, there is a thin thread of perversity that connects all of the passages of his text and forms an impressive body of work. The piece is divided into labeled fragments with jarring titles such as, "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan." In fact, a condensed version of Crash! appeared in The Atrocity Exhibition and subsequently went on to become a full-fledged independent work of fiction.

One of my favorite passages from Ballard's text is as follows:

“Travers’s problem is how to come to terms with the violence that has pursued his life - not merely the violence of accident and bereavement, or the horrors of war, but the biomorphic horrors of our own bodies. Travers has at last realized that the real significance of these acts of violence lies elsewhere, in what we might term “the death of affect”. Consider our most real and tender pleasures - in the excitements of pain and mutilation; in sex as the perfect arena, like a culture-bed of sterile pus, for all the veronicas of our own perversions, in voyeurism and self-disgust, in our moral freedom to pursue our own psychopathologies as a game, and in our ever greater powers of abstraction. What our children have to fear are not the cars on the freeways of tomorrow, but our own pleasure in calculating the most elegant parameters of their deaths. The only way we can make contact with each other is in terms of conceptualizations. Violence is the conceptualization of pain. By the same token psychopathology is the conceptual system of sex.”

Ballard's prose is uncompromising in his delivery of gut-wrenching visceral content. To read Ballard is to willingly disintegrate the moral fiber of reality and excuse oneself into a hallucinatory dimension of perverse proportions where nothing is off limits.

MUSIC OF THE WEEK: February 22, 2015

(If you're anything like me, music is an integral aspect to the writing process. It helps set the mood, gets adrenaline pumping, and soothes writer's block.)

Quite possibly one of the most underrated artists on the contemporary music landscape is Detroit born-and-raised singer, Porcelain Black (Alaina Beaton). After enjoying indie success with her alternative metal-rock band, Porcelain and the Tramps, Alaina signed with RedOne (responsible for Lady Gaga's "Just Dance", "Poker Face", and "Bad Romance") and, together, they began laboring on a highly anticipated album, to be entitled Mannequin Factory. This process began in 2009. To this date, there still has been no proper release, unfortunately. Despite Porcelain enjoying significant success this past summer with a European tour and her single, "One Woman Army", reaching #1 on the France music charts, RedOne's management refused to properly release her record. Since then, Porcelain has left RedOne's production company in hopes of navigating the music landscape on her own.

Regardless of the split, about 80% of the material that was to be on her debut album leaked in early January of 2015. Fans were elated.

Porcelain is a singer to whom I constantly return, especially during the intensity of creative projects. She describes her musical identity and fashion style as a cross between Marilyn Manson and Britney Spears. I can dig it.

Her most infectious song to date is entitled, "Stealing Candy from a Baby". The track features a gritty electronic dubstep beat with powerful industrial-meets-pop vocals.

GOOF OF THE WEEK: February 22, 2015

Although a grammatically incorrect sentence or missed apostrophe residing within the confines of the main text of a published news article is certainly contemptible, a grammatically incorrect headline is even more unforgiving.

The major gaffe, here, being "rethins" instead of "rethinks" is especially ridiculous considering it introduces the news article.

The Associated Press certainly has got some 'splaining to do.

REFERENCE BOOK OF THE WEEK: February 22, 2015

While I'm often leery of overwhelming the creative portion of my brain with countless analyses detailing the proper way to structure a story or develop a character, there is one book in particular that has been exceptionally beneficial. The book is entitled, On Writing Horror. Collected and compiled by The Horror Writer's Association of America, the book features essays written by experienced and highly lauded masters of the craft such as, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Harlan Ellison, Jack Ketchum etc. What's so commendable about this compilation of essays is that each contributor keeps their chapter brief, not too preachy, and highly accessible to even the most inexperienced writer.

Some of the most enthralling selections include how to craft visceral and gut-wrenching violence, how to properly develop characters in a horror setting, and how to seem credible even in an other speculative element. All of the aforementioned components are arguably significant factors that determine the quality of any work of horror fiction.

You can pick up a copy, here: http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Horror-Handbook-Writers-Association/dp/1582974209/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424615234&sr=8-1&keywords=on+writing+horror

Happy reading!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

When Ellis' study of a psychopathic Manhattan businessman hit bookstores in 1991, the public was outraged at the depth and level of perversity and debauchery Ellis had relayed on paper. Although the book remains controversial to this day, one must acknowledge the fact that American Psycho is a significant feat in horror fiction as well as literary fiction in general.

Here is one of my favorite passages from the book:

"…there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there. It is hard for me to make sense on any given level. Myself is fabricated, an aberration. I am a noncontingent human being. My personality is sketchy and unformed, my heartlessness goes deep and is persistent. My conscience, my pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago (probably at Harvard) if they ever did exist. There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed. I still, though, hold on to one single bleak truth: no one is safe, nothing is redeemed. Yet I am blameless. Each model of human behavior must be assumed to have some validity. Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do? My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this—and I have countless times, in just about every act I’ve committed—and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing…."

 Ellis' novel is perverse, disturbing, and downright enthralling in its depiction of the primal and more unexplored psychosis of human nature. Not only does the novel explore these more untouched human issues, but the piece accentuates the contemptible aspects of our consumer-based culture and the negative effects of capitalism. Ellis stresses all these issues in the guise of what most write off as merely a horror novel.

GOOF OF THE WEEK: February 17, 2015

Here's another exceptionally funny mistake that's been printed in a professional publication.

Not only did the writer of this article butcher an otherwise interesting headline with the careless typo of "for" instead of "four," but the writer also made "drops" plural. The headline should read: "One in four kids drop out of high school."

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: February 10, 2015

Quite possibly one of the most controversial and graphic novels on the lat 20th century is speculative fiction author J.G. Ballard's psychological drama in which he explores the eroticism of the car accident, CRASH.

First published in 1973, Ballard's novel concentrates on a young man who uncovers a secluded cult-like subculture of people who delight and find sexual satisfaction in car crashes. The novel successfully analyzes the symbiotic relationship between sex and death. I've read the novel countless times and continue to remain enamored by Ballard's lyrical prose as he describes the grotesque. Not to mention, Ballard's flagrant audacity with regard to his subject matter has to be admired as well.

Here is one of my favorite verses from the piece:

Trying to exhaust himself, Vaughan devised an endless almanac of terrifying wounds and insane collisions: The lungs of elderly men punctured by door-handles; the chests of young women impaled on steering-columns; the cheek of handsome youths torn on the chromium latches of quarter-lights. To Vaughan, these wounds formed the key to a new sexuality, born from a perverse technology. The images of these wounds hung in the gallery of his mind, like exhibits in the museum of a slaughterhouse.

Ballard's transgressive and perverse writing style and subject matter has gone on to inspire a new wave of literary writers. Crash is quite possibly one of his greatest books and one to which I continue to return in order to sap inspiration.

GOOF OF THE WEEK: February 9, 2015

It's incredibly ironic that a headline devoted to informing readers that a particular spelling-bee is being postponed bears an unforgivable error.

Read below:

While grammatical errors are inexcusable for any professional level source of information, one such as this is especially contemptible considering the fact that it's a headline AND deals with the news of an impending spelling-bee. I'm assuming that the writer of this particular article was not involved in the spelling-bee in question.