Sue Baiman's Blog, page 17

The Power of Hate

Aaaarrrrrggh

I HATE them!!

I swore through gritted teeth

Cursing and shaking

Each invective

Making me angrier still

They are the worst

The absolute fucking worst

I ranted and cursed

Each new infraction

Passive aggressive distraction

Making my blood pressure rise

My hatred was uncontrollable

I was inconsolable

I had given my power

My every waking hour

To those

I despised

Until one day I realized

That even when I fantasized

About seeing my nemeses

Under city buses

I was still thinking

About them

Hating them meant I cared

Much more than I dared

I was powerless

My protestations to the contrary

Completely useless

And so I stopped

Rather then spend my time

Or attention

On people I’d rather not mention

I relaxed my brain

Let them slip from the frame

Of all I consider important

I learned that when you hate

You give them importance

Your actions are designed

To pay them back in kind

Yet in the end all you’ve given them

Is your power

So I took my power back

By letting them go

They slipped from my thoughts

With hardly a mention

No longer the center of attention

Cause sometimes it’s not about them

Without hate sucking up my energy

I could go back

To just being me

Peaceful and happy

Cause people who are crappy

No longer have any power over me

The Child in the Face

He was walking along the sidewalk

Hands stuffed in pockets

Mostly looking down.

And when he looked up

I saw the little boy

He might have once been.

He had a slight limp,

Like it was compensation

For all the times

Life had given him a hard shove,

And the lines on his face

Made me wonder

What things has he overcome?

When he was a little boy

Did he look as I imagine?

Was that sudden image

That flashed between the lines correct?

He looks sad and weary now

And I wonder when that happened.

Was the boy of him happy?

Or has he always carried sadness in his eyes?

When you look in the mirror

Can you still see your younger self?

Is the sparkle of joy

Still in your eyes?

Or did you misplace it

On your journey to today?

Are there more laugh lines

Or lines of worry

Etching themselves into your visage?

And when you walk down the street

Will the child of your face

Reveal itself to me?

It seems I only see this

The child in the face

When people get older

As if maturity is a measure

That somehow makes us childlike again

And an innocence

Or lack of artifice

Shows our true self to the world

I only hope that when I reach the age

Where my childlike face

Shows herself when I’m not looking

That she winks at you

With a smile of unrepentant joy

And asks to hold your hand.

What have you got to lose?

I’m a Freelance Editor; or as I prefer to call myself, a Dream Polisher & Whip Wielder. My target clientele is Indie Authors. People starting out in the writing business, possibly later in life. They have dayjobs (just like me). Maybe they didn’t believe in themselves when they were younger, maybe they took the more cautious route (because we all need things like money, food, shelter), or maybe the publishing revolution created a world where they finally see a chance to get their stories out of their heads and into the hands of people with the same interests without dealing with an agent or publisher or submissions (and hopefully make more money at it).

Most of these writers dream of one day writing for a living. I too, would love nothing more than to edit full time. For those writers, there are a few things to keep in mind.  First of all, you need to remember that for an idie author it is a long tail business model. You have to just keep writing and keep putting your stories out there. Secondly, you need to produce a professional product. The idea is that while sales will most likely be slower at first, as you keep putting books out there, more people will find you. And, as more people find you, they often pick up your whole back catalog (if they like what they read). So the goal is that it becomes a snowball effect. Whereas in traditional publishing, a book has a very small window (typically under 6 months) to have great sales and hope to get the momentum behind it to stay in print. With ebooks and print on demand, you have the opposite effect. So, my mantra is; Just. Keep. Writing.

As an editor, I can serve three very different functions. The first is to help newer writers improve their writing: I can point out plot holes, changes in voice or POV, habits in your writing style that you may not notice but your reader will. The second is a traditional copy edit: I find the nit-picky mistakes, the minor issues, the word choice thing where you’ve used the same descriptor eighteen times. And, the third function is a proof-reader to hopefully catch the last of the typos before you go to print. I say ‘hopefully’ because no matter how many sets of eyes go over a manuscript, and how many times, there is almost always going to be things that slip through. No editor is ever going to promise to catch everything.

Most of my work currently falls somewhere in between the first and second areas. It depends on the writer and what they need and/or want. My rates are low.  This is because I too am building my back catalog. Only my catalog is writers. I want to grow with you. I know hiring an editor is an expense. An expense a lot of indie writers think they can do without. Ask other writers who have been doing this for a while what their thoughts are on hiring a professional editor. I would hazard a guess, that most of them will tell you it’s money well spent. For those that tell you that you don’t necessarily need one, ask them what they do. Odds are that they have a system of alpha and/or beta readers in place as an alternate method of doing the same thing. If you can build up that kind of network, great. I still function as an alpha/beta reader for the authors who gave me my start as an editor; but finding them can be difficult.

If you are on the fence, here is something to keep in mind. Any good editor will do a sample of your work for free. This is important for both you, the writer, and also the editor. It lets you see how the editor works and it lets the editor see your story. That way, if either party doesn’t think the relationship will work for them, they can say so up front and avoid hurt feelings and/or unpaid bills.

With that in mind, I want to remind you that I offer a free edit of up to 5,000 words. So if you have a short story that you’ve put in a drawer, or even a longer work, you can send it to me and I’ll do up to 5,000 words absolutely FREE. This way, you can see what I do. So, what have you got to lose?

Information on my rates and how to submit work is on the Editing Services Page.

Laspberry and Rime

Sarcastically tart

Ever so smart

Sweet little boy of mine

Watching you sip

While being so hip

A sugary concoction so fine

Green like neon

Kings of Leon

Wishing I had some wine

Because that could explain

The way that my brain

Twists the words of which you dine

Whilst I’m glad

Instead of sad

At the title Laspberries and Rime

This silly bunch of words

Is quite absurd

When it was just raspberries and lime

A Lesson on Reacting vs Responding

This is a lesson that many people never learn. I have only recently mastered this and it’s taken a couple of years and some very wise and patient friends helping me.

On the way home this evening I gave my nine year old son a lesson on this and when I tweeted it, a friend thought it might benefit others if I expounded on that tweet. So, here is the information I imparted to my son.

For some background info, the conversation started because he had been angry about something someone had said to him and he had reacted negatively–over reacted.

So I told him that when it comes to dealing with anger or stress, I try to remember the words doctors use when something, a virus or bacteria or disease, attacks our body. Because while words are just words, if they make us feel upset in some way, we feel like we’ve been attacked.

When someone is not doing well medically, often we say they are having a reaction. Like an allergic reaction or a bad reaction to a medicine. So a reaction is not a good thing. When we let ourselves get so angry that we react with violence or say something back without calming down or thinking, we are reacting. This is not how we want to be.

When the doctor gives a sick person a medicine and the sick person begins to get better, we say they are responding to the treatment, or are responding to the medicine. To respond is a good thing. This is what we want to do.

Words are only words. No matter what someone else says, they are only using words. How we feel about those words is completely on us. We are responsible for our own thoughts, words, and actions. No one else. Even if someone says (or does) something terrible to us that initially makes us angry, we are responsible for how we act and what we say. It’s never okay to blame our words or actions on someone else, no matter what they said to us.

So, we don’t want to react to someone with anger or violence. We want to take a step back, take a slow, deep breath in and out, think about how we feel and why, and then respond calmly.

I explained that this is sometimes easier said than done. And, when someone really pushes your buttons, it’s probably going to take more than one deep breath. Like everything else in life, it takes practice.

I told him I don’t expect him to be perfect at this; it can be really hard to control your temper and own your own emotions.

I also told him how proud I am of him.