Jessica’s Comments (group member since Nov 22, 2010)

Jessica’s comments from the The Extra Cool Group! (of people Michael is experimenting on) group.

As I mentioned in a different thread, I've met at least 10-12 goodreaders (not all at once). Again, very positive experience. In fact, at one meet up for dinner, I think we were laughing so hard and so much we annoyed the hell out of everyone else in the restaurant.

I used to be very shy. But years of teaching have drummed it out of me. I'm an extraverted introvert.

yes, best to save the intro. or preface for last. Often they contain spoilers or influnce my reading too much.

Kernos: this was exactly my experience. Before goodreads, facebook, blogs and even authors' websites, there was an online group called Storyville for writers. They were mostly from the UK (it still exists but is a mere shadow of itself now). In any case, I'd get hundreds of emails in my inbox every day. What a witty, charming and smart group! I met several in NYC and then had two of the guys stay over at my house when they were in New England. All my encounters were positive and as you said, their physical presence was no different from their online one.

that's right. not only that, there was a huge scandal in the UK recently when Orlando Figes was unmasked as the writer of several really hostile/negative reviews of books on amazon that were similar in topic to his (i.e.competitors). I forget his topic now, something in history...BUT, a prominent scholar (!) and philosopher in the UK. Initially he said his wife wrote the reviews! Can you imagine? Poor wife.

Jimmy: the word ointment

no aversion?

.....in a different time zone:

You idiot! What thread do the think this is? WTF are you talking about anyway?! and to whom?!

Hey, I like Minneapolis and Minnesota, it's Keillor I don't like!!

Okay, now you have me curious, Lisa. (I guess I could look at your shelves, but must run to work now--)
If you don't read books by the better-known independent presses (which are outside of the mainstream), what do you read?

Paul, I'm not an editor per se, but I teach Creative Writing and other writing courses. If a student hands in a story with wooden dialogue and cliched characters, well I think it's fairly hopeless for that writer. If you don't have an ear for dialogue and an eye for character and detail, well...why not try a different profession?

Andorra is nice.
Lake Wobegon! NEVER.

How about Belize...or ...Nicaragua?

Not offended. (It takes a lot to offend me). Just trying to correct a generally-held bias.
and it isn't necessary to read each and every independent press, just to understand that there are many longstanding first-rate ones: Graywolf, Copper Canyon, Coffee House, FC2, BOA, Dalkey Archive, etc.

Lisa wrote: "I think it depends on the publisher, really. Of course the larger publishers will attract more skilled authors and employ more skilled editors.

A small, independent publisher is likely to promote ..."

This is not necessarily the case. My experience has been that the larger publishers farm our their editing these days to freelancers. Some are very skilled, some are not. They do far less editing than they used to (cost-saving measure).
Good independent presses (like the 3 I'm published with) are very committed to putting out high quality books and are not used to making large profits; they are therefore more committed to the process of turning out beautiful books.

There are of course those small presses that do not edit worth a damn. They are often one-man operations.

My 3 books are with independent presses and were very seriously edited. By that I mean, careful attention was paid to copy-editing as well as overall (manuscript) editing, not to mention careful proofreading and design. In my second and third books, I was asked to remove and revise certain of the stories. So I think it's not right to equate editing with promotion.

Tatiana wrote: "But editors/publishers can still refuse to publish bad books, right? Or if it is a big name writer, anything goes?"

sure. right on both counts I think. Someone like Philip Roth or Joyce Carol Oates does not get edited at all I think.

of course, Paul's question should be directed to Oriana, who wrote the review I pasted.

fascinating. thanks.



(do you also have problems with: hoist? foist?)

ha!


my experience is that there is less and less substantive editing done in publishing than ever--

Jim,
I just posted her full review.
I did click on the book, and there are quite a few 4 star reviews for it.
another thin-skinned author.

Greg was kind enough to send me Oriana's offending review (which Karen had thought to save--thanks team Greg & Karen!). Here it is:
2 of 5 stars
bookshelves: read-2010
status: Read from November 10 to 20, 2010

"After a long internal struggle, I've given myself permission not to finish How I Wrote Certain Of My Books, which I'll talk about later. For now, I'm switching to this, which is about as different from that as it is possible to be, while still being a book. Richard Perez sent this to me and asked -- very sweetly and doggedly -- for me to read & review it. And so I shall!

***

Oh, Richard. This is not a very good book. I feel bad saying this, especially since the author personally took the trouble to send me a copy, and also to ask me to review it, no matter what I thought. So I will try not to be snarky or cruel, but I'm also not going to lie: this is not a very good book.

Here is the kindest way I can think to put it: Permanent Obscurity is a very compelling argument for the necessity of editors. I know this is maybe the literary snob (and the editor, duh) in me talking, but what can I say? The point of an editor is to calmly and professionally tell an author that while his plot and ideas may be compelling, his dialogue is wooden at best and trying way too hard at worst (I told a friend of mine that it sounds like it was written by a narc -- constant overenthusiastic use of words like "sticky-icky" and "yo" and "whigger" [sic]); that not all hot women are having sex with each other as soon as they are left alone; that he has plot holes that could swallow a city block; that his timeline is not consistent; that his characters are woefully caricature-ish; that he strays often into uncomfortable near-racism.... in short, that he is at least five revisions away from anything approaching publishable."

I've never read it either. Don't feel the need to.

Far too many far better books out there that I want to read...

that would be very cool.


perhaps someone should try to bring it to his attention...