one of the first books i've ever edited arrived in the mail yesterday. i'll tell you, i thought i'd get more lift out of the experience.
i searched the resources in the back where the author said he would put my contact info, but it weren't there. that deflated my balloon quite quickly. why say you are going to do something and not do it? i didn't ask to be in the resources, he offered, quite generously i might add. but it just wasn't meant to be.
so i keep waiting on God and wondering, when do i get a chance?
no matter how you slice it, that ain't my book.
while it is nice to have a thank you in the acknowlegements, it would sure be nice to have my name on the cover.
editing is a gig, which i can do and not feel like i am prostituting my gifting. it is so hard to know how to "make a living" when all i want to do is write.
it seems obvious, but i don't want to eek a miserable existence of wretched poverty (those words all go together, even if they don't make contextual sense! i love the sound of them) ... as i was saying, it seems obvious i need to do something "writerly" but what?
i've been contemplating the sell-out question, quite publicly it seems, for some time. and i still am undecided. although dave long's heading up a discussion on "my name is asher lev" by chaim potok, and he deals with this question too.
he says, essentially, i can't avoid being completely honest because then it would be easier to do it next time, i would be a whore to my own experience. hmm.
who knows. i wish i could say i edit to pay the bills, but that ain't even happening yet. what is an unknown artist, editor, poet to do...except keep blogging her little heart out?
i have made great progress on my poetry and prose manuscript, thanks to a dear friend named Joie.
and if you get anything from today's blog, let it be this: let your yes be yes. don't say it if you don't mean it. it is easier and kinder to say nothing at all if you don't intend to follow through.
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2 comments:
I know from experience that you are a gifted editor and critiquer, among the best that I've encountered. If you wanted to hang your shingle out as an editor, focus on that goal and pursue it as a business, I think you could be mega successful at that. However, I know your first love is poetry. I have the same sense of being torn between what is my passion--what essentially I do for free because it gives me such joy to do it---and what I can do well and earn more some pocket change doing.
Instead of all or nothing, selling out or not selling out, perhaps we can see our lives in terms of seasons. Moses spent a long time tending sheep in the wilderness, aware that he had a call on his life and that it had to do with rescuing his people from Pharoah, but not sure how to go about it. Forty years before he saw the burning bush. That's a long time of preparation. Look what happened when he tried to act on his own steam. He murdered someone and tried to keep it secret but word got out.
We can also think strategically about moving towards our goals, and that strategy means a little zag.
As for your place on the cover---the author may not have had control over that. Cover space is valuable real estate that marketing people covet for blurbs about the book, benefit statements about what's inside and so on.
thanks deb, of course i don't want my name on the cover of anyone else's book, i want my name on the cover of MY book. even my self-published book. we'll see what happens.
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