January 4th, 2009

Team notes

I love it when everything I want to post about connects to a theme, and today’s theme is publishing as a team sport. You’ve heard about this from me before, but here’s some stuff from other people:

–at the Joyland Blog, Emily Schultz on “How I was Housebroken”. The piece is about learning to work with an editor. The article is so very wise and useful in urging writers towards the best-case scenario:

“Change can be scary, but presumably if you respect the publication you’ve sent your work to, it means you also respect the editor or editors.”

Any writer can learn and improve so much if they respect editors (good ones) as insightful professionals who know something about the writer’s work the writer herself doesn’t know: how it reads to someone who hasn’t spent several years living inside it. Emily shows beautifully how to make the most of that insightful person, without any sacrifice of art or ego. Really, it’s possible.

–Or then the worst-case scenario, in David Sipress’s cartoon. Everyone keeps pointing out that I’m so lucky this didn’t happen to me, and I know I am, but hell, if it’s typical even of the New Yorker set, it’s worth emphasizing.

–Which is why Michael Bryson’s review of *Once* at Underground Bookclub is so gratifying, because it not only mentions my work but the work of the team that helped make this book be what it is–

“It is extremely well-written (and edited and published). Cudos to all who had a hand in it. Many are waiting to see what you will come up with next.”

Go, team!

Bless your body / bless your soul / pray for peace / and self-control
RR