I used to think that punctuation was THE most boring part of writing. A comma? Who cared. A period? The difference was? Of course, then I put out three books with a punctuation glitch, and suddenly, punctuation was no longer boring. Suddenly it was a big, scaly, venomous monkey on my back who kept stuffing poo down my shirt.
Fucking punctuation!
I got some help with that monkey–some of you (Goddess bless you) jumped on that fucker, gave him a bath, taught him some manners, and while he still rode me, he’d stopped stuffing poo down my shirt, and I was profoundly grateful. (I still am, and I’ll still need your help, btw, when I’m done with the sixth Jack and Teague, so I can edit the whole shebang and maybe get that puppy out in the fall.)
And I thought that was it. The monkey sits on my back, chatters, stops flinging poo, and, hey! Life is good!
Well, I got a request to do a second edit on Truth in the Dark last night, and it suddenly dawned on me.
It’s not enough that the monkey stop flinging poo! I need to put a collar on that fucker and make him my bitch! Imagine my surprise!
See, the thing was, I had too many EM dashes. Now, you may scoff at that–I’m sure I did. (I know that at some point in time, I scoffed at the idea that you could have too many EM dashes. I don’t remember it now that this second monkey arrived in my inbox, but I know that there was.) I mean, my dialog is punctuated correctly, right? Isn’t that a step up? No comma splice errors–or at least they’ve been minimized, right? I mean, with the exception of some eccentric dialog and sentence constructions that were probably a CMS nightmare but that I ain’t changin’, I’m pretty sure that as long as it’s TECHNICALLY correct, simply using a punctuation mark when it’s out of fashion isn’t going to get me a big ol’ smackdown come review time, is it?
And this is when I realized how crafty an editor has to be. Because mine sure has it down.
First, she massaged my tight ego: “All of those EM dashes break up your lovely flowing text so badly.”
Oh. Really? My text is lovely? Well, you know. If my text is purty, well, maybe I could take care of some of those EM dashes for you. I mean, you know. It ain’t no big. EM dash? I don’t need no stinkin’ EM dash. I’ll take off some of the rough edges if I’ve got purty prose, wouldn’t anyone?
Second, she uses an editing program with a visual. Sure enough, this second go-round she’d highlighted every EM dash on the page.
I think my record thus far has been twelve.
Fucking monkey. That asshole’s been saving poo in his back pockets, and I think he just took another dump on my head.
*sniffle* Excuse me, y’all. *whimper* I gotta go put a collar on that fucker and make him my bitch! *whine*
ONCE MORE INTO THE EDIT, DEAR FRIENDS, AND FILL THE MARGINS WITH YOUR EM DASH DEAD!
Great, next your editor's going to go after the lovely and innocent ellipses…
The images in my head that post conjured up! Now I need to wash the *inside* of my head… (poo flinging monkeys do make a mess
On the plus side, you can just do a ctrl F and deleted them all. Oh wait, you'll most likely want some…
Monkey poo down the shirt? I bet there are people who would pay good money for that experience!
Get that monkey on the leash and pimp him out to the kinkos.
Chris — the ellipses! I love those things…….. lol
See? they have their purposes. . .
No worries Amy, your writing rocks anyway. Just make sure that monkey knows who is who.