I'm done!
Just kidding. I’m done for now. Last night I handed in (why do I still say it this way? I just pressed SEND on) the latest version of the Camp FUNdament manuscript. Whew – for now.
Erin the editor is many things I’m not – meticulous, earnest, worried about gatekeepers. Which is probably for the good. Someone should be. If it were up to me, the manuscript would be slapdash and triggering. Some readers might die laughing. But many would shake their heads and put down the book – or maybe burn it.
And that defeats the purpose. The first aim of art (Oooh, he’s talking about art now - someone thinks highly of himself!) is to connect with the audience. If they don’t get past the first page because it’s full of triggers, the artist has failed.
Which is where a novel is different from a painting or photograph, say. You experience a painting in the first moment. However you feel about it – hate or love, indifference or bewilderment – you know the work in its entirety right away. You don’t stop looking halfway through. A novel takes hours, maybe days, to get through.
So when Erin tells me that adding this or that body part to a religious image on page 4, or using the ‘H’ word or the ‘Y’ word or the ‘%$&’ word over and over, might make folks put down the book, I don’t push back too hard.
“But a lot of guys have tattoos and male-pattern-baldness and a pot belly by age 33,” I say.
“No,” she says.
I sigh and go along.
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