The Editor

She was a good editor. She delved so deeply into manuscripts that she could write revisions seamlessly: linguistically, no-one would be able to tell the author's original words and her extra phrase, or sometimes whole sentences or paragraphs. It was a talent for mimicry perhaps. When she was finished editing a book, it was an indissoluble whole, with her words etched in like tape, like patches, like embroidery over the holes in the arguments, the lack of logical connectives sewn over, conclusions woven clearly from the evidence of the material, the indisputable truth of the argument, she sewed and sewed, using invisible thread, using thread that exactly matched the original, so that nothing appeared amiss, it didn't sound like two voices had written the book, the author and the editor, but only one, improved on, and the other, hidden, and whose invisible mending is ultimately forgotten.

Writing in someone else's voice depleted her. She worked on non fiction books, and many of them were tedious and dull. It was up to her to spruce them up. To make the language shine in its simplicity without letting her movement through the text become visible. And working on other people's writing blocked her own. She couldn't leave "so and so's" style in his or her manuscript when she closed it for the night and turn to her own writing. It was as if her entire vocabulary was being used in the service of someone else's writing, being used to make someone else's writing better than it really was, and there was nothing left over for her. They wrung every ounce out of her, those manuscripts, those managing editors demanding a good job be done with what was often a mess. You'd be surprised at how many educated people can't write. She was one of those editors, among millions of helpers, who come, and comb through your book, rewriting it, so that it becomes the gleaming tome you are proud of, but who are forgotten, while perhaps mentioned on the copyright page, remain largely unacknowledged.


©Brenda Clews 2006
___
This is from my first NaNoWriMo novel, and it's directly from my own experiences as an editor for the decade that I did it in College and University texts for large publishers (though I have done private editing assignments nearly every year since). 'Minor classics,' that's what I aimed for. If a book remained on reading lists, considered the best in its field 'still,' then I thought my editing successful. Became burnt out, though...


technorati tags: editors, editing books, publishers, burn out.

Cream Silk Pajamas

Unable to find my navy blue cotton pajamas in the chaos of boxes and piles of clothes, the loose ones, with the top of stars, I washed the silk ones I've had for seven years and never worn. Cream-coloured silk. Found wrinkled in the bottom of a large cardboard wardrobe box. The "Marilyn Monroe" set on sale at Simpsons in the Eaton Centre after working in a nearby office. The top is more like a shirt, and had a large red heart for its single button, which I removed and replaced with a pearl-coloured one. And then never wore. Silk seems too fragile and precious for constant wear. But this is thick, durable, and sleek and soft against my skin. I sit in the lake-blue Director's Chair with plant-green designs that I unholstered once, in front of the computer, typing, sipping coffee, wondering, should I go out and buy dancing clothes at Dancing Days?

Another sarong in golds and browns and oranges and a sheer top with small tangerine moons and shimmering lines like longtitudinal threads of stars to navigate by?

And when will I dance, and where, and with whom?

I pick a purple plum from the fruit basket; it has a slight tang in which its sweetness and succulence is contained.

tags: silk pajamas, dancing, fruit, creativity, writing.

Then Post

Cut it, and cut it, until the meaning's almost lost.

Dreams remain,
hovering.

Pain runs up my left shoulder blade
through my neck into the left throbbing side of my head
and curves over my forehead like an iron claw
until I am nearly blinded.

Take away what you don't want.
Begin.

___
Textual note: I spliced a headache (which is now gone, thanks to Ibuprofen) with remarks on editing. Some of this was taken from a BBC interview with Italian director and screenwriter Emanuele Crialese on his "ethereal masterpiece," Respiro: “When we were editing the film we started from knowing what we didn’t want,” says Crialese. “Then we took away things until we were afraid that we’d almost lose the character. It’s like a piece of rock. You cut it and cut it and cut it...”

I saw the film last night, and loved it. A school of fish forms a central imagery, though none of the online reviews I read mentioned it...

She was stunning in the part of Grazia, too.


tags: editing, Respiro.

The Wind

The wind
is a dancer;
her flowing silk shawls
rustling the trees.

~

The wind
is a dancer;
her silk veils and petticoats
rustling the trees.

~

The wind
is a dancer;
lyrically streaming
sweeping with dervish whirls
and fine silk sarongs
rustling the trees.

~

The wind
is a dancer;
bangles and bells
drumming racing gale force
from nowhere, to nowhere
singing in the trees.

~

The wind
is a dancer;
softer than kisses, a
Genie sprinkling rainbows
over the sky after the storms,
whispering in the trees.


technorati tags: wind, dancer, poetry.

Salvia Sclarea, a most interesting perfume

It's a small raised red mound on my forearm. Because I've scratched it with my nails, nails that no longer break now that I drink fluoridated tap water, it hasn't healed. It's a tiny hot spot, like someone's running a faint electrical charge through it. I hold a bottle of essential oil over it and watch a drop of thick amber liquid seep over the redness. Clary Sage Oil, I swear it takes the itch of insect bites away and they heal. How often have I been good about not scratching only to give in in the morning in bed and vigorously rub one ankle with the other toe? And find I've drawn blood?

I read the bottle. Salvia sclarea eases mental fatigue, isn't that also good?

technorati tags: insect bites, sage oil, itchings & scratchings, mental fatigue, humor.

An Outing

Eventually we leave. It takes a long time to dress ourselves. I iron a nectarine red rayon skirt with bouquets of yellow and orange flowers with green stems, then change to an Indian silk wrap around skirt. I worry that the heat of the steaming iron will melt the delicate fabric. The patchwork squares are an array of colours and designs; each one singular, from floral to geometric, vivid colours of flowers to earth tones. A cantaloupe orange camisole surprisingly matches. She spends an hour changing behind her closed door. When we leave, she is wearing black pedal pushers and a crunched cotton empire sun-top the colour of the tangerine moon. Afterwards, she said men looked at her on the streets.



technorati tags: women, outing, Indian silk skirt, mother and daughter.

Heliotropic Coda

encrypted first draft of a poem