Before I was in high tech, I was in publishing.
At Scholastic, I worked in the creative marketing department, not directly with authors, but with their work; trying to make their work appeal to the largest audience as possible.
My claim to fame is that I wrote responses to fan letters for R.L. Stine and K.A. Applegate. So if you came of age in the late 90s, we were probably pen pals.
I also was a part of the exciting marketing campaign surrounding the release in the U.S. of the first Harry Potter book.
Good times.
After I left Scholastic, I spent a few years in other publishing jobs: in the promotions department at Parade Magazine and as an assistant editor for a Jewish newspaper.
I soon became expert in making other people’s work better.
Of course, through this experience, my work became better, too. In addition to assigning and editing stories to freelance writers at the Jewish newspaper, I would report on local happenings and sometimes interview C-level Jewish celebrities for features.
Every time my boss, the Editor, would hand me back my first draft, I would grimace at the red marks in the margins.
But the marks, when implemented, always made my stories better.
In time, I became a confident writer of short form non-fiction. Your work becomes better the more you write and the more heavily you are edited.
I imagine the process is similar for any form of writing; especially in fiction and poetry, two genres in which I am experimenting and want to improve.
This is why so many emerging writers and published novelists come out of MFA programs.
They’ve dedicated themselves to writing, yes — but they’ve also committed to being publicly criticized for two years in the hopes of improving. In the hopes of one day being so good they will be noticed. Noticed like a misused metaphor, like a dangling participle.
This element of the writing program — the communal critical eye — is missing from the fantastic writing community that is the blog-o-sphere.
I never — or hardly ever — publicly criticize a blogger’s work. If I add a comment to a blog, 99% of the time it’s a positive comment. If it’s a negative comment, it’s finely worded so as to not offend the author.
I’m not talking about political blogs, where trolls feel completely uninhibited to offer their frank opinions about how the author is a stupid, naive right-wing psychopath. I’m talking about the community of essayists that have sprung up through the popularity and ease of the blogging platform.
Mommy bloggers.
Aspiring novelists.
Flash fiction writers.
People who feel the need to chronicle the every movement of their cats.
Everyone can be a published writer now.
A published author even — thanks to Amazon.com and a host of self-publishing software.
And, yes, this is awesome.
Really awesome.
And … not so awesome.
I like to read good writing.
I like to pay for good writing.
I’m annoyed when I read bad writing, especially when I’ve paid for it.
I want the books I read to have been written by people who cared enough to become better writers. I want those books to have been through at least one, if not five, careful revisions by an editor.
I say this not just as a writer, but as a consumer of the written word.
Maybe I hold myself up to too high a standard. (That sounds obnoxious, I know. )
Maybe if I didn’t, I would already be a published author myself now. (I’m not counting The Fantastic Adventures of Me & My Friends or the two other activity books I wrote for Scholastic. That also sounds a bit obnoxious, doesn’t it?)
Maybe I’m worrying for nothing.
Maybe the world is a happier place because more people are writing and finding their own audiences.
But I think there is room for criticism in the blogging world. Perhaps we would do more to support each other by not just commenting when we think a post is good, but when we think a post is almost good — when something could be just a little bit better if only it was rewritten once or twice.
It irritates me when I write a post that I think is really good and a commenter writes something simple like,
“Lovely.”
This happens a lot. Which should be a good thing.
But I want to follow up on that “lovely.” I want to know, “Why?”
“Why do you think this is lovely?”
Did it strike a chord?
Was it my careful phrasing?
Was it how elegantly I described the herd of goats by the side of the road?
And how could it be better? How could I rewrite it into something you’d be happy you paid for? Satisfied you spent your time on?
This is what is missing from the blogosphere. And why, at least now, blogging in community will never be as serious as a writing program.
Most of our comments are just blatant attempts at trying to attract new followers.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Are you a blogging writer who seeks comments like this? Who wants more than just a
“Great post!”
If so, let me know — perhaps we can build a more critical commenting community together.
Help each other… emerge…from red marks in the margin.
