Ten minutes ago Jan from iUniverse called to inform me that ‘Darkly: Dystopia in Power’, my upcoming sci-fi print book, was going into production. I responded, "Thank you Jan, and then continued, “Jan, you seem like a nice lady. Please, do me a favor and do not read God of War or by This Axe!”
She was gracious, “Thanks for the head’s up sir. You have a nice day now.”
I was not speaking in response to my editorial reviewer who declared those two works to be misogynistic, but in reaction to my visual of image of this nice lady reading about some nut who thinks he is the God of War Reborn fashioning a wedding bed of dead and dying men for his 'bride', who does not yet have a name, and needs to start cranking out little war god babies…
When I was a young writer I spent a lot of time reading ‘how to write for publication’ books, as well as the letters of established authors to and from their editors. I always imagined myself as a curmudgeony Robert Heinlen type, defying prissy librarians and overbearing editors.
Then I got published with some martial arts magazines and discovered that all of the editors I worked with were adorable college interns and gracious middle-aged women, who I instinctively wished to avoid offending by anything I might write. I was writing for young men and feeding it through female filters, all of which I had an instinct to impress.
Then I got published by Paladin Press and ran into that rare thing, a ball-busting male editor, Jon Ford. I can clearly recall him saying the following things to me:
1. “No dicks on the cover!”
2. “Don’t worry about coming up with a title. Titles are too important to leave up to a writer.”
3. “Don’t let this go to your head: You are the best writer in your field. Of course you’re the only guy in your field who can write at all, so it ‘ill be a while before you knock off Dickens.”
4. “No offense James, but you are a high school dropout who has been getting punched in the head for thirty years. Imagine my concern when you tell me that you are teaching yourself Greek! Get an academic review of your translations!”
Now that kind of clear, no bullshit, ‘I’m the editor and you are not’ feedback is easy to grab and run with as a writer. What is more worrisome is the fact that John’s assistant, who has inherited his job, Donna Duvall, is a southern belle with a history degree. Imagine how I cringe every time I send her another ebonic oral history of urban violence. If I’m sliding it by her I try to clean it up a bit.
For the past five months I’ve been working with iUniverse, a self-publishing imprint managed by Penguin, who keeps their editorial staff sharp working on stuff that crackpots like me decide to publish ourselves. I’ve been handed off by six different specialists as they walk me through their publishing process—everyone a woman. I feel like Hugh Hefner, blinded by his cucumber mudpack, dictating a letter to Dana White with the help of an army of chicks ranging from college-age to middle-age.
I think this aspect adds to the discipline of writing, as it forces me to consider my words from the perspective of readers outside of my target market [which I think is limited to Romanian MMA fighters who read Japanese comics, and Somali pirates who are also into science-fiction]. This also points out to me how useless and damaging corporate and political censorship is. I suspect we are on the precipice of a new age of political censorship. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy the hell out of censoring myself, if only to save some lady in Bloomington from throwing her lunch in the trash because of something I wrote.
