Current mood: EDITORIAL
Category: EDITORIAL Music
I always seem to have a problem with editors and them with me...
Their main issue is they aren't as obsessed with my life as I am. Principally: They don't like to see the small details of the goings on on Planet Paul in the reviews...They couldn't care less if the bouncer didn't like my hat or the beer is in bottles and it's aquisition requires endless bar queuing...
Write about the music
they say.
Well shit, writing about the music - as in describing it - is often a waste of time. For one, it can rarely be accurately done, for 2, the decent music writer has to create something new that stands alone as a piece of writing or else they're just a staff reporter. And for 3 describing music is unessecary...Just say 'THIS IS FUCKING GREAT GO AND SEE IT NOW!!" and let the reader create their own words and the writer get on with their immortal poetry or stagnant novel...
I've only ever read music magazines/papers to read musicians half cocked views of the world, to find out who hates who, to know what drugs they've taken and why, to see what musicians are listening to and why they like it, and to understand the golden rules of music making better....
The thing is, at the level I'm crurently writing at, most editors are wannabe writers themselves and i rarely trust them or their judgement for this reason alone. If they don't want to rewrite what you've done in their own style, they want to squeeze out your quirks and if they see you've got something, they often have an sub/conscious urge to get rid of it as soon and as savaegly as possible, so your threat to thier own ambition is neutered...
Thus far, I've only had one decent editor who could see what I'm trying to do and encouraged it as far as he could. His name is Matthew Coleman and like all sensible writer/editors he soon stood back from too much editing to concentrate more on his own written work.
Frankly, I can't wait to get to the sort of level where editors are professional big anal fuckers, who love nothing other than editing and the finest fine points of English grammar. This breed are either writers who know they've failed and wish to make those suceeding suffer, or random folk who never wanted to be writers (but who like to see writers suffer)...
Well the good thing with blogs is that they're dispensing with editors and letting the readers do the editing and the selecting. Readers can easily vote with their feet and their clicking mice
and i prefer things this way.
So how I'm doing??
Well I lost 3 subscribers this last week, but had 149 reads of a one day post (the last one) which is trebble what I've had from such a sceanrio before. I'm getting plenty of comments and one of my most regular readers and commenters isn't a subscriber...
I figure I'm doing OK...Especially given I'm 12 months and 4 days off my music writing peak. At the moment I'm warming up, and pulling a few stretches - The best is most definately to come...
 | Currently listening :
Themes from S'Express: The Best of S'Express
By S'Express
Release date: By 05 February, 2004 |
13:56 - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
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