Day's End

 

Sunset out the back tonight. We don't normally get vibrant sunrises or sunsets in Florida. It's a land, sea, and sky of pastels. Colors washed out and faded by the sun, mostly. And then, this.

Most of us enjoy sunsets. We'll pause to marvel at the exuberant color and texture brought on by the day's death. Some of us make a ritual of stopping for the sunset, taking a seat to watch the show with a beverage at hand.

Why then do so many of us falter when faced with our loved ones' final days? 

An uncle on my mother's side of the family lays in an ICU not all that far from here. Pneumonia. (Not Covid, not that it matters at this point.) The prognosis is grim. No one is allowed in to see him or sit with him or hold his hand. Not even his wife, my aunt. This is the part that Covid has stolen from us - the comfort and distraction of loved ones at a dying man's side. And you'd think that at this moment, that would be my aunt's sole occupation - worrying over her dying husband. 

It isn't. It isn't, because it can't be. Not here. Not now. Not in this world where our lives have been forever altered by pandemic. No, at this moment, my aunt's worries are the business of dying. Who will pay the hospital bills. Where are the living will documents the doctors need should someone have to make the decision to pull life support. It's all lists and hurry and busy work.

There's no time (or safety) to sit at my uncle's bedside and pause of the final exuberant flush of life. Even without Covid, while we could sit at bedsides, most of us did so as a means of talking over death. We made timid small talk and watched shitty hospital TV to avoid the specter of death, no matter how close it hovered.

I don't say any of this to propose any kind of solution. Other than to maybe pause for a moment at endings of all kinds because sometimes there's breathtaking beauty to be found there.

The Editorial Paragon

It's once again that time of year in the Pacific Northwest - amazing shows as the light dies at 10PM. We don't always get killer sunsets, but when we do, they make up for lost time. Entire showy epics crammed into a half an hour. It's one of the things about this latitude that I value - the between times last for damned ever. Twilight is measured in hours in the summer. So is dawn. The fact that I love that probably means I fall on some kind of pathological scale somewhere.

This week, (since I missed last week - I am SO sorry) we're talking up editors. I absolutely advocate for finding and clinging to a good editor. Because:

1. A good editor will call you on your bullshit. Let's be honest. When I write, I am so close to a story. It's my baby. I am incapable of objectively looking at it and saying aloud, "Man, you ugly." So I pay someone who will point out the misshapen arc. The half-formed character. The utter and appalling lack of conflict in that scene near the end.
2. HOWEVER. A good editor will also point out what's good in my work, what's working. This isn't just me needing ego stroking. Though pets are nice. The markers of what works gives me sign posts by which I can fix what doesn't work.
3. A good editor will occasionally make suggestions - "Hey, I think you knew what you meant in this scene, and I think this scene is complete in your head. It just didn't make it to paper. I could see adding x, y, and/or z. What do you think?"
4. A good editor communicates in a way that I can process (now, granted, it is incumbent upon me to be professional and easy to work with - no histrionics, no diva-ing. Everything is in service to making a story better.) This requirement is 100% subjective. Only you know when you're in the communication groove with someone, but it is worth pursuing. You should never wonder what it is an editor wants when you're going through your dev edit notes.

So how do you find such a paragon? Ask who edits the books you like. I found the developmental editor for Damned If He Does (did I mention that's available for preorder and comes out July 19??) via Jeffe. I'd seen the editorial work this editor had done on Jeffe's books and I liked the things she called out. So when the time came, I asked for a referral. Author loops are another great place to get suggestions for editors who know your genre and your market. Then it becomes a question of checking websites, emailing back and forth, and getting a sense of how well you understand one another via the written word (since 99% of all communication will be in email or in an editorial letter.)

And once everything is said and done, don't forget to credit your editor. It's often a thankless job, telling writers the baby needs a makeover.

To Label Is Human

So file this photo into a single genre.

Is it a sunset shot? A wildlife shot? A nature picture? Clouds? Or is it all of those things? If you were looking for a shot of a seagull in profile at sunset, how would you begin searching for it? Likely, you'd start with the keyword 'sunset' but you'd end up with millions of results. Some over mountains or cityscapes or forests or fields. Some with people. Some with animals. But you really, really want that bird for the cover of your special interest mag "Sea Bird Quarterly". So you have to add 'bird' to your sunset search to narrow the results. You get eagles, herons, song birds and vultures. This makes you switch 'bird' to 'sea bird' or 'seagull' and presto. You've found your cover.

This is the power of labels. Genres are nothing more than labels. They're labels meant to make it easy for readers to find what they want to read. Whether or not those labels are accurate or not is another rant. But like anything, genre labels can be used for good or for evil. (Good - you find your next favorite read on your lunch hour and still have enough lunch time left over to actually start your book. Bad - you get stuck inside the box you've been reading in and never entertain anything else.)

What's amusing to me is the notion that I get to pick which genre a story will be. Maybe there are people in this world who can do that. I certainly don't get to. The stories dictate what they will be. I go along for the ride or I give up writing altogether. Because they are adamant. So. This story wants to be in the past, a fictional past at that, with gadgets and improbable hideouts, magic and spies? Why the hell not? Sounds like fun. I have no idea what genre to call it. Historical Fantasy? Steam Fantasy? But yeah, write a story that's one thing? Probably not in my nature. It's at the juncture of genres that I find the things that interest me. There's likely some telling psychological issue there. I'll claim it's just fun.

Are you old enough to remember the commercials: "You got chocolate in my peanut butter! You got peanut butter on my chocolate!" Yeah. Genre blending all the way, because two flavors go great together.