Editing

Well, I received the first round of edits from St. Martin's Press regarding THE SUICIDE COLLECTORS and have been a diligent Mr. Author and I am in the process of completing those edits. Astoundingly, the edits weren't as thick and severe as I had feared, and I no doubt owe a debt to Hamline professors Mary Rockcastle and Sheila O'Connor for hardening me to the editing process itself and, like good minor league hitting instructors, preparing me for the day when I'd step up to the plate when it really mattered (although editing always matters, even in unpublished works. Just because something is published doesn't mean it suddenly matters. Hell, what truly matters at all? Just don't look too hard at the previous metaphor, okay? It's weaker that Robert Downey Jr's willpower while hanging out in Willie Nelson's trailer).

I find editing itself to be an enjoyable process. You're allowed to go back, again and again and again, and make your characters more realistic and the story itself weightier, and even an average schmuck can seem pretty intelligent if they rewrite enough. I'm personally always amazed by writers who appear brilliant on stage, eloquent and wise as they talk about life and writing after a reading, say, or during an interview. Although interviews are usually aimed towards a writer and their material, as I learned first hand when I interviewed Frederick Busch a while back, I'm still expecting them to grab the words as they float from their mouthes, cross a few out with a red pen, and only then allow them to float out towards their audience. Perhaps writers have been working in quiet for so long their naturally prepared for verbal interviews, are filled with 70,000 words to each question posed.

Interviewer: So, Mr. Oppegaard, what inspired you to write THE SUICIDE COLLECTORS?
Oppegaard: My shirt was on fire.
Interviewer: What?
Oppegaard: Exactly.