Author: Valerie Douglas

No one is entitled to anything….

Okay, I’m stealing the snark queen crown from KS for a bit. Pardon my ranting….

Once upon a time I was the supervisor for a department of a retail computer electronics company which shall remain nameless. One day one of my employees – we’ll call him Dick – came to me in a bit of a snit. It seemed that another employee, John, wasn’t sharing his tools. Well, John was a great employee. In the Army Reserve at the time, he kept his work space neat and clean, his tools maintained and in place. As a consequence, he had the best tools in the department and he usually shared them. He had only one rule – return it the way you found it. Dick had broken that rule. Well, actually he’d broken the tool, and it wasn’t the first time. So John banned him from borrowing his tools. Dick, feeling he’d been treated unfairly, decided to help himself to John’s tools. At which point John went to him and politely asked for the tools back. Military trained, he used please, explained why Dick couldn’t use his tools, and then said thank you. I knew this, because as supervisor I’d been watching. Continue reading “No one is entitled to anything….”

Who’s got the power…!

Now that I stuck that neat little ear-worm in your mind…

I read a blog just recently that touched on that very subject, though. (Thanks Ashley Barron. http://bit.ly/HN4BzU )

It seems one of our failings as self/indie published authors is that people perceive us as not having any leadership or defined standards, and that’s why we’re not taken very seriously.  We’re sort of the Wild West of the publishing world.  I’m okay with that but I would both argue the point, and beg to differ.  True, there are a large number of Indie writers for whom proper English, spelling and grammar are somewhat alien. There is a valid argument to be made there in many cases. If there was any benefit to traditional publishing it was that – it filtered out the thousands of wannabe writers who simply didn’t want to do the work.  (Yes, it’s okay to break the rules. First know what the rules are.) Continue reading “Who’s got the power…!”

Speaking of editing and editors….

Why we need editors

Ah, whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of that red-lined script, or take arms against a sea of denial, and by opposing it end them? To fear the edit… I hope the bard forgives me.

Fear the edits. Oh yeah, I know that one. Let’s face it, an editor is there to tell you what you did wrong – you misspelled this, didn’t use that right. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but it can be tough to swallow for anyone. When I was traditionally edited I used to literally feel sick, or turn to a large glass of wine, in order to get through them. And that’s the first sign of a bad editor. Stay with me on this… because this blog isn’t about picking on editors. Continue reading “Speaking of editing and editors….”

There is no one write true way….

Author Valerie Douglas
Author Valerie Douglas

Yes, I spelled that correctly, just to make a point. Lately I’ve seen a few posts on LinkedIn and Facebook where one writer purports to tell other writers just how to write. Even worse, at least two of them  stated that Stephen King (yeah, THAT Stephen King, the one that sells bajillions of books.) was doing it wrong.

Outside of the obvious hubris and ridiculousness of that remark (see I can  be nice, I used ridiculous instead of the word I wanted to use) given his output and success, was the relative unsuccess of two of the writers. Even for me, the Queen of snark, it was a little absurd. Continue reading “There is no one write true way….”