“I thought editors filled in missing commas and fixed misspelled words.” – Hazel, alt.punk

The recent release of my debut novel alt.punk was extraordinarily exciting; however, maturing the novel from first draft to publication was not without editing pains. Similar to the Kübler-Ross theory, I progressed through what I refer to as the “five stages of editing.”

Stage One: Ignorance

Yes, I was guilty of querying alt.punk to Casperian Books thinking, “I’ve revised and edited this to death. There is no way this could get any more perfect.”

Oh, how I was wrong. It’s embarrassing to admit just how wrong.

The Casperian Books team shot back a list of global revisions I needed to make, and after making those and resubmitting, they responded with something to the effect of, “better but it still needs a lot of work.” From there, I was paired up with an editor who, little did I know, would launch alt.punk into an extreme manuscript makeover, which to date, remains one of the most challenging ordeals of my life.

Dramatic? Yes. But it was a shock to learn just how wrong my visions of “perfect” were. Little did I know that I was progressing through the five stages of editing rather quickly.

Stage Two: Shock

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Ed. Note: We got tired of all the ‘best-of’ lists of the past decade. So we had writer-filmmaker D.W. Lichtenberg write a best-of list of the next decade. Enjoy.

Recently, I invented a time machine. I traveled into the future for the sole purpose of seeing every movie that will be released in the coming decade. That way, I could be the first person to write a “best of the decade” movie list. And don’t worry, I didn’t cheat by traveling further into the future and copying everyone else’s top ten. But I do believe that this list will alter the future, and it’s because of this list that some of these movies will soon exist. Read more »

I recently read about old phone books in Somerset, England being converted to mini-lending libraries, which prompted me to consider the social aspects of a used book.

Last year, I happened upon a used copy of Nabokov’s Lolita at the wonderfully ancient Prospero’s in Kansas City (bricks and books, but so, so many of each). Having been familiar with the book’s pedophilic legacy, I approached, more curious than anything. I’m not easily offended, so I anticipated little reaction. But, aside from being minimally offensive and much funnier than I would have imagined (Nabokov can turn quite a phrase), the book surprised me on another level.

Used books, I discovered, are perhaps the origin of the virtual book networking circle. Consider this exchange between two Lolita readers: Read more »