Somebody Asked, So I’ll Explain
I didn’t blog much last week because I had two magazine articles and a rewrite due, along with lots of stuff to do at my payin’ work and a small crisis to deal with on a non-profit board I sit on. Also, I had to cook a couple of hundred bratwurst for charity. So I neglected you, my loyal reader.
I am not ill, nor have I tired of blogging, nor have I given up drinking wine. As evidence of the latter, I give you this photo of one of the bottles that I helped murder Friday night. It was a bitch of a week, and not just for me. All four of us at dinner were glad to pile dirt into the grave of a week that seems to have been engineered to break our spirits.
The Groth was quite lovely — vivid and round in exactly the way you’d expect of an Oakville Cabernet. Somehow complicated and accessible at the same time, which is a neat trick of winemaking. It was so good, I felt guilty chugging it out of the bottle to get as much of it into me in as short a time as possible. People at the restaurant were appalled. But it was that kind of week.
Interestingly, if I fail to write for a few days, my traffic goes up. This leads me to believe that if I didn’t write at all, I would one day be the most popular blog in the world.
June 27th, 2011 at 1:56 PM
Same damn thing happens to me! I don’t write and my numbers and subscribers go up. You think they are trying to tell us something?
June 27th, 2011 at 3:18 PM
A rewrite? What horrible editor would make you rewrite something?
June 27th, 2011 at 3:26 PM
I do not understand why editors ask for rewrites, though it frustrates me that my genius goes unappreciated. Every word I write is gold!
As for the traffic thing, I think it means that people, in general, like me better when I’m quiet. An ordinary person would take a message from that. I am, however, abnormal.
June 27th, 2011 at 9:44 PM
Phew. I thought you were off someplace having fun.
June 28th, 2011 at 10:48 AM
I’m hurt. You didn’t even ask why I haven’t been around lately. Butt hen, I suppose you knew, since Sam asked you to join us in Sonoma and you demurred.
As for “rewrite:” isn’t that the definition of the word “write?”
Having said that, no editor has ever asked me for a rewrite–it’s usually requested in command form…
June 28th, 2011 at 2:28 PM
I sooooo wanted to be at that dinner, but just could not shake myself loose. It is a profound regret that I couldn’t make it.
And I do miss you, Thomas, when you don’t comment. It worries me that you’re not commenting because I’m not writing anything interesting. I feel that way about all (both) my regulars — seriously — and it helps keep me engaged.
June 28th, 2011 at 2:31 PM
As for writing and rewriting — rewriting is everything, and the rewrite I was asked for was not unwarranted. I used to teach writing and what I told people over and over was that they should just write something down and then go back and fix it. People who try to rewrite as they go don’t ever finish a draft.
My metaphor is this: there are two kinds of sculpture, one is additive (putting things onto other things) and one is subtractive (chiseling away at the stone). People think writing is additive, but it’s not. Really, it’s about taking the stone — the first draft — and chiseling it into shape.
Smart as I am, you’d think I’d have more than three readers.
June 28th, 2011 at 5:01 PM
Two of your readers were at the dinner, and we missed you.
Don’t worry when I don’t comment–it could mean that you were spot on with whatever you posted, and I don’t want to encourage that kind of thing…if I did, it would leave me with nothing to say.