TRUE OR FALSE:
True or false: Writers lie with abandon about how much they revise.
True or false: Some writers say they are revising when, if you ask me, what they are doing is playing with their food.
True or false: Most writers, at first glance, resist editorial advice even as they yearn for it. No matter how expert the editing may be, it’s a violation first, a bandage second.
True or false: The best writers take editorial advice and transform the work by truly rewriting, brutally cutting, deepening, etc.
True or false: Some agents and editors hate it when writers send a memo detailing why they didn’t take certain edits.
True or false: Nabokov replied to editing with a “thunderous stet.”
True or false: Stet is the latin word for “eat me.”
True or false: If you had to retype your entire manuscript, you might give up on it.
True or false: If a gun were put to your head and you had to cut 20% of your book, would it be better off?
True or false: James Franco is doing a guest spot on General Hospital.
Betsy Lerner 
Ummm… all true?
Hmm… stet… not what they taught me in journalism school, but much more on-spot. And did Luke and Laura ever get back together on General Hospital?
Humbling and true post tonight, thank you. Not that my ego was on steroids or anything, but this does put some things in perspective.
I’m pretty sure that number 7 is true.
“Life, death, the experiences of the spirit, these come and go and we do not know for what reason; but the thing is there, it remains to plague or comfort, and its value is immutable.” Carson McCullers
I always loved it when my tutoring students would come to me with a revised draft and I couldn’t tell the difference between it and the original. “Did you change anything?” I would ask. “What exactly did you do?”
And then, “Well, then my comments are exactly as they were before. Go get your previous essay and follow the comments I wrote there.”
True: James Franco on GH is creepy as hell.
Hey! you talking ’bout me? uh, beeeeach? You talking ’bout me?
That’s hilarious… Ditto from me…
They’re all TRUE. Damn it all to hell.
True or false: editors lie with abandon about how closely they read your manuscript?
True or false: some editors claim they are reading your stuff when they are, in fact, spitting in your food?
True or false: most writers, upon receiving the editorial letter, think, ‘You’re paying me $4/hr and you want _what_, now?’
True or false: editors almost always pinpoint weak spots, but almost never identify the best–or even a workable–solution?
True or false: When editors and agents write letters, writers read them and think, ‘And _that_ is why you’re not a writer?’
True or false: I’m about to pretend someone has a gun to my head, to fix this ^$&^#* draft?
Oh, August, you are sooooooo delicious.
Dear August:
To hate like that is a thing of beauty.
You are an artist of the Ire.
And the person I most want to sit next to at the office party.
Touche, and ouch.
True, true, true–oh Betsy, thy blog is so twitter-worthy.
I like the title of Florence King’s book (maybe out of print now–and yes, I KNOW she wrote for the National Review, but she was still funny): Stet, Dammit!
Oh there is definitely much truth in this post! Fun, and very effective, quiz.
I have always assumed that “stet” was the Latin for “fuck off.” That’s how I use it, anyway.
Not sure I can speak to the readin’ writin’ revisin’ action, but does the Franco thing mean that Seth Rogen will be popping up on Days of Our Lives?