Write, then edit: editing is writing

I wrote this a couple of years ago, and thought I would share it with fellow writers and would-be writers.

FIRST DRAFT:

I've been reading old issues of Writer's Digest magazine. I've had varying degrees of success with that publication, because some of the articles are useful to understanding the process of writing, but often I'm left thinking that an idea might work for one writer, but not for me.

I'm in agreement with the idea--told by more than one writer--that even bad first drafts are fine, as long as the ideas are put down. Writing is bashing it out, then going back in with an eye to simplify and most important, editing. Cut, slash, pare down.

I have a tendency, being a stream-of consciousness type of guy, to want to say too much, and that might lead to something else, and very soon I've filled up a page with superfluous words that just hold the reader up from getting my point. Ever do that? It's why things are done in first draft form, so you can get it out of your system. One article in particular said when comparing manuscripts that Hemingway stood out for his clean pages. Very few changes were made in his hand. That's because he thought it out before he wrote it. He did the editing in his head. Most of us aren't that skillful; for me, personally, I have to have the words come out of my fingertips. I can think a paragraph in my head, but until I'm looking at it in the form of typed words it means nothing. Then I can go back in, and thank computers and word processing for this, with my cursor edit everything out that doesn't need to be there.

Anyway, the writing process that works for me is idea, execution, editing.

GOOD ADVICE FOR THE EDITING STAGE:

From  “The Ultimate List of Writing Tips,” no credit for the list, found on the Internet, but most of it makes sense, especially Number 62: “Editing is everything. Cut until you can cut no more.”

So I cut, and cut…and this is now the edited version of my first draft you see above:

FINAL DRAFT:

Reading old issues of Writer's Digest magazine, I'm in agreement with the idea that even bad first drafts are fine. Writing is bashing it out, then editing. The writing process that works for me is idea, execution, editing.

A POSTSCRIPT: If you are being paid by the word, disregard all of the above advice.

Choosing religion when science goes the other way

In Utah a few days ago a group of people crowded into a school board meeting. They were there to complain about the science curriculum which says Earth was created not 6000 years ago, but billions of years ago, and that evolution is the answer to the origin of species. Because it made the local news I am reprinting a post I wrote in 2016.

People who believe the Bible to be the be-all and end-all of any discussion can be hard to communicate with. For instance, while even many pious and devout religious people believe in a scientific explanation of the origins of life on earth, when it comes to answers about tricky things like evolution (people were created when the earth was created, and began with Adam and Eve), or dinosaurs (lived amongst people, and their fossils are wrongly thought to be from millions of years ago) there is no equivocation from the Bible-is-the-only-answer-you-need folks. They believe in Creationism as a valid set of facts about everything.

The Creation Museum is open in Petersburg, Tennessee. You can go there and “see the wonders of God’s creations.”

There are also books published with answers to thorny questions about early humans and dinosaurs cohabiting the planet, not unlike the Flintstones or Alley Oop.*

One children’s book, The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible by Paul S. Taylor, from 1987, attempts to explain the so-called “mystery.” As Taylor explains on page 16: “When God created the world, dinosaurs were one of His creations. God created all the animals (Genesis 1:20-25). God made everything in the entire universe—people, stars, planets and all that there is (Exodus 209:11a Genesis 1, John 1:3). Like Adam, the bodies of the first dinosaurs were formed from the dust of the earth. Man and dinosaurs lived at the same time.” (Emphasis mine.)

As always, click on the pictures to make them dinosaur size.

The never-ending porridge bowl of Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol began his art career as a commercial artist. He was born in 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and left for New York in the fifties. He did what commercial artists do, draw commercial products, like shoes for department stores. It wasn’t until 1961 that Warhol became known to the public with his paintings of Campbell soup cans. They reached the public’s imagination, and his status in American pop culture and the arts grew.

One of his pre-legend jobs was illustrating a fairy tale for a children’s book series, Best in Children’s Books, in 1959. “The Magic Porridge Pot” was done in a quasi-child’s art style, and in my opinion isn’t recognizable as Warhol’s, if you go only on his style after fame set in. I found a copy of the book in a thrift store. Unlike other contents of the volume of the series it appeared in, the story was done specifically for the book. It is not a reprint of a book from another publisher, which is how the rest of the volume is composed. As far as I have been able to ascertain, it is the one-and-only publication of the story.

I have no idea whether this is valuable in a dollar sense or not...probably not. It is mostly interesting for me as a bit of early work from an artist who is still in the public mind.

Copyright ©1959 Nelson Doubleday, Inc., Garden City, New York

Dr Seuss and Depression-era Flit

Dr Seuss has been much beloved for his children’s book since I was a child, many years ago. In the 1950s, when I was that child, a Dr Seuss book would be a welcome gift at Christmas, and if I found one at the library it was a special treat. The Cat in the Hat early readers came later. While I was aware of them, I had moved on to other things. Still, when it came time for my son to learn to read, he had those books to help him.

Early on in his career Theodore Seuss Geisel was an advertising artist. One of his main clients was Standard Oil, under the name Stanco, that manufactured and sold the mosquito spray, Flit. Dr Seuss had the account for 17 years, and the slogan “Quick, Henry, the Flit!” became a catchphrase of the era. My father, who grew up in the Great Depression, filled me in on the pop culture and life in the thirties and forties from the time I was old enough to listen, and “Quick, Henry, the Flit!” was part of that informal education.

These examples of one-panel Flit ads were drawn by Dr Seuss, and published in issues of The New Yorker from the years 1933-36.

Cartoonist George Price and the levitating men

George Price worked for the New Yorker magazine for 62 years. His first drawings appeared in 1929. He was invited to join the magazine’s staff, but he would only do it if someone else wrote the gags. That information came from the 2006 book, Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker. I don’t know who did those gags, or if a lot of different writers and/or other cartoonists joined in and submitted gags. It must have worked, because Price came up with about 1200 published cartoons over his (and his gag writer(s)) long careers.

I found this series of jokes about a levitating man in 1934 and 1935 issues of The New Yorker. Together they form a continuity, so I have arranged them chronologically.

All drawings are Copyright © The New Yorker

Price had a way with floaters. These two cartoons are not part of the continuity, but have levitation. The 1934 anti-gravity joke was published before the levitating man jokes, and the Indian rope trick gag was done after, in 1936.

Here is a gag picture of Price as his own levitating man. Date unknown.