| e is a powerful means of releasing frustration and | | | | at my arms, the sharp gusts buffeting their fragile |
| poking fun at our adversaries. I outline here a | | | | forms. Oh! if they were swept away, what |
| further tactic for satirizing the business of writing | | | | despair would visit my heart, what remorse, what |
| and getting published. This time it is through the | | | | regret....." What nonsense! Let's get to the bit |
| use of purple prose, not seen since the days of | | | | where the big silver Merc. zooms in front of his |
| Rider Haggard and other great Victorian | | | | nose. He's leading his children down the street |
| exponents of wonderful, exuberant literature | | | | towards the bus. |
| which would be turned down like a shot by | | | | 'Sweet smiles played about the lips of my darlings, |
| today's editors. | | | | like little sunbeams dancing on water on a |
| I have a written a couple of short articles, on | | | | summer's day. Oh! Innumerable laughter. |
| ezines, which contain satires on our efforts to get | | | | Aeschylus and Sophocles, where are you, poets |
| published, or just to get a publisher to look at our | | | | of yesteryear, to embellish our world with the |
| work for more than five minutes. The virtue of | | | | gold and silver of your tongues? Far, far away, |
| satire is that it highlights the frustrations of our | | | | long dead and forgotten. The yellow bus, that |
| work, it is a safety valve for some of the | | | | harbinger of separation, lay like a giant sloth |
| frustration which we feel and it gives us the | | | | slumped at the roadside. Approaching this fearful |
| satisfaction of making fun of both the publishing | | | | creature, from the corner of my eye I saw a |
| business in general and of editors in particular. As I | | | | silver vehicle approach at speed. I dragged my |
| have mentioned in earlier articles it is a powerful | | | | dear ones to me, pressed them to my thudding |
| way of coping with rejection and a valuable | | | | heart, filled with the dread of a terrible impact. But |
| adjunct to surviving in the publishing world. So if | | | | the sleek lines whistled to a halt inches from us, |
| you will forgive me, in the present article I will | | | | the great glowing form of the automobile radiating |
| suggest further satirical tactics for lampooning | | | | power and strength and the might of industry, |
| editors. | | | | the odour of wealth. |
| The technique is essentially the same as in | | | | Buried in the bowels of this colossus was the |
| 'Getting Published: Step 3'. Briefly, the idea is to | | | | glorious treasure of other hearts, of the father |
| present the publishers with such an unexpected | | | | and mother who had given them life, who surely |
| piece of work that they are kick-started into | | | | cherished them as the greatest lioness cherishes |
| reading it. In the article just mentioned, I | | | | her cubs or the least of mammals, the tiny field |
| suggested using the scientific style of | | | | mouse, cherishes her tiny sightless, helpless |
| presentation, obviously totally inappropriate to | | | | offspring. Five chickens, five wayward children, |
| telling a story. Of course it was this very | | | | laughing like the peals of bells on an Easter |
| inappropriateness that was the point. The choice | | | | Sunday, skipped forth, spreading joy and light as |
| of the worst possible style was an interesting | | | | they tripped lightly out, shepherded like little lambs |
| challenge and certainly unexpected by any editor. I | | | | by their loving mother. 'Ah! What wonderful |
| now choose what is, by modern standards, the | | | | creatures,' intoned my daughter, her fresh face |
| equally worst possible style, that of unlimited | | | | and young mind ensnared by these new beings in |
| poetic licence. This may well be a style that | | | | her life. At length the great bus departed, tearing |
| appeals to many of you, for, just as at your five | | | | at my heart as the tendons which bound me to |
| year olds' birthday party, you may give yourself | | | | my daughters were stretched and then broken |
| permission to do things which have been | | | | as my dear darlings passed out of my sight.' |
| forbidden to you for years. In fact you are | | | | Perhaps you may wish to amuse yourselves by |
| positively encouraged to perform the literary | | | | writing more of this sort of stuff, perhaps |
| equivalent of throwing egg sandwiches at your | | | | completing the story as I suggested it - or |
| sister. Taste goes out of the window and | | | | altering it as you wish. We could start a |
| Victorian flamboyant, grandiose, vainglorious, | | | | competition: who can write the most luxuriously |
| romantic, purple prose comes in the door. Mixed | | | | awful prose, leaking like treacle from the |
| metaphors run amok, like so many geese, as we | | | | computer screen? Has anyone any ideas how this |
| take arms against a sea of editors, manuscript | | | | may be organised? The first prize could be one of |
| readers, agents and self-publishing websites. 'It | | | | my books, the second prize, two of my books |
| was a dark and stormy night...' is just the start - | | | | and the bronze medal could be all three books, if I |
| and a very good start too. | | | | may be allowed to indulge on a little satire on |
| If I may, I will take exactly the same story as | | | | myself. The message is that you have to keep a |
| last time, that is, the one about getting your | | | | sense of humour, a sense of perspective and also |
| manuscript to a publisher by impersonating a | | | | the feeling that you will win through. It reminds |
| famous author. The story started with the | | | | me of what we experience in observational |
| aspiring author putting his children on the school | | | | astronomy, a field in which I work. Sometimes |
| bus. Here goes for a translation of this into | | | | you go round the world to Hawaii and it is cloudy! |
| Victorian melodrama. | | | | But you must say to yourself, look, it took over |
| 'The windswept tree-lined street, with stark | | | | a thousand years for these rays of light to reach |
| winter branches silhouetted against the grey, | | | | the Earth from Orion. So we have to wait till |
| cloud-laden sky, like so many fingers stretched in | | | | tomorrow night to see them. What's another |
| supplication to the heavens, lay before me. Wee | | | | day? In the same way, there are many |
| birds, seeking the last crumbs of sustenance from | | | | wonderful novels in the world. If it takes just a |
| the hard and unrelenting hand of nature, fluttered | | | | little longer to add one more to their number, do |
| in our path, pathetic reminders of the transience | | | | not get too fussed. |
| of life. My children with nerveless hands, clutched | | | | |