Writing Process: Editing Asshole

All editors are assholes because they think they know better than everyone else. I’m editing Anori for the nth time, and I know that I am an asshole. More than usual anyway. (Meant as a joke? Needed? Find a better means.)

Editing is about honing the narrative, dumping the meaningless characters, trite dialogue and extraneous description. It’s about writing something that has truth to it. (Truth? As in? Clarity needed here.)

Editing also ruins the simple pleasure of enjoying a film. (Why simple? And why film? Have you mentioned this previously?) Before going to bed, I went through the channels and watched bits of Coppola’s The Godfather Part II and Kubrick’s Paths of Glory. I have seen both numerous times, but they now came off as dull, dominated by weak dialogue and predictable archetypes, nothing more than melodrama.

Michael Corleone in between saying melodramatic things

The 2005 version of King Kong was more engaging with its sentimental ape and girl in a nightgown. Even the reboot of Hawaii Five O, with its B actors and trite Chat GPT script, had more entertainment value. It wasn’t pretending to be something it wasn’t. (What? You’ve lost me here.)

Detectives Steve and Danny look for truth in Hawaii Five O

Less is more. That’s the mantra of the editor. Which would leads me to believe that none is the ultimate aim. And so why write at all? (Indeed. Consider deleting this post.)

Pissed Off at Julie the Blogger

I watched Julie & Julia last night – the film portrayal of the sassy New York gal who blogs on cooking Julia’s Child’s recipes – which made me depressed and irritated.

The premise of the blog is trite and gimmicky, and became so monstrously successful that it attracted hundreds of thousands of followers (NYT included), led to a book deal and then a the film which grossed $140 million. And that does irritate the hell out of me.

Lemur eating at The Bronx Zoo

I’ve blogged for eight years now (1,390 posts to date) and have achieved neither traction (120 views per day) nor phone calls from any media outlet.

It is true that I can meander and have only recently found my Julia (the writing process), but I have always been true and raw and given everything I can think of, including first-person accounts of Hurricane Sandy, the Covid Pandemic and my sad lost childhood.

Steve and Gary drinking stubbies at Ahmic Lake

It’s not that I want attention (not like Amy Adams anyway), but more that I thought there would be something more at this point, something that might give all of these posts some meaning beyond filling the void.