Shouts From Down Under

The silence of wrongness was be deafening yeah?

Using my iPhone camera while walking into the Online Centre, I decided to take photos of anything I saw that was either wrong, out of place, or evidence that there was, or had been a problem.

Within a distance of a few metres from my parking spot, to the automatic sliding door of the library, there were already two instances.



If I walked across town, down the beach, across a farm paddock, or down the highway, imagine how many more photos I could take of stark staring problems.

How can this be? What is wrong with this picture. Why are people doing these things? How is it that nature or the cosmos or bad karma or misalignment, or malignant deliberate alignment, of the stars make these things take place?

It's called LIFE, isn't it? We don't panic about every little silly mistake around us. We don't fret over this or that, or seek interpretation as to the why's and wherefore's of everything that isn't perfect. No one would do that except perhaps obsesive types; people with legitimate reasons to feel this way.
At times I'm one of those people. I seem to have a compulsion towards perfection, and if I don't project the imagined perfect world into the future of any given situation, I find it hard to resist feeling it's all pointless.

I feel at times like this it's difficult to persevere. Not that I don't persevere, don't struggle, don't fight and overcome, but the feeling is there, make no mistake.



Is this how you feel about your written efforts? Do you feel that compulsion to get it perfect first time, and then when, of course, we don't live in the perfect world, and perfection isn't automatic, you give up, or don't even get started in the first place?

Editing is there to correct, to realign, to clarify, to help, to adjust, to tune, to change into that intended, to bring about improvement.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Editing is not there to rouse on you. It's not there to make you feel bad, or feel inferior, or feel less than anyone else.
Editing is a servant, not a master, yet without it we won't be masters of our craft.

Editing is a process of making something less than the standard into the standard.

Our mistakes in our writing are non verbal. Printing on a page or screen cannot speak. If we wait around for our punctuation, grammar and what not to tell us their sad plight, then our stories will always be lacking.

Editing can easily be ignored. Editing can easily be put on the back burner. Editing can easily be the victim of procrastination.

Today, we learn't about being advocates. An advocate is someone who speaks with, or for another, in their interests, to put forward convincing words that might bring about changes to whatever it is that is lacking, that the person has every right to enjoy.
Well, that's my understanding of it just now.

So, I'm being an advocate of poor, downtrodden, ignored, excluded, Editing.

Yes, Editing has been the victim of people's annoyance for far too long. Editing needs a strong voice to stand up for it's rights. Editing deserves not only recognition of it's equality with the rest of literature's tools, but be represented and illuminated to highlight it's real worth.

Trouble is, (troubles, problems, out of kilter bits) I now find that I'm fighting, or advocating, for something that will come straight back onto me.

I'll have to change my own attitudes and feelings of animosity towards Editing, and realise that instead, I must allow Editing it's rightful place in my life.

I must befriend Editing and learn to see the real situation.

Editing doesn't need me. I need Editing. A lot. All my works need Editing every day. Every word, sentence, paragraph, phrase, chapter, book, poem - you name it - needs Editing.

And not like a hole in the head. OK. It's time to close mine.

Sparky

This video is to introduce Carly.