Bagged: The Line-Spacing Felon ... It looks like the ugly Knuckster will doing one more perp walk before the year is out. Last week I was bagged and tagged by my MFA mentor, Jessica Anthony ...
Each month we have to submit 30 pages of new fiction for analysis/comments/edits, etc., and while some might try and S-T-R-E-T-C-H what they produce, the ugly one understands the value of a buck (i.e., tuition) ... Originally Jessica thought I had used 1.5 line spacing, but that would’ve been too easy to catch. I used EXACT line spacing instead (you can cheat even more this way) ...
I usually get away with 2-3 extra pages per submission with my word processing skills (line spacing and solitaire I’m really good at) ... but this time, figuring it was our last submission of the semester and I was kind of on a writing roll, I squeezed some extra extra text in there ... when double-spaced (the way they’re supposed to be submitted), the total felonious assault on poor Jess’s eyes turned out to be 7 extra pages (37 in total).
She’s got a gift (my friends) ... She saw that there was something I was trying to do and she figured that out ... God bless her, she’s got a fuckin’ gift ... She’s good ... she’s very good.
Now I can consider shutter island my sentence ... not being a slave to fashion, I’m not sure what I can wear ...
The Angry Editor … boy has the Principessa Ann Marie come a long way. No longer content to offer manuscript suggestions to the ugly one (moi), she now hurls them my way (with attitude).
She started the first round of edits on the Jimmy Mangino (Shutter island/MFA crime novel) novel and said, “I have a lot of problems with this … that … and the other thing.”
Madonna mia, she’s become Editorstein!
I’ll be rewriting Jimmy Mangino according to the boss’s “suggestions” starting this weekend.
How sad/touching is this?
Read about it here.
Saturday we’ll be having lunch with Corky and Dana King at casa Stella. Good timing, too … the wife has hired a new landscaper to try and make our barren front yard look like the rest of the lawns in Fords. It was up to me, there’d be one neat looking concrete slab with a park bench, water fountain and card table out there instead. Lunch will be much better than the lawn, that’s for sure. We got lots of eye-talian stuff coming from our favorite Pork Store ... and some sfogliatelle and cannoli ...
A very cool side benefit for me (with Dana) is learning hockey; he’s a genuine fan, I’m a novice. Co-worker Sue Bennett gets the bulk of the credit for getting me to watch the Rangers at the start of the playoffs (and I haven't missed a game since) ... it’s a great sport (especially during the playoffs) ... hopefully the Rangers will recover from the deveastating loss the other night (their best game of the playoffs thus far, except King Henry had an off-night and we seemed to run out of gas with six minutes left in the third period.
Dana has a new novel out on kindle, Worst Enemies. I had the pleasure of reading this one a few years ago and it’s terrific. I'm actually rereading it now. Just about everyone who’s read him (certainly all those I suggested read him), have fell in love with his writing (a touch of Elmore Leonard, another of John McFetridge and his own distinct style make him one of the very best around. Here’s an interview TK did with Dana just last year ...
Buy Wild Bill here ...
Buy Worst Enemies here ...
Rangers-Devils ... Friday night our guys kick some Devil ass start to finish and bounce back for one more game 7 ... Rangers break out with a 5-2 ass-whooping ...
—Knucks
Music for a serial line-spacing abuser to prepare doing his time ...
