How to Edit a Book: Six Easy Steps

This document is in response to my boss's  request for me to say a few words about the process of turning a raw manuscript into a publishable trade book.  In expressing some of the things I’ve learned about this process, I must acknowledge that I owe much of that to the people who’ve been my mentors--above all, to Kendra Crossen Burroughs--but many of these observations are simply my own, based on years of experience doing this work.  If you’re a good Buddhist, you’ll know that you should test what I say against your own experience to see what elements of it are true for you or not.  If you’re a Christian, Jew, or Zoroastrian you should do exactly the same thing.

New Poetry, September 2014

Makyō

Beware the angel

Who arrives to
Inform you of
God’s will, if
That will requires
You to move to
Cleveland next month
In order to accomplish
The important work
For which you were born.

Chastity in the Age of Lust

To say that I seldom agree with the right-wing New York Times columnist Ross Douthat would be an understatement. But then, I’m surprised how often it happens that just when I’m ready to write someone off completely they’ll expose my small-mindedness by saying something  insightful. This happened with Douthat’s June 1, 2014 op-ed, “Prisoners of Sex.” In it, he reflects on the recent news story of the young Santa Barbara serial killer whose shooting spree may have been an attempt at revenge on the women who wouldn’t have sex with him. Douthat saw in this fellow’s motivation a symptom of a pervasive problem that might be seen as the principal downside of the sexual revolution, that, as he puts it:  “Sexual fulfillment is treated as the source and summit of a life well lived, the thing without which nobody (from a carefree college student to a Cialis-taking senior) can be truly happy, enviable, or free.”  

New Poetry, May 2014

Scumbag Perceives the Universe

Say I’m the worst of humankind,
Daily sinning in my mind
And body. Nothing any good.
A curse upon the neighborhood.

New Poetry, March 2014

Valentine’s Day

When loneliness arises
With the harsh warmth
Of acid reflux,
And you wonder
(Without meaning
To be a bother about it)
What it was about you
That kept love away,
Be prepared
To despair of an answer.

New Poems, February 2014

Stupidity

It’s always a misstep,
That first move
Out of yourself,
Sparked by the desire
For enlightenment,
God’s favor,
Or peace of mind.
Later, you’ll be grateful
For the stupidity that
Set you off in the wrong direction,
For what else could have brought about
Your voluntary adventure
Out of stasis?
Call that stupidity faith.

God and Me

An article from the Guardian by Chris Arnade entitled The People Who Challenged My Atheism Most Were Drug Addicts and Prostitutes recently made the rounds of the social media world I inhabit. In it Mr. Arnade chronicles the abandonment of atheism that came about for him as a result of his contact with people of extreme social and economic disadvantage who were sincere believers in God, through the impression of honesty, wisdom, and compassion he got from them. In the process, he observed that atheism is related to class and economic background, and that atheists are found in greater numbers among people of education and privilege.  The article, which was posted widely, generated a lot more conversation than I would have imagined.