Bad Advice Wednesday: Wait till the last minute!

categories: Bad Advice / Cocktail Hour

4 comments

Portland has the best Christmas lights.

Well, it’s still Wednesday, so I think we’re okay here.  I’m in Portland, Maine, after a great event at a great store, Longfellow Books (where they sell “that new book smell–not available on the Internet.”  This is home territory in some ways, and a lot of fine feathered friends turned up, many of them writers.  And talking to a crowd with familiar faces might be the hardest assignment of all.  Especially when you know your bad advice is due!  Ian McRae, Dave’s friend from third grade, reminded me as we met for the first time: “I’m still waiting for my bad advice!”

Well, here it is, Ian: Um.

Okay, well.

Um.

Well, someone asked about how I felt about an editor telling me what to do.

And I said, it used to piss me off, back in the day.  But it turned out that the more pissed I was, the more right the editor was.  What was to be pissed about when they were wrong?  And lately, I said, my attitude has changed.  More and more I welcome what amounts to collaboration.  Someone on the same team.  Our job to make the best thing we can, working together.  Turn whatever anger into energy to work.

I’ll have to click PUBLISH soon or it won’t be Wednesday anymore, so I guess there won’t be much editing tonight.

Tomorrow I head down to Connecticut and my old home town, New Canaan, an event at the library where I used to carouse with friends on study night.  Can’t wait.  Better get to bed.  It’s a bit of a drive!