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Krrobi

Teacher / Writer

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Calling All Editors!

Kim Sisto Robinson

I’ve been severely disciplined.  Not because of my use of content, which can sometimes be over passionate and excessively zealous, or my lack of content, which can at times be underdeveloped and skeletal.  I wasn’t even disciplined because I exploit all of my friends and co-workers (those poor sods) as characters in my blogs.  Nope.  I was slapped on both hands because of my editing skills, which I do not have; my extreme use of commas, my adoration for the semicolon (ohhh, how I looove semi-colons), and even the words I create along the way to make them fit into my stories. To be honest, the reason I love writing for Skirt is because of its non-threatening, non-judgmental, liberating views.  I feel free. I feel as if I’ve found my true voice; I feel as if I can let my hair down, and for the life of me, I cannot understand why somebody (you know whom you are) would give a damn about where I place my commas or semicolons.

Professor So and So, from Saint Scholasitca, whom reads my blogs asks, “Why are you using semicolons when you should be beginning another sentence?  And by god, why are you continually using ellipses………………?  It gets confusing.”  I told him I’m not in college anymore so who cares, and why should he care anyhow since I’m not in his class any longer, and isn’t writing a blog about freedom and independence? I told him that although I appreciate his criticism (not really) that I if I were obsessed with commas and semicolons ………………ellipses, and other grammatical errors, I would be inhibited, restrained; I would feel as if I could not write in the way I want to write.  I told him that I understand the basic, boring concept of grammar, but look at Dickenson; she wrote her poetry with dashes all the time, and what about EE Cummings, he NEVER capitalized or use periods.  As I email Professor So and So, I imagine him shaking his head as Reagan did in the debates with Clinton.  Remember when Reagan glanced over at Clinton, smirked, and said “You aren’t Jack Kennedy, sir.”  Anyhow, Professor So and So is shaking his head this minute saying “you aren’t Dickenson or Cummings, that’s for sure, Missy.”

Anyhow, I ended up informing him that since I was NOT in his English class; I need not worry about the rules, the stupid dog-gone rules of grammar anymore.  Hell, I’m writing a blog, not a darn dissertation.   And if I were to send something out to a publisher, I would ask him to edit it first, because I AM NOT and never shall be, an editor. These people are like Gods or something.

This got me thinking.  I’m good at that (sometimes).  Are others out there in the real world (opposed to the blogging world) thinking the same way as Professor So and So?  Are they looking at my blogs, shaking their English-Teacher-heads, clicking their tongues –exclaiming, “Good story here, but this girl has her possessive adjectives and reflective pronouns all screwed up.  She’s actually a little, well; apparently she’s not as educated or informed as she should be.  Does she even have a college degree...a high school diploma?”

The first blog I examined for errors says this: Am I Overeating? (A Freudian slip, perhaps)  I’m appalled; I cringe, because it was supposed to read, Am IOverreacting?  I feel all hot inside, embarrassed.  But how can I find over 100 people who have already read this blog and fix it?  Tell them I meant this and not that!!!   Tell them I have an English degree.  Would they care? Another blog said their rather thanthere.  Too late to go back to edit.  The readers already took note, already formed their first impressions; already think I’m a dork!   Oh, well.

Even though Professor So and So irritated me by his criticism, I must admit, he was partly correct about the semicolons.  I’m in love with semicolons; I never want the sentence to end abruptly; I like a slight  pause and then the sentence to continue flowing, flowing, flowing…I like the idea of a steady stream of ideas without a conclusion, as if the words will pour out into eternity;  thus, the ellipses…... the commas, and my looover, the semicolon. 

And Maybe, Professor So and So, I DO need an editor, a keen eye to MAKE me look at the rules of grammar—make me aware of my distransitive verbs (whatever the hell they are), somebody to make me accountable in some way for my failure of syntax and my overuse of the beautiful semicolon and the comma, one who gives me consequences for this abuse of not conforming.  But in the meantime, I shall kick the crap out of the English language, twist it, mold it, modify it, neglect it, and make it my own.  That’s what I shall do.

But mostly, Professor, I WILL JUST WRITE; I WILL SAVOR THE WORDS; I WILL TASTE EACH LETTER;   I WILL ALLOW THE LANGUAGE TO DEVOUR ME, and I will utilize the semicolon and the comma….because I never want the story to END! 

****Readers, who are your editors?   Do you have others check your work before you send material to the New York Times!?  How many eyes do we need before we send our stories out into the world?  Cheryl?  What do you think, Miss Editor?