Sub-standard

I have this habit of going over stories I've sent into the mag and seeing ways of improving them. I tweak and resend. I did this recently and received an email from my editor. He said, "Here's a bit of advice: Let it go. When you re-send stories I've usually already subbed them and I just have to re-do the whole thing."

I've bitten my tongue forever in the past. Sub-editing is a strange craft and a lot of editors aren't quite as good at it as they like to think they are. Subbing is not about changing the text to suit yourself. Subbing is about getting things right - facts and tone and the voice of the thing. Let the piece have its own voice. And make sure the facts are right.

I've seen some really weird shit come out in my stories and I'm generally not too much of a princess about it. The part in this story, in the Bill Hicks piece that says something about weak semen? Totally not my words. A staff writer was obviously told to Penthouse-it-up a little and he added that bit. I thought it was an odd thing to do but what the hell. And that was all he added so again, what the hell. Whatever.

But when editors change things and make them worse I fucking hate it. Happens all the time when you're writing humour - a joke will go over their head and they change the words so it makes some sense to them and it totally fucks up the joke. If I were a more important writer I would demand final proofing rights.

But in reply to the piece of advice about letting it go, I wrote back saying, "Yeah well, you might want to take a look at the tag line I sent you compared to the one that went to print after you subbed it. One was accurate, the other was not. I'll be sending the next review to you shortly. Have your way with it. I'll have my fingers crossed."

It's amusing to think of bitchy stuff like that, I just don't know about the wisdom of sending it.

But send it I did because what the hell. Whatever.