prog | QOTD

(in response to my statement that I put all the jokes I can into my manuscripts, like mama sea turtle with big clutch of eggs, knowing that predatory editors will kill most but probably not all of them)

Sperms use the same strategy. [pats hardcopy] This is a seminal work.

As if that weren't silly enough, the guy at the next table gave me a card and invited me to read from my book at a local gallery's open mic night. He managed to catch my friend's reading aloud all the playful prose and crazy metaphors that Chuck nixed with his red pen, without catching that the remainder was a technical reference manual. I gracefully accepted the card and said nothing contrary. Then I amused my friend by reading the first paragraph in the style of Jim Infantino napkin/beat poetry.

I'll add here that I agree with most of Chuck's edits, which I received yesterday on my first chapter draft, and started to go through tonight. This is supposed to be a desktop quick reference; sez so on the cover. Do you want to see the clever way I spend three lines comparing the operation of minimized windows to clockwork cities under glass in your quick-reference guide? No. You do not.

Lots of tweaks and twerks will survive the editing process. The shorter ones.

QOTD

eew!