EDITOR (noun): A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, but is placable with an obolus; a severely virtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the virtues of others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the splintering lightning and sturdy thunders of admonition till he resembles a bunch of firecrackers petulantly uttering his mind at the tail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a mild, melodious lay, soft as the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star. Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of thought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to suit. And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard the voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack up some pathos.

Amen. I am no longer shocked when I see a typo or something else that escaped an editor’s eye in an Oxford University Press book.

Having so noted that, I am much less catholic than you when I comes to grammatical rules. My bibles are the OED, Chicago Manual of Style and Associated Press Style Book. They pretty much get me through.

Writing today, esp. published, sucks today because of the abject failure of publishers, editors and critics to do their jobs, lest fall off the grant giving gravy train by offending someone who has a ‘connection.’

Bad writers have always been the majority but today they are getting published for reasons unrelated to writing, another reason these How To books are irrelevant, for cojugating a verb properly (even if the ditor is competent) will still not accomplish as much as a velvet tongue (literally or not).

I am relieved to hear the the animals around you are not in harm’s way.

I’m more or less with Johnson, but I also appreciate (if sometimes wince at) amateurish aspects of some blog writing (and I’m not talking about TMV here) because there can be a kind of beauty in its rawness.

I do not know how many articles, commentaries, book reviews, etc. that have appeared under my name over the years. Several thousand, to be sure. I do know that over time my writing has become less complex and more direct. I think I am better for that, especially if I am easier to read and understand.

I have tried to teach this simpler-is-better philosophy as an editor, but I don’t push it. I think finding one’s writing “style” is a bit like water finding its own level.

Finally, every writer needs an editor no matter how accomplished they are. Holly saves me from myself regularly when I write for TMV, but beyond her assists I am editor free and miss that interaction because when the editor is good the writer becomes gooder.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/writers/313311_writer27.html

He’s on eof the few published authors willing to talk about our deliterate culture. I’m even having to get the owners of the site to redesign the Books page to make it more reader friendly because most people are lazy.

I know someone who knows the writer Orson Scott Card, whose made a living writing mediocre fiction and worse How To books, and it’s all about the gullible. This is why Universities cash in on deluding the gullible, as well.

I don’t care a writer’s politics, esp in fictive works. A critic must be objective.

BTW- Johnson also rails against the online tendency for short paragraphs and complex sentences. Just yester I got an editor at a place I post saying my sentences are too complex for average readers. The priior editor called them run-on sentences; not knowing the diff between the two. Sad.

As for dogs. I like dogs, but love cats, and most cats are far more worthwhile than most humans I have met:

http://www.cosmoetica.com/B59-DES27.htm
http://www.cosmoetica.com/B51-DES25.htm
http://www.cosmoetica.com/B476-DES408.htm

But, keep that mind open. Butterfly nets catch all sorts of goodies.

I suspect that Roy Peter Clark is a leftist, but he never indicated or revealed himself as such at the worshops that I attended when I was still in the biz.

In any event, you take much too sinister a view of what Clark does for a living — and does well.

Despite my own shortcomings as a writer, I have worked with many people over the years who were decent reporters but lousy writers.

My own take is that you are a born writer or you aren’t, but there are things that can be done to nurse along a lousy writer. These things do, in fact, have a cookie cutter aspect to them, but that’s the way it is. Sometimes they are quite simple. For example, I have often told reporter/writers who are stuck for a lead paragraph to write the middle of the story first and then come back to the lead. It works.

I have not read any of Clark’s books but do agree with you that I haven’t read anything book-length on writing that resonated. I do not agree that such books are ploys to suck in the gullible, but then I don’t share your abject cynicism about what seems like pretty much everything. (Do you beat your dog?)

Clark is a gentle man who has devoted his life to helping fellow writers and I cannot imagine him writing a book merely to make money. In fact, I doubt that any of them do.

When one talks of strategies, what one is really stating is to follow syllabi, therefore make writing a cookie cutter thing, like MFA programs. Great writers (and artists) are notable for their individuation and uniquity. Writing books are the antithesis of that.