Well, I'm still alive. It's been awhile, I know, but as the mouse said to the elephant, "I've been sick!"
Even now, I'm lying here, coughing. Strangely enough, nothing seems to stop me composing more poetry though! The occasional bit of work proofreading, but I'm finding it hard to troll for work by buying and reading the stuff that passes for alleged 'quality writing'.
Most of it is an insult to the intelligence, and being told by authors that they have a strong following despite my telling them of perceived errors, just brings me to despair. Timelines that run wild, chronological errors, cross-world speech conflicts, wrong spellings, none of it seems to count. As long as the emotional cripples reading it get their fix of shlock, with unreal expectations. No wonder so many people still get ripped off with internet sob stories, scams, and phantom relationships with a faux person.
Having seen what some authors get away with, and how good authors have to struggle for readers, I'm convinced the world is slowly sinking into the bog. To tell an author that they have made a glaring error, and not even get the courtesy of a reply, is depressing. No one is going to convince me that they are selling so many copies of a book that it can't be emended. Especially now that I have published some myself! Correcting errors isn't hard with e-books. Or do they really think they are that good?
I blame lowest common denominator 'social media'. I've seen what passes for insightful comments on Facebook and Twitter. . . What I want to know is this- do people really switch their brains off before they start using these forms of media? Or don't they have any to switch on? The damage done to the language with texting, is even more incredible.
To be watching a DVD from one of America's leading media companies, and see 'discrete' in the subtitles, when the context calls for 'discreet', is heartbreaking to me. The sort of money paid by CBS for the work, surely should ensure that the work is correct!? Or is the target audience deemed to be too stupid to know the difference? And once the DVD is 'out there', no one will do anything to correct it, either. After all, we have your money now, sucker!
Do I sound too intense? Maybe I am, but if all communication on this planet was as clear as mine, there would be a lot less confusion around. (perhaps more conflict for a while, but less confusion!)
New poems soon. Still rhyming stuff, I'm afraid,
Free prose just leaves me cold.
Rob
