tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post6644275420684778303..comments2024-03-18T19:00:03.047-04:00Comments on SleuthSayers: Re-writes?Leigh Lundinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07921276795499571578noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-24913767076193850382014-07-22T21:53:06.130-04:002014-07-22T21:53:06.130-04:00Though this thread is older, I didn't want to ...Though this thread is older, I didn't want to just jump in on a newer thread with something off topic. In the arena of rewrites, has anyone taken a rejected story, rewritten it towards whatever 'improvement' that might make it acceptable and resubmitted it, either to the same publication or a different one? Any difficulties in trying to determine what might have made it unaccepted? (I know this last question is 'one for the ages'. :-) Thanks!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-9813365891369596392011-09-27T17:09:45.899-04:002011-09-27T17:09:45.899-04:00I'm glad that the post sparked discussion!I'm glad that the post sparked discussion!Dale Andrewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10553503281187956955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-85051386890388302002011-09-27T16:14:10.674-04:002011-09-27T16:14:10.674-04:00Great post, Dale. I too wish they'd leave Mark...Great post, Dale. I too wish they'd leave Mark Twain alone. The real offense was slavery, not the pejorative N word, although I don't think its use has actually robbed it of negative meaning. I can remember Dick Gregory prodding a mostly white middle-class audience into saying it out loud (many for the first time) in a club in Greenwich Village in the late Sixties. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now when I hear it on the street. That slippery slope ends in those who use it claiming the B word as applied to women has lost its negative meaning. Wanna bet?Elizabeth Zelvinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13944424094949207841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-11990258034300008962011-09-27T11:50:43.349-04:002011-09-27T11:50:43.349-04:00:-):-)Dale Andrewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10553503281187956955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-70028012521091200922011-09-27T11:20:17.425-04:002011-09-27T11:20:17.425-04:00Seamed stockings, candlestick telephone, and an Un...Seamed stockings, candlestick telephone, and an Underwood typewriter…<br /><br />What more does a girl need?Velmahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12922496600366632604noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-80557329854217604552011-09-27T10:25:11.727-04:002011-09-27T10:25:11.727-04:00Dale, I have both of MacDonald's Good Old Stuf...Dale, I have both of MacDonald's Good Old Stuff collections right here on my bookshelf. Great stories.John Floydhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04001712728130488485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-36418960711382632112011-09-27T08:04:53.768-04:002011-09-27T08:04:53.768-04:00As I said when I first commented on the MacDonald ...As I said when I first commented on the MacDonald collections, I'm reminded of Hemingway's famous story "The Gambler, the Nun, and the TV Set."Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02350478005243505108noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-76196183585568300162011-09-27T02:08:16.342-04:002011-09-27T02:08:16.342-04:00Profound observation, Dixon. I like that.Profound observation, Dixon. I like that.Leigh Lundinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07921276795499571578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-35700011343906215672011-09-27T01:51:05.723-04:002011-09-27T01:51:05.723-04:00Reading this post reminds me of Newspeak in Orwell...Reading this post reminds me of Newspeak in Orwell's 1984. <br /><br />One quote about Newspeak (from the novel, I believe) goes like this: "By 2050--earlier, probably--all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron --they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually contradictory of what they used to be. . . . The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconcsiousness." <br /><br />How interesting that in our current society, government does not seem to be force behind this strange idea.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I find it interesting that, in our present society,Dixon Hillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11220791609338404147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-55444480867535584442011-09-27T01:10:14.514-04:002011-09-27T01:10:14.514-04:00>We cannot (as the philosopher Heraclitus obser...><i>We cannot (as the philosopher Heraclitus observed) step into the same river twice.</i><br><br> Interesting how often writers as well as physicists use rivers as a metaphor for time. Herman Hesse wrote (possibly in <i>Steppenwolf</i>) of a river when describing how time was at once but not at once.<br><br>I'd briefly wondered if it was possible to write a novel without the context of time and concluded generic words would be pretty damn boring. ("He communicated ahead, then stepped into his vehicle before the bad guys stopped him with their weapons.")<br><br>My friend Micheline learned that <a href="http://criminalbrief.com/?p=18011" rel="nofollow">Umberto Eco is rewriting his famous book</a> <i>The Name of the Rose</i> to make it more "accessible".<br><br>As you probably guess, Dale, I agree with Jonathan Turley about the evil of <a href="http://criminalbrief.com/?p=15440" rel="nofollow">bowdlerizing Twain</a>. I keep looking for irony in the publisher's name, NewSouth Books. It's ironic kids now use the N-word with impunity, but Dick Gregory said the same thing is his lectures and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nigger-Autobiography-Dick-Gregory/dp/0671735608" rel="nofollow">book–</a> using the word would rob it of its negative meaning.<br><br>Mormons I know would hardly be offended by <i>A Study in Scarlet</i>. Does the Albemarle school actually know any Mormons? Do they next plan to ban <a href="http://www.classicreader.com/book/56/5/" rel="nofollow"><i>The Five Orange Pips</i></a>?<br>Leigh Lundinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07921276795499571578noreply@blogger.com