A Word About Ed Drake

Photo by Joseph Brauer

Ed Drake is one of the lead characters (the "step brother") in Wicked Lovely (the second story in 4:Play). The title was "Ed & Julie" initially -- kind of was following a "Romeo & Juliet" type of vibe, but I decided to change it later.

Ed's voice might seem unedited and illiterate. I was inspired by the stream-of-consciousness narrative mode of The Rules of Attraction, by Bret Easton Ellis. I liked the unforced nature of the writing style.

Ed might sound like a whiny brat, and speak like a child (input I have received so far), but I think he manages to get his point(s) across.

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Excerpt of Wicked Lovely (Scene 1, Ed Drake) / 4:Play

Peel myself off the sofa. Ed, you sicko.

I wanna tell the voice in my head and the whole world to shut up. They can talk and talk but they’ve not been in the same situation, they don’t even know what they’re missing out on.

That. That’s the exact thing that fuels their disgust and anger. It’s a displaced frustration, that they can never have access to this deranged special kind of arrangement. Go, Ed!

Drag myself up the stairs in a weird mix of dread guilt apprehension and uncontrollable wild anticipation and excitement.

Find myself in front of Goddess Julie’s room. The door is closed but you can’t lock it from the outside. Glare at the morons on the poster. Some lame brothers emo-looking band with way too much eyeliner and black hair dye that really sucks BIG TIME, nothing but pop "rock" crap for 12 year old girls to listen to (Julie isn't 12 -- figure of speech). Their lyrics are about their love life and if those lyrics are indeed true, damn their love life blows. They don’t have one insanely hard and talented guitar solo, no drummer, no bass player, and no talent. They are just another manufactured product and who knows what their appeal is. Where’s a new Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Nirvana, or Guns n’ Roses? Good music is dead. So once again, I don’t think they suck, I KNOW they suck.

Then the paranoia and urgency strikes. Hurry up! Someone might be home any minute!

* * * * *

Literary Snobs

They said that of themselves (rather, the editor of a literary sex magazine I was in contact with). I'd sent in a couple of excerpts from Ed & Julie (I've since changed the title to Wicked Lovely -- it's the second story in 4:Play), in early 2009.

I'm not posting this to "vent" any frustration -- I just enjoy whacking high-and-mighty sorts.

Here's the correspondence, for your amusement + entertainment:

* Note: Text highlighted in this color provide the gist ;)

Alright. I don't think you quite understood my criticisms. We do not like the voice of Ed Drake. This next chapter is just the same. He speaks like a child -- and there are parts that are just nonsensical like: "...I’d pay the bozos inside if I had cash to spare so that I could loan the restroom for a half hour or so." Honestly, I've got to ask: have you ever edited this thing? If we didn't like chapter one, which at least introduces the characters and the plot, why on Earth would we want to publish chapter two, which only makes sense because I've read chapter one. Well, y'know what: we are literary snobs. XXXXXX is a literary, sex & arts magazine. It isn't a print version of literotica. It isn't a print version of literotica. I don't think one of us has read Twilight and I don't think any of us every will, but like Date Movie and Epic Movie and Superhero Movie, we can usually smell crap from across the room. Rule of thumb for something like Twilight; if it's a book that has it's biggest audience among people who never read anything, it's not good, it's grade nine book report pulp.

I wrote that the first bit of Drake you sent us didn't pick up steam and that it was repetative. Rather than take the time to consider these comments, you just sent the next chunk of your story, as much as you could wedge within our word-count guidelines, as soon as possible. And I said we didn't consider your haiku as the sort of haiku we'd publish, and then you just sent us another ten of the same thing. I've got to ask: have you actually read an issue of our magazine? You say you're trying to get as many excerpts published as possible before looking for an agent. To me, that means your just dumping old pieces which have never been edited on as many laps as possible.

I didn't want to be mean, but when you replied almost instantaneously to my letter of last night (note: I wasn't aware at all -- truly) it struck me that you aren't taking us seriously, not our publication or our time. Please do not submit again.

Sincerely,

Mr. "I-am-a-Literary-Snob"

Here's my reply -- wasn't expecting to get a reply (my instincts were right):

Dear (Mr. X),

Most of the time, I know what I'd like a character to sound like, and I have my reasons for it. Not everyone will see eye-to-eye with me on it, and that's no biggie.

Regarding one of my poems, perhaps I should have omitted the word 'haiku' from the title itself, and reverted the title back to its original version (which, with the omission of the word 'haiku', would read "txt-msgs [from one guy 2 another]), so that a certain level of objectivity could be better maintained while reviewing the piece. In your previous mail, you said that I sent "another ten of the same thing". That might be true, but technically, that isn't necessarily true either, because that poem brings together 14 stanzas to form one stand-alone piece. Now whether each individual 5-7-5-syllabled stanza IS a haiku, or not, needn't be an issue, when the poem is taken in its entirety.

As to whether I edited Ed Drake, indeed, I did! As carefully and meticulously as I do with all my other material. A horny teenager isn't going to sound like Shakespeare, and if that's going to ruffle up a few feathers here and there, I am fine with that.

PS: I'm sure William Faulkner edited The Sound and the Fury. As did Bret Easton Ellis, James Joyce, E. E. Cummings, and Emily Dickinson et al., with their respective works.

Jess.

P.S. Got an email from the magazine in June 2009, calling for new submissions.

P.P.S. More feedback on 4:Play on this post.