Internet, man, I can see the future.
Like, seriously. I’m clairvoyant. I get spoilers in my dreams, and they’re real.
This is from April, my prescience on Facebook:
Dreamt I quit my job because my boss went through my manuscript and sprayed it with adverbs, then tried to convince me writing had changed. Adverbs were cool now. All the kids were doing them.
This is from today, a line from one of my books, from an author’s copy that arrived in the post*:
Sure enough, there he was, slouched in his ratty old chair, grinning demonically.
I almost didn’t notice. I was just flipping through, checking the formatting, and that line leapt out at me. Demonically isn’t a word I would use. Nor would I pin an irrelevant facial expression to the arse of a sentence. I wouldn’t. No, I wouldn’t.
Damn it. Who graffiti’d my book? I blame the line editor. Man, de-Brit me, that’s lovely. Squash my verbal tics. But really, with the additions? Not that I mind the odd hellish flourish, but, oh, let’s try that again.
Sure enough, there he was, blasting Dad’s La-Z-Boy with hot brimstone farts.
He sat there all snaggletoothed, like if Satan was British and ate too many sweets.
I found him where I’d left him, in the ninth circle of Dad’s living room.
I don’t know, man. It’s not like my name’s on it. What do I care? But, fuck. Fuck. I do, kind of.
I skimmed another chapter or two. There were a few more additions, mostly adverbs. Someone had added a typo, abd instead of and, or maybe that was me. I type, therefore I typo.
I don’t really think I’m psychic, by the way. It’s just funny, how I posted that and adverbs appeared. Speak of the devil….
Anyway, I’m grouchy, and here is a rhinoceros. I forgot to finish drawing the end of its tail.
* Not the actual line. Being a ghostwriter, and all, I can’t take credit for my words. But it’s a line, contaminated by an adverb. You get the idea.
RG Double Ghost 