Edit Me, Big Boy!

You might know that I've written and self-published two books. One is a murder mystery written for an adult audience ("Damage"). The other is a paranormal adventure for middle-grade kids ("The Psi Squad").

Well, I finally finished the first draft of the second book in the "Psi Squad" series and am set for the most rewarding part of the process -- edits and rewrites. Writing a book is like assembling a model with parts that fit roughly together, leaving bumpy bits and sharp edges. Editing and rewriting are like taking sandpaper and paint to that model to make it all smooth and pretty.

It's good to have a high opinion of your writing while you're writing it. After all, if you aren't excited about writing your book, you can't really expect anyone else to be excited about reading it. But you can't let it bring you down when, upon review of your completed first draft, you quickly begin to realize it isn't the masterpiece you hoped it would be.

The other night, for example, I read the opening chapter of the new Psi Squad book to my sons. I had already performed a quick and sloppy edit on chapter one and believed it to be in excellent condition. After reading it aloud -- one of the best things anyone who writes anything from an epic novel to an off-hand Facebook post could ever do -- it became clear there were at least three harsh transitions and a moderate amount of unnecessary verbiage.

All this despite the fact my editor had already reviewed the material and assured me it was error-free. In fact, I believe the words "perfect" and "no mistakes" passed his lips several times. I know you're thinking "get a new editor," but that's easier said than done, since my editor is half of the twins that are my sons.

The Italian is an avid reader and connoisseur of some of the finest literature ever to pass through a middle school library. According to the asinine Lexile system presently being thrust mercilessly down the throats of students in our school district, he is a sixth-grader who reads at a college freshman level. Mind you, he is still expected to show growth in his reading skills, which means he is required to consider reading books that fall within his lexile range such as those by Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy. Or, he can read a nice nonfiction book, like Stephen Hawking's "The Origin of the Universe." But I digress…

In short, the Italian got the job of editing my manuscript for three reasons: Nepotism, No Cost, and Begging. (I should point out that he begged me to let him edit the book, not the other way around.) He pestered the living daylights out of me for months about wanting to edit the next Psi Squad book, although I suspect his motives were less of a helpful nature than they were selfish. He wanted to read the book before anyone else, most especially his twin brother.

His "editing" of the first few chapters magically required no red ink and resulted in not a single criticism. He found no typos, no grammatical mistakes, no incorrectly used character names, and no plot holes. This is what happens when you hire a drooling fan to do the job of a slash-and-burn critic. Fortunately, the errors I am finding while reading the book to the boys are easily rectified. Even better, the boys chuckle when they are supposed to and I haven't had to explain any parts of the book to them after the fact.

Now that I know better than to trust a twelve-year-old who loves me to edit my book, I can start searching for a proper editor. I wonder if my Mother would be interested?



© 2013 Mark Feggeler

A Lullaby for Mr. Mushpie

In the book Holes, the mother of one of the main characters sings a lullaby to her tweenage son. It's a touching moment that was not lost on our boys earlier this week as we came to the end of the novel during one of our nightly reading sessions.

I did my best to craft a melody for the lyrics the author had written. The German smiled sweetly and the Italian hid his face under his bedcovers as I sang. The book was closed to the muffled sounds of sniffling.

The German is not typically mischievous, but his reaction to his brother's sudden bout of sentimentality was to find a way to draw out a few more tears by asking if I would treat them to one of the songs I used to sing before they grew too big for lullabies. The Italian immediately protested.

When our children were infants, my primary defense against a baby too cranky to fall asleep was to sing. You'll never see me on American Idol, or even at a local karaoke night, belting out showtunes and crooning ballads. My ability to carry a tune surpasses only my natural athletic ability, if only because I have no natural athletic ability.

Sometimes I would hum a simple melody while cradling one of them in the crook of my arm. A gentle swaying kept them mesmerized by the passing blur of the ceiling above. Other times a proper song with distracting words was necessary to make the tiny bologna loaves focus on my face and the sound of my voice to help them drift away to dreamland. The song wouldn't end until they were resting peacefully in their cribs or pack 'n play.

One song became my go-to staple in the battle against unsleepy babies: "Hymn," a 1997 song by Jars of Clay. I didn't abuse it. Only if other methods failed would I summon its otherworldly power to drain the fight and fuss from an irritable infant. Several years later the song "Evermore" by Alison Krauss joined the evening bedtime playlist. When the German asked for a lullaby the other night, it was one of these two songs he wanted to hear.

"I hate those songs!" the Italian declared.

He doesn't really hate them. In fact, they move him so deeply that he can't keep from crying when they are played or sung. I have the same reaction to the song "When Somebody Loved Me" from the movie Toy Story 2. Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, whatever mood I'm in at the time, that song can melt me into a pool of tears.

"Evermore" wreaks such emotional havoc on the Italian that it once was responsible for a last-minute counseling session. He would play a game during which he would tell me he loved me to the value of ten. Without skipping a beat he would then say he loved his mother to the value of eleven. I would feign shock and sadness. One night, after he had hit the joke pretty hard, I sang "Evermore" as they crawled into bed. Tears soaked his pillow even before I reached the end of the first chorus. When asked what was wrong, he cried: "I didn't mean it. I love you both the same!"

So, when our troublesome Teutonic redhead requested a command performance of their lullabies the other night, I deferred to the Italian's protests and issued a 24-hour warning to expect the songs the following night.

The advance notice definitly helped. He needed only one tissue to get through both songs.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Sleep Tight

Rituals are funny things. They take over your life in ways you never expected, only to disappear with the slightest change in your routine.

We are ritualistic about breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We are ritualistic about waking the same time each weekday morning, showering at the same time, brushing teeth, walking the dog. We are ritualistic about hanging our clothes in the closet, or placing them always in the same spot in the same drawers of the dresser. T-shirts to the left, socks to the right, third drawer down.

Children require similar ritualistic behavior for their proper development and the parents' sanity. Perhaps the most important ritual, at least for the sake of our sanity, is bedtime.

Since Our Daughter was two months old, bedtime has been sacrosanct. It was important to us that she be able to put herself to sleep in her own bed without endless rocking, or a bottle, or us rubbing her back, and she obliged splendidly. Several years later, so did our sons.

As Our Daughter grew to become a communicative toddler, we changed from the "lay 'em down and let 'em sleep" approach to the bedtime story. I, or My Lovely Wife, would read to her from one of the many board books in her room. As she learned the meaning of the strange shapes on the page, she would read along with us.

After the book was finished and put away, I would delay the inevitable for a few more minutes. Invariably, she would ask me to make up a story of my own. We had a tendency to repeat the same story over and over, sometimes using her stuffed toys to act it out. I wish I could recall the details of the story, but it's probably all the better lost to time. I'm certain it wasn't anything all too creative. As the years progressed, the books grew more complex and the playful imaginings gradually were tucked away.

I must admit to both fretting over and longing for the end of the bedtime ritual for some time. While I wouldn't mind a few extra minutes at the end of my busy day, I don't know if I'm ready to trade the enjoyment of seeing my children off to bed for the simplicity of a peck on the cheek and a muttered "g'night" as they head to their rooms.

When Our Daughter turned thirteen last year, I suspected the end was at hand. After all, how many teenagers really want their fathers tucking them in every night? But she didn't stop tracking me down at the appointed time and dragging me off to do just that. At least, not straight away.

Little by little, here and there, the signs of change began to show. Several times during recent months, bedtime has come and gone without my noticing. When I finally realize it, I'll climb out of bed where I might have been dozing, or climb the stairs from the basement where I was working on my book, only to find the television and lights off, and her fast asleep in her bed.

Standing there in her doorway, taking stock of how the trinkets of childhood have been replaced by the necessities of teen life -- a hair dryer where a doll used to be, a computer desk where a toy chest once stood, makeup and jewelry gradually taking over the domains of Barbie and Polly Pocket -- I'm struck hard by the imminent death of a lingering ritual.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Tomorrow, the World!

When I started writing this blog, I had no expectations. I figured, at best, there would be a handful of family members and friends who would kindly humor me by reading a few posts from time to time.

"Oh, look," you might say upon seeing my note on Facebook alerting you to a new post being published. "Mark just put out a new little blog on his little rambly thingy. It's called 'A Sock In My Shorts?' I don't like the sound of that. It sounds dirty. I think I'll wait for the next time he writes a syrupy sweet one about his family."

Truth be told, I'm not much of a blog reader. I'm not much of a reader at all, actually. My reading happens in fits and spurts, and I get tremendous satisfaction if I reach the end of a Reader's Digest three-pager about a spelunker who had to chew through his own rappelling gear in order to save a kitten from a mountain lion before my legs fall asleep from the pressure of the toilet seat pushing up into them.

Strange to think I was an English major in college. And a lit major for the first two years! I guarantee in those first two years at SUNY Plattsburgh I read maybe -- maybe -- five books from cover to cover. While I never cheated or plagiarized anyone else's work, there were plenty of times I turned in six-page, ten-page and even twenty-page papers after staying up until 2:00am in the all-night study lounge at the student center, yanking quotes from chapters I hadn't read to support a thesis I hoped was correct.

One time, I wrote a paper on the first half of "War and Peace." Problem was, I had read only half of the first half of "War and Peace."

Have you ever read it? It's 1,200 freakin' pages long! I can barely make it to the end of an Emily Dickinson poem and they're expecting me to read this never-ending borefest? Ten pages into it and I was hoping all the characters would pull an Anna Karenina and throw themselves in front of a moving train...

Anyway, I plucked a thesis out of my butt and wrote the paper. Then I started skimming through the book for supporting quotes. As I skimmed, I realized my thesis was wrong by 180 degrees. I literally was able to leave my paper mostly intact, drop in the quotes I had found, and where I said something wasn't true I simply changed it to say it was true and vice versa. That was the only "A" I ever received from Dr. Burde.

So, having suffered a lifelong aversion to reading, I'm always surprised to see so many people embracing the activity so rabidly. As someone who fancies himself a writer, I appreciate it, but I'm still surprised when anyone reads anything I have written. In January when I published my first post to this blog, I was amused at how quickly certain people picked up on it.

Now, when I look at the tracking of hits coming with each new post -- particularly those that have catchier titles and are muchly more betterly wrote -- I'm amazed to see visits to the blog by people living in places in which I know for dead certain I cannot possibly know anyone. Look at the map of the United States below. Every flag represents someone from a city who visited this blog.


If I rack my brain over each location, I'm sure I could come up with the usual suspects from Facebook for about ninety percent of them. A few of them are probably just me checking in while I'm traveling for business. Houston and Charlottesville definitely are. But that doesn't explain the map below.



I'm pretty sure I've never traveled to Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Italy, England or Russia. And I don't have any penpals in Moscow or Dubai of whom I'm aware. I can understand how someone in New South Wales might stumble across my review of "Dinner for Schmucks" from some intermediary website or search engine, but please tell me why the hell someone in Dhaka surfed their way to "Toilet on the Edge." Twice!

While I'm trying to keep this international notoriety from going to my head, I have set what I think is a perfectly reasonable goal for "Ramblings of a Very Pale Man." Before 2010 draws to a close, I want to be able to track hits from every continent. So far I have North America (no thanks to any support from Canada or Mexico), Eurasia, and Australia. All I need to get is South America and Africa. I doubt I'll have much luck with Antarctica. Something tells me they don't have a very strong WiFi signal down there.

But if you think there's a chance of a penguin with bluetooth checking in one day, I'll keep it on the list. Maybe my next post should be all about krill recipes and the dangers of leopard seals.


© 2010 Mark Feggeler

I'm With The Shniggler

It can be very interesting having a son with educational challenges.

Our German is ingeniously clever. He can build complex, moving structures with Legos and K'Nex having nothing but a photograph on a box to go by. Giving him the directions to read might actually slow him down. Reading at night with him requires patience and understanding. He can immediately recognize and fluently read words such as "complicated," or "exciting," or "incredible," but he struggles with "and" and "the." If a word starts with "h" then he will likely need help sounding it out. "H" is a huge obstacle for the German.

We walk a fine line in our home. We work hard to never make him feel stupid because he struggles to read simple words or find the right words to use in conversation. Unlike one of his school teachers from a few years ago, we don't chide him for needing help, or label him lazy because he doesn't finish a task on time. We know he frequently works twice as hard than his fellow students to accomplish less. Our goal is to ensure he doesn't get so frustrated that he gives up trying.

But that doesn't mean we won't laugh when a laugh is called for. Taking his condition seriously does not mean taking him seriously eight days a week, thirty hours a day. In my opinion, the best coping technique we can give him is the ability to recognize when he should let down his guard and allow himself, and others, the chance to laugh at something that is genuinely, even if unexpectedly, funny.

My mother's favorite example of this came one day when the German asked her about my brother, his uncle. The German could not remember his name and didn't bother trying. "Where is your other son?" he asked his grandmother. To this day, Mom enjoys refering to my brother as her "other son."

On another occasion, the German was asking my lovely wife something about her sister, who is a dental hygienist. Again, he could not remember the name of his relative, so he said: "Do you know that lady who's related to us that works on teeth?" A little longer than "your other son" but yet again a new title was created.

Sometimes, the German will just plain make up words, quite unintentionally, often without realizing he has done it.

A few months back, we were picking up one of our daughter's friends and we had our whole clan in the van. I stepped out to knock on the door and when the friend and I returned to the vehicle, everyone was laughing hard. It seems the German was explaining how his brother, the Italian, woke him up that morning. He meant to say that his brother had "jiggled" him awake but instead stated that the Italian had "shniggled" him.

I'm sorry. You have to laugh at "shniggle." To me, it sounds like a ride at an amusement park, like a really wild roller coaster that swoops through inverted loops and under walkways and into corkscrews, leaving your pants intact but magically making your underwear tear clean away. We came up with t-shirt slogans like "I'm With the Shniggler" and "I Survived the Shniggler." We laughed ourselves silly, the German just as much as the rest of us.

I am hopeful that, as he grows and matures, he does not lose his sense of humor and the understanding that the best laughs are caused unintentionally. Somehow I don't think the rest of us will let that happen.


ⓒ 2010 Mark Feggeler