I am the biggest fan ever of kiddy movies. Whenever I see a trailer that looks like it would fill a giant screen with awesomeness, I head straight for the theatres for a ticket and a giant bucket of popcorn.
While I've watched most of the kiddy movies out there, I'm ashamed to admit I haven't seen Madagascar 3 even though a lot of people talked about it. I guess I wasn't all that interested in social activities at that point in my life because I was focusing on my studies.
But a friend mentioned it a few weeks ago and started talking about this funny part in the movie:
I laughed. But not as hard as I snorted when I found mash-ups.
And even though this has nothing to do with Madagascar 3 or even Chris Rock, I stumbled upon this and laughed so hard I almost cried:
I'm a bit of a procrastinator. Just a bit. A little bit. A very little bit.
One way I avoid working, studying or even writing is grabbing a handful of chocolate bars, jumping online onto Youtube and watching a few funny videos. Yeah, just a few. Okay, not a few. A couple. Actually, it's more a few dozen.
Oh, all right. I can easily spend an hour or two re-watching videos that make me laugh. Since I try to spread happiness and laughter, I thought I'd share some videos that elicited either giggles or bales of laughter from me.
The first one is a compilation of animals being shot at and playing dead. I think the hamsters are the funniest.
The second one is guys acting like girls on Facebook. This one... um, maybe it should be rated PG because of the suggestive ending. In everyday terms, maybe you shouldn't watch it if you're under thirteen years old. But it's up to you, I'm not your mother.
This third one is David So, singing about his experiences with dating and diarrhoea. Warning: David swears so this should probably be rated PG as well. But, as we all know, everyone swears so what the heck-- watch the video!
I am a huge advocate of editing and by editing, I don’t
mean correcting typos here and there. I mean serious word-haulage. I believe
in rewriting scenes and chapters, inserting or deleting them and agonising over
the perfect word (for an appropriate amount of time, anyway) until everything
is ship-shape.
But a few weeks ago, my polar opposite popped up and argued against
editing for reasons that truly stumped me. This person, whom I shall call Bob,
believes he doesn't have to edit because he did well in secondary and tertiary
education without editing anything.
I pointed out that writing in secondary and tertiary education
tends to involve essays, where students pour all their knowledge into a
pre-determined structure of approximately 2,000 words. Writing a novel, where a
writer encompasses elements such as plot, characterisation, themes,
symbolism etc. in 80,000 words is a completely different thing.
Bob continued to say he doesn't believe in rewriting or cutting
scenes because he insists if he wrote it down, then it has to be important. But
there are a lot of works out there, published and unpublished, that have ‘fluff’
or ‘padding’ where scenes and descriptions add nothing to the story. For
example, talking about the weather or the landscape or every itty bitty detail
about a Victorian dress no-one cares about.
I've read many examples of writing where writers have obviously
not given their work a second glance. These people typed whatever went
into their heads and uploaded without thought. The result was pages and pages
of spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, plots holes and characters who were
either in desperate need of therapy or a couple of shots of tequila to come
alive.
You know those characters. The protagonist who has a
tortured past he cannot let go of, spends every night hating himself and hints
at his history every two pages but never states what it is; and the
two-dimensional sidekick who ambles around, has no personality, provides no
action, is only there as a yes-man or comic-relief and mysteriously disappears halfway through the book because the author forgot about him.
A third person whom I shall call Jane said Truman Capote
never edited his work, which didn't impact his sales. So if he could get away
without editing, why can’t someone else?
To this, I point you to David So, who makes a fairly good
point about education in this Youtube video (be warned, he swears).
I want to highlight this: many students say, “But Albert Einstein failed maths*, so I’ll be fine.” David So's reply is spot on: “Bitch, you ain't Einstein!”
I draw a parallel here. Unless you’re Truman Capote, you’re going to have to edit. But if you publish your manuscript and reach as many sales as Truman Capote then feel free to email me and I’ll gladly retract this post and write a new one detailing my undying envy for a writing god or goddess like you.
But as most of us are only mortal, editing is the way to go. It's been tried and tested by millions of published authors so why ignore their advice? There's a reason they're published! Nearly every author advises newbies to edit and rewrite, so don't assume you know better and accept their advice.
*Albert Einstein never failed maths—it’s a nasty rumour to let kids slack off. In this sense, can we prove Truman Capote never edited?
