I don’t understand the call for editing. To me there is no fat; it’s all “seasoning.”
I’d buy his book in a heartbeat even tho it would have to come out of the grocery money. I do want it autographed, tho…
Sunspace, I hope you PM him. He needs to be steered toward a publisher of grit lit. Even a small, regional publishing house would do. Just get it into print and let word-of-mouth do the rest.
The man is GOOD. “How about some okra instead?” indeed.
[post=11664803]My post is my cite.[/post] C’mon, Jon, get the book out in time for ChristmaHanuKwanzaSolstice!
Is there any particular post of his that would give someone some insight as to what his book would be about?
The bitchy answer was Bludgeoning Dull; the more considered one is No, I wouldn’t . What can be quite amusing, if a little over-praised, as the installments of a rambling, picaresque serial that pop up occasionally on a message board with a captive membership eager for any kind of coherent content wouldn’t work at all well as a stand alone book with no real core or substance other than “here are some long hyperbolic tales of my odd family”. Some people like his verbosity, I find it difficult to get past the first couple of paragraphs before closing the thread, and a decent editor would tell him to cut out or condense 2/3rds of it, which pretty much leaves Hey, here’s more funny shit my Mom did once, and that really isn’t enough to sustain a book. Condense, condense, condense, and add some narrative thrust before it is saleable to anyone other than existing fans on this site.
Shouldn’t we be chanting, “Author! Author! Author!” to get him in here to update us and perhaps do a reading and e-sign our thread?
Ditto. He’s one of my favorite posters in CS.
How do you suppose we got to be fans here on this site? By reading his stuff and not looking for “narrative thrust”. Not every piece of writing has to be narrative. I take it you don’t enjoy Dave Barry either.
Would love the book.
Ugh.
Ah, Hemmingway. I hate Hemmingway also.
Yeah, that’s the fun part.
I’d buy a hardback copy for my library, a paperback for loaning out, a digital copy for my tablet, and would watch the movie when it comes out, then bitch on here about how they screwed the movie up.
I doubt it would be my cup of tea.
If I wanted a long, rambling, endlessly digressed, pointless story about somebody’s crazy family, I could just call my mother for free. I sometimes find his posts amusing, but more commonly I wish he’d quit gassing on and get to the damn point already. I might flip through the book if I ran across it at the library but most likely wouldn’t check it out, much less buy it.
Yes. Fuck, hell, definitely yes.
If you don’t like his rambling style, that’s fine; but if that was cut, it wouldn’t be Sampiro. I hope he gets an editor that appreciates that.
Good editors are hard to find, but they do exist, although these days most non A-list authors must hire them on their own. On the bright side, this means we can shop around to find an editor who’s a solid match and who understands how to finesse our manuscripts until they’re nigh-on perfect.
A great editor will cut what doesn’t work to enhance what does – just as Michaelangelo took a slab of stone and removed everything that wasn’t David.
I went for Yes, Hell yes, and would come back from the dead for this book! He’s the main reason I joined the SDMB after lurking and reading through years of his accumulated posts 
Try this one
I very much disagree with the snip snip kind of editing proposed. There are obviously bits that need subbing and fixing for sense, but the rambling asides and embedded parentheticals are part of the charm. And though not even Sweeney Editor would cut its throat, the thought that there’s the merest chance that a phrase like “By Message 9 or so the contractions are coming 3 minutes apart and I can see the head of the argument” could be lost gives me the heebie jeebies.
Long run for a short slide. He has a gift of phrasing, but it gets lost in the verbosity.
Point?