Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
by Lindsay Perigo
Well, that got your attention, didn't it?!
So why *is* the editor screaming? Because he had hoped to leave a swag of signed-off masterpieces in the Article Queue for Messrs Rowlands & Landauer to draw on while he, the editor, swanned off to TOC in Vancouver ... but he's just discovered he won't be able to. To be sure, there was an ample *number* of articles awaiting the editorial imprimatur, but closer inspection has shown several to fall short of our quality control criteria.
Let me stress that I am extremely appreciative of everybody's efforts, & the last thing I want to be is an ingrate. I'll be sending SOLO mails to those whose articles I think need to go back to the drawing board, & encouraging them to do the necessary tweaking. In this post, I'll confine myself to some general observations & cautionary admonitions!
1) The old bug-bear, length. I've sent back one article that is 4,500 words. Prior to that, there was one of *8,500* words! If these offerings merited such inordinate wordiness, there'd be no problem. But both contained a lot of repetition & redundancy. Both could easily be cut in half, & benefit from the resultant taut economy. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, brevity is the soul of impact.
2) If submitting an article that purports to improve upon or clarify Ayn Rand's formulations, take a moment to reflect upon the enormity of what you're claiming ... & ask if you're really delivering on that claim. I've seen two such efforts now, & have no hesitation in saying that they served only to muddy the waters with tortuous prose & impenetrable formulations. Don't embarrass yourselves with vainglorious pretensions that you then fail to live up to. (Of course, if you make that claim *and* live up to it, that's another matter!)
3) Remember SOLO's emphasis on the repudiation of the reason/passion dichotomy. The true & the just & the beautiful & the life-affirming are things one ought to be passionate about. If you find your writing is as dry as dust ... check your premises! Prose should *sing*, not intone!
4) No more articles linking to other sites! If you insist on submitting a sloppy second, by all means provide a link at the bottom of the article - but enter the thing in its entirety in the Article Queue. Quite apart from anything else, if you *don't* do that, I can't make any corrections.
Now I don't want these admonitions to scare anyone off. Au contraire. Right now, SOLOHQ needs you. Quality control has diminished the quantity of immediately useable offerings.So ... pervade that Article Queue with pithy, passionate, pertinent, propitious, prescient, potent profundities, pregnant with perspicacity! Uncles Joe & Jeff will thank you profusely ... & Uncle Linz will stop screaming!
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