On reprint collections or Never accept a raisin danish from an Evil Monkey

*Angela is snoozing on an eighteenth century fainting couch, using a pile of books as a pillow, and blanketed by sheets of a A4 paper (printed on one side, double space, 12 pt font). A blue pen dangles from her limp fingers and a large blue splot of ink mars her wrinkled brow.*

Evil Monkey creeps closer, leans down and yells: Hey!

Angela: Argh!!! *flails about, falls off the eighteenth century fainting couch, swears* (a lot)

Evil Monkey: Did I wake you?

Angela: I’ve known you for what? A week and a half?

Evil Monkey: About that, yeah.

Angela: And I already hate you.

Evil Monkey: Hey! Not fair. I brought you a coffee and a danish with raisins.

Angela: Yeah, no. I’m not accepting anything from you ostensibly containing ‘raisins’. Not falling for that again.

Evil Monkey: Mmmm. Smarter than you look. Coffee?

Angela: No way.

Evil Monkey: Right. So, whatchya been doing?

Angela: Proofing a manuscript.

Evil Monkey: One of those short story collections?

Angela: Yep. The Girl with No Hands & Other Tales.

Evil Monkey: How’s that going?

Angela: Well, it’s done and gone to the publisher and he’s sent it to the printer.

Evil Monkey: So, an easy task?

Angela: Hell, no. It’s mainly reprints. You go back and re-read stories you wrote four year ago and you see how your style has changed and you scream quietly to yourself.

Evil Monkey: You want to re-write bits?

Angela: Oh, yeah. It’s like being told to not look back. You know you’ll be turned into a pillar of salt if you do … but you just can’t help it.

Evil Monkey: Did you change much?

Angela: Nah. It was difficult. You can see your mistakes – or not necessarily mistakes, but stuff you’d do differently now. But most stuff I left – unless it was just so awful I wanted to chew my own arm off. Repetitions, that’s the worst thing for me. I try so hard to get rid of them nowadays. Back then, not so much – I just didn’t see it.

Evil Monkey: Why’s that?

Angela: Because it’s a record of my early stuff. You don’t get to re-write your history. There’s a name for people like that. I think, for the most part, you write it, you put it out there and your stand by it.

Evil Monkey: Interesting. Raisin danish?

Angela: Hey!

8 comments on “On reprint collections or Never accept a raisin danish from an Evil Monkey

  1. Craig Smith says:

    As posts with evil monkeys in go I really enjoyed this one :)

  2. Angela Slatter says:

    :-) :-)

  3. Rochita says:

    Hi Angela, I’ve been enjoying your posts. RL usually interferes with my attempts to post something smart and witty, but I just thought I’d let you know. :) Also, something irrelevant but today’s newspaper says Australian money is the cleanest money in the world with the least number of bacteria found on it. Yes, the brain is pretty random today.

  4. I heart evil monkey. and it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who cringes and screams quietly when I read my old stuff from a few years ago.

  5. Angela Slatter says:

    Maybe coz we don’t have paper money, but kind of a plasticy thing – it goes through the wash nicely :-). Glad you’re enjoying the posts.

  6. Angela Slatter says:

    LRR: It’s a painful experience!

  7. I really like this webpage. Wewish I could come here all the time. Please do keep on posting more stuff!

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