Monday, March 3, 2008

Original copy

In case anyone wonders, the preceding post arose from circumstance and necessity: the political season is heating up here, and I'm a freelance journalist for a local newspaper. I had to report on a candidates' forum last night, and I'd been too busy during the day to get to what I had originally promised: a review of the author's Web site. But I can do zany stuff very quickly, so I ran off a genuine fake review.

It's late again, but I'll have some factual elements this time, until it gets late enough to uncork the weird stuff.

To begin with, some parts of the copwriter.com site haven't been updated for a while--The Void itself is listed as a coming attraction (to be published in August 2007)! The best parts of the site are unaffected, however: My Testimony and Why I Write. The blog is nonexistent, and you occasionally run into a gratuitous and annoying login requirement. But then, as a cop and writer, Mynheir is presumably a busy guy.

So what can we learn of Mynheir the writer?

Well, one of the Amazon reviewers said, "Mynheir is an author worth watching." Obviously she found out the hard way how professional writers clean out your cookie jar when you aren't looking! (Or maybe donuts when he's on duty, though this seems to concentrate on the writing aspect.) Successful writers can afford cookies; less successful ones can snitch a few here and there. Wannabes and hacks have to make do with crackers. Apparently Mynheir is in either the first or second category. But has he achieved his full potential?

Myself, as I look at his Web site, copwriter.com, I am filled with sadness: just one more letter and he could've been a rich and famous copywriter, which is a technical term in the writing game for plagiarist. But we can't all have the glamor jobs. Look at me, for instance. Okay, no, you can't look at me, because I found all those little cameras long ago. (And they said I was paranoid!)

Anyway, I am a copyeditor, not a copywriter. This means that I'm a plagiarist with good grammar and spelling, not one of those illiterate slobs who makes a lot of money. Let them have their money! I have my pride.

And it tastes good on a cracker.

Participating Blog links:
The Christian Fiction Review Blog
Queen of Convolution
A Frank Review
Between Sundays
Bibliophile' s Retreat
Cathi's Chatter

4 comments:

Caprice Hokstad said...

And I have been copyrighted. Too bad that didn't come with the standard "rich and famous" contract either.

Mark is one of those guys who needs to have "people" to do stuff for him, like keep up his blog and update his website and pretend to be him on MySpace, and change all the chocolate chips in his cookies into ExLax. Err. Maybe not that last one. Cops need to be good runners, not have the runs. ;)

Frank Creed said...

Having the police training Mynheir should be able to write good action scenes . . . as long as there are not an over-abundance of action scenes involving donuts. That would be too cliché (despite the realism).

Steve said...

Better that he have "people" do stuff for him than "things," though. But it does open up a new career field: instead of being a mere ghostwriter, why not be a ghostauthor? Create custom sockpuppets for authors and save them the annoyance of dealing with fans!

cathikin said...

I keep seeing copywriter myself when I look at Mark's Website. Of course, that might be because I make so many typos and have gotten used to reading typos from other people as well.

 
Powered by WebRing.