Are you trying to kill me?

I mean, seriously.

What inspired you to write the book? To take on a social issue that is sometimes overlooked. That issue was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSDT).

I have to admit he's right on this one: PSDT is very often overlooked. Even when talking about posttraumatic stress disorder, you never seem to hear about PSDT.

And no, this is not a typo, nor is this an issue of translation. He uses this acronym several times throughout his questionnaire, including on the final question:

What sets your book apart? The book does deal with several aspects of PSDT of which I have researched a great deal.

So you researched this a great deal. Really. Because you don't even know what this condition is actually called. So that kind of leads to an issue with your credibility, doesn't it? Or perhaps you researched PSDT a great deal, which is also problematic for a book about posttraumatic stress disorder.

Personally, I'm hoping he did a great deal of research about Privalomojo Sveikatos Draudimo Tarybos.

Another brilliant questionnaire

I'm not sure there's a single sentence in today's questionnaire that isn't ridiculous. This isn't even funny to me; it's just depressing. Hopefully you'll find it funny, though. At least some good could come of this.

Theme: As the collection of short stories all have various themes, not bound by any comminality. 

There has to be a theme. I get that they're short stories, but you can't just shove a bunch of words together and call it a book. That's ridiculous.

Summary: Short stories that broach many different genres - from humourist to philisophical. 

At this point I'm giving him props for spelling short and stories correctly. I see nothing humourist about it.

Target audience: litary readers

Hm. Since litary is not a thing, does that mean his target audience is no one?

Specific tone, themes, and mood you would like to convey to your readers: Tone and approve varry from piece to piece.

He spelled vary wrong. Seriously. That's more disturbing than the fact that this sentence makes no sense at all.

Who do you envision buying and reading your book: ?

To be fair, I assume this means the writer has realized that although he'd like litary readers to read his book, that's not likely to happen.

What sets your book apart: You tell me

I'm thinking you probably don't want me to tell you.

Another gem

Summer is busy time for writers, apparently. Or "writers," possibly. At any rate, after turning down the vampire atrocity, I was offered a book that comes from this genre:

murder mystery set in an unusual place with some what initially seems to be fantastic or fantasy creatures, until once learns in a simple style form the locals that others with powers based on technology beyond the main characters knowledge are really involved in what is going on.

So...humans from the future?

Also, I'm pretty sure I told my superiors that I wouldn't take any books from this specific genre. 

Here's the plot of this book from what we affectionately call the MMSIAUPWSWISTBFOFCUOLIASSFTLTOWPBOTBTMCKARIIWIGO genre:

ask for this separately I don't have one here now I WANT THE EDITING TO START

Yikes. I purposely sat on this one for a day before turning it down just to fuck with this guy.

Here's what he suggests for the interior of the book:

A FONT that has been used in fantasy and science fiction possibly scurlock

So your book is sci-fi/fantasy? Huh. That sounds a lot easier than MMSIAUPWSWISTBFOFCUOLIASSFTLTOWPBOTBTMCKARIIWIGO. Just saying.

Also, what the hell is scurlock? Is this a word I should know? I'm assuming he meant the font scurlock, which you can download for free here. Probably don't use this for an entire book. 

And finally, at the end of the questionnaire:

There is a roman background, romans translocated from earth.

In other words:

Humans from the future. 

Tic tac toe

I don't often get good books. That's no secret. But I'm pretty sure my new assignment gives me three in a row of complete, utter bullshit. Here are some highlights from the client questionnaire:

Provide a thorough summary of your book.

Sorry guy's can't summarize a very complex plot in under 30,000 words.

Great start. You can't write a summary of your own book. Well, here. Let me summarize it for you: another fucking vampire book.

Describe the specific tone, themes, and mood you would like your book to convey to readers.

OK, this is multi-faceted. Here's the partial list:

Light-hearted

Seriously tragic

Gothic

Intellectual

Awe-inspiring etc

There 

is tragic love, revenge, horrific brutality and triumph over extreme adversity. 

But wait! There's more! Characters will also be happy, sad, mad, mildly irritated, anxious, perplexed, sleepy, and constipated. And if you order in the next twenty minutes, you'll also get hungry, spicy, husky, throbbing, and smirk. 

Side note: I do love light-hearted horrific brutality.

To which books would you most like to see your work compared? Which author(s) in your genre do you admire?

Author Franz Kafka - the characters in my book are subject to unpredictable horror and tragedy.

Kafka?! You're comparing yourself to fucking Kafka?

Describe your target audience by factors such as age group, interests, education, gender, etc. 

Vampire fans. Millennials (18 - 30 y.o.) Fans of Twilight. The book may possibly turn out to be very popular among girls/women as strong, intelligent women are integral to the plot.

Clearly this author is male. I can't wait to read what he thinks a "strong, intelligent woman" looks like.

Is there a rule you would like for your editor to disregard because you have purposefully gone against convention in your manuscript?

If a sentence which is grammatically incorrect, it's most likely because I intended it that way because the grammatically correct version would seem stilted.

I have intentionally omitted many commas to maintain good flow. I've used apostrophes to keep the readers' flow.

Read that first sentence again. So you're telling me that would have sounded stilted if you'd written it so it actually made sense?

I also assume the use of "guy's" in the summary question is to "keep the readers' flow." 

Or perhaps this guy is a fucking moron. Grammar does not bend to your will, asshole.

What sets your book apart?

There are too many ways to spoil plot twists in this book - there are a lot of plot twists.

I'll bet there's a werewolf. In vampire books, "plot twist" always means there's a werewolf.

What aspects of your writing are unique and define you as an author?

I want them to actually THINK about things sometimes. I also want them to have to look up the meaning of a word - like we did in the old days.

You know what millennials love? Being talked down to. I'm seriously loving it right now. That's right, asshat. Your editor is a milennial. Plot twist!

Dashed hopes

Whenever I get a new project, I get this little rush of excitement. Maybe this will be a good one! Maybe this time I won't get mad and scream at the computer monitor for two weeks straight! Then when I read the client questionnaire and it's written in complete sentences and includes legitimate questions and concerns about the book, I get even more excited.

And then I open the file and briefly scroll to a couple of different pages throughout the book, just to get an idea of what I'm looking at.

That, my friends, is when my hopes are dashed on the rocks like a thing that is dashed on a different, harder thing.

A very basic first glance of this one includes one of the characters being referred to as:

the tall woman
the brunette
the CEO
the six-foot-tall woman
the brave woman

Yes, I now know that my main character is female, brunette, six feet tall, and the CEO of some company.

I also know I'm going to hate this book, as it's likely written by someone who thinks she can write because she owns every Dan Brown book.

The editor's excitement had faded like color fading from an old photograph that once had color in it.

I miss vampires

I seriously almost cried when I got my next assignment. I may not be able to handle this. Here's who the book is for:

I wrote this story for ages thirteen and up but there are areas that might be difficult for some people to understand. Since it is military oriented it's probably targeted more to the male audience and it's defiantly for the science fiction reader.

Military oriented. Great. Because I want to read another book about a fucking military pilot. Especially one that might be difficult to understand. Because he doesn't say specifically who may have difficulty understanding it, I assume he means everyone.

Also, I'm not a huge fan of defiant science fiction.

Here's his statement about why he wrote the book:

My desire to write this story started one night after having a very vivid dream. I wrote it down and named it, "The Hail Mary Mission." I didn't know at the time it would change my life but I was driven to understand how an event could happen. Writing a prolog only drew me in further. Who were the aliens? What happens afterwards? With so many great ideas coming to mind, I decided to dedicate my life to complete it. Some may say it's to short but I focused mainly on quality and not quantity. I also wanted something that was thought provoking, mysterious, intense and emotional. The kind of book you can't stop thinking about long after you finish it.

Oh, boy. Let's take a look at this one a bit closer.

My desire to write this story started one night after having a very vivid dream.

So did you have the dream during an afternoon nap? Also note that very is unnecessary here.

I wrote it down and named it, "The Hail Mary Mission."

The quotes indicate that this is not a book but perhaps an episode of a TV show. Also, let's imagine the opening line of Moby Dick, shall we? Call me, Ishmael. Oh, no, wait. There's no comma there. So why did you feel you needed one?

EDIT: I'm still giggling about this one. I feel that we could insert either Blondie's "Call Me" or that one chick's "Call Me Maybe" here. The fact that I made a reference that connects "Call Me Maybe" with Moby Dick amuses me greatly.

I didn't know at the time it would change my life but I was driven to understand how an event could happen. 

I'm just itching to know how writing a shitty novel has changed your life. Oh, that's not the end of the sentence? OK, we'll add a comma before but and keep going. I too understand how an event could happen. Events happen all the time. In fact, events are happening at this very moment.

Writing a prolog only drew me in further. 

This is what prologs do, so congratulations. Except that we spell it prologue. Minor detail.

Who were the aliens? What happens afterwards?

We also prefer afterward. But regardless, I'm also eager to know what happens after...wait, you mean after the prologue? You, the writer, did not know what would happen after the prologue?

With so many great ideas coming to mind, I decided to dedicate my life to complete it. 

What great ideas? The ideas of misspelling prolog or writing about aliens? And you really dedicated your life to this without realizing you were misspelling the word prolog?

Some may say it's to short but I focused mainly on quality and not quantity.

No, you didn't. You just used the wrong to. Side note: at 60,000-some words, it is to short.

I also wanted something that was thought provoking, mysterious, intense and emotional. 

You know how often I hear these words in client questionnaires? Often. Oh, so often. You know how often I use these words? Stunningly less often.

The kind of book you can't stop thinking about long after you finish it.

You realize this is not a complete sentence, right?

And finally, after explaining how he loves using descriptive words to create an intense, emotional, et. al. story, we get this gem:

I have difficulty writing out how a person would for example, "Worry." Expressing that in facial expressions or body action is quite challenging for me.

Following this is an explanation of how he will not be instituting any additional changes that may be suggested.

I...just...can't.

Why I can't finish my own book

Here's why. This is a quote from a client questionnaire:

I write from a perspective of being 100% in a given moment as if it I were experiencing it so the emotional content is pretty raw whether humor, drama, pain, sadness. I want the reader to experience this as I have written it so it's conveyed properly but I am open to advice.

Now here are some examples of experiences of raw sadness as he has written them (note: these are the full examples. They are not part of longer descriptions):

Tears poured down his cheeks.

Tears rolled down his face.

Tears flowed from her eyes.

Tears streamed down his face.

Tears rolled down her cheeks.

It upsets me greatly that this person truly believes these examples are properly conveyed expressions of raw emotional content. It makes me wonder: is the stuff I'm proudest of really this bad? And if so, what about the other 99% that I think sucks?

Oh, and I do realize there are grammatical errors in the author's note. Don't even get me started.

Here we go again

Client questionnaires are so telling. This new author has this to say about stylistic preferences:

At this point, I do not at this point has any stylistic preferences other than those that have been stated within the MS.

This author is allegedly intelligent and well-educated yet managed to spit this out. Great.