WHOSE COLUMN IS IT, ANYWAY?

Here it is, Thanksgiving week, and because I'm deep in the holiday spirit (read: lazy), there will be no spleen-venting. Instead, I've decided to give thanks to readers of Notes From The Light Side; not only is it tremendous fun for me to write but it's introduced me to some very nice people who appear to be regular readers. Even readers who don't necessarily agree with me seem to enjoy what I have to say enough to keep reading and criticizing me every week.

I think one of the reasons I have readers in the first place is because of on-line magazines. Since I started this column, it's been picked up by several "e-zines", which is quite flattering considering I expected I would be the only person reading this. Most of the e-zines are automated systems that "ping" your blog from time-to-time to check for, then publish updated content (techno-geeks, correct me if that's the wrong description), but of all the e-zines, the one I really pay attention to is a major one whose name you can get if you Google me on the internet. This magazine keeps very thorough stats, telling how many views each article has had, how many times an article has been published electronically by other publishers, how many people have accessed your profile, what reader "rating" each article has received and how many people are redirected to your actual blog to subscribe and, amazingly, all these services are provided absolutely free-of-charge to authors they choose to publish. Another reason I pay attention to it is, as far as I can tell, the only e-magazine that has actual live human beings editing content before publication. Before anything gets published it faces not one but two reviews; "initial" and "quality control". The process can take up to a week to complete, hardly surprising considering the amount of content in their magazine. The editorial staff is efficient of necessity, and are a very intelligent group of individuals, an opinion that has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact they've only kicked two articles back to me for revisions.

As much regard as I have for them though, I was a bit irritated last week when they published my article, Strolling Down Memory Lane... At 55 MPH. You see, I'd specifically tagged this as an "automotive" piece, but in their editorial process, it was changed to "self-improvement". Self-improvement? Nonsense, that wasn't my intent at all; that piece was meant to be about escaping the pressure of everyday existence behind the wheel of a car; the idea of, "clear your mind on the open road as I do" (without sounding quite that silly). I suppose I could have made the automotive angle stronger if I'd written "......behind the wheel of my 2.5 litre, 170 brake horse power 4-door "Limited Edition" with full-time AWD and double wishbone suspension that does 0-60 in 9.7 seconds", but not only would that have spoilt the mood, it would have sounded like I freelanced for Motor Trend in my spare time.

I got quite a bit worked up over the change, thinking, "I know what I was writing about, not them", and wondering if they would have changed the classification from automotive if my name was Billy Bob Huggins, until I realized I was getting worked up over absolutely nothing. Did the magazine change one word of the article? No. Did they change the title? No. All they did was move it to what they thought was a more suitable classification, and, with head bowed I can say they did the right thing. Twenty-four hours after Strolling Down Memory Lane...At 55 MPH was published, it ranked fourth most popular of all my articles, and the "view" numbers continue to grow each day.

The lesson learned is a simple one, each of us has a job to do so let's just get on with it. Their job is to edit, and they've been doing quite nicely for nine years without my interference, thank you. And my job? Easy. All I have to do is shut up and write.


(Notes From The Light Side will return the first week in December.)