Q-Bert: When Professional Edits Make You Want to Shout "@!#?@!"

If you owned an Atari 2600, you remember the addictive game of Q-Bert.  If you think an Atari 2600 is a motorcycle, you need instruction in this simple game of color changing and pantless orange characters.

Q Bert is the orange, long nosed, pants-free star of a 1980s video game.  Inspired by an M.C. Escher pyramid word, the game board is simple but the game itself is anything but simple.  Q Bert must jump from square to square in the pyramid and change them a new color.  As the game progresses, the squares must be stepped on twice or three times in order to match the indicated color.

Along the way, Q Bert is chased by Coily, the purple snake.  Ugg and Wrong Way, also purple creatures, run the sides of the cubes.  Slick and Sam, green creatures, stifle progress by reverting color changes.  Lethal red balls aim for Q Bert.  All that can save him is a green ball that immobilizes enemies and a multicolored disc he can hop on to escape danger.  

This is my Q Bert story... 

August arrived.  I'd hopped all my squares and successfully turned them the appropriate color. My first manuscript complete, I urgently sought a professional editor for my work before submitting to publishing houses. Coily was chasing me.  All writers know Coily.  That self-inflicted timetable chasing you, telling you your book must be published NOW!  After all, Ugg, Wrong Way, and all the other writers obtaining publishing contracts before me were stealing my opportunities.  

My manuscript returned a few weeks later.  The lethal red ball blotted each and every page. Not only that, Slick and Sam struck.  My story needed a major organizational overhaul.  All the colors I had changed on my pyramid were being changed back.  She offered no multicolored disc to remove me from harm. I was being told to go back to square one.  Comfort came only from knowing I'd immobilized the enemy with my green ball (i.e. cash wadded up in frustration).  

In my disappointment, I envisioned myself ending up pantless, orange in the face, and swearing "@!#?@!" in my yard.  But then I realized if the game were easy, everyone would play it and everyone would win.  I couldn't count on the multicolored discs.  I had to count on my multifaceted writing talents.  I had to beat the game.  

And so I did.  And so you can.  Before you end up pantless, orange in the face, and swearing "@!#?@!" in your yard because of professional editor remarks, remember that the work is worth it.

~Scott Heydt

"Live, Learn, Teach"

www.scotthbooks.com

http://scotthbooks.blogspot.com