John Linwood Grant writes occult detective and dark fantasy stories, in between running his beloved lurchers and baking far too many kinds of bread. Apart from that, he enjoys growing unusual fruit and reading rejection slips. He is six foot tall, ageing at an alarming rate, and has his own beard.
Editing for anthologies and magazines is a strange game. A true editor is knowledgeable, fast, crisp and ruthless. “We regret that we cannot offer your story a place. Thanks. Goodbye.” A true editor has a single-minded vision of what they want, and a rule of iron. A dozen submissions processed with a steely glance and the press of a key.
I’m the Other Guy/Girl. I’m relatively slow and painstaking, unless confronted with clear genius; I read and re-read submissions, in case I missed something. I wonder if my original concept could be diverted slightly for a particularly fine piece of writing. I know the horrors of Being A Writer, and I shift between wanting to send interesting borderline stuff back immediately, and waiting to see if I might squeeze it in somehow (answer: send it back asap with a positive note – another market might want it). I occasionally suggest developmental rewrites, when I should say No, not enough time.
Which means that I please a small cadre of people, and probably annoy a much larger one. It makes me a Half-Blood Editor. But I have been thinking about this a lot recently, having just completed another anthology. And had I been editing fiction for twenty years or more (though I have edited an awful lot of non-fiction over the decades), I might be well placed to make some acute observations. Instead, after a few years of hacking away at it, I end up with a few idle reflections…
I rarely read articles about being a writer. They vary so enormously, from ‘How one woman achieved her stunning fifteen book deal and still knits cardigans for Africa’ to ‘How writing destroyed my marriage and my liver, but who knows, I might still have sold my kids for medical research anyway’.
Pundits grow fat on their Seven Secrets of A Successful Writing Life, with free bullet points and a video for only $149. Established authors slam out articles and interviews, hoping to pick up a few extra bucks in case none of their scripts sell and they’ve dried; nice, wholesome writers talk about their process for writing pleasant, formulaic fiction. Posh authors show you round their beautiful oak-panelled writing space, complete with the first edition Dostoevsky which so inspired their Uncle Jocelyn – and every few months a complete unknown is found by an agent, and given brief fame in the more ‘literary’ journals and papers…
I am, of course, a sarcastic old sod, and not a deep thinker. I have a gadfly brain which allows me to simulate intellect and make it appear as if I think about things. I often write articles that are in fact made up of nothing more than curious trivia and cheap satire, the two proud cornerstones of my cerebral life. And any advice I give on being a writer is usually tongue in cheek – or an ill-tempered croak in response to a particularly annoying habit which I’ve seen in too many stories and submissions that week. But I was intrigued to find a serious piece on the subject by author Tim Waggoner, posted on his Writing in the Dark blog site the other day – and this time I read it all the way through.
I’m six years older than Tim Waggoner. In fact, I was older than he is now when I was first published , which is a scary thought. I have the literary fame of that bug over there, the skinny bug that just went in your shoe (the left one), but I have plenty of working experience, in and out of writing.
I’ve had magazines and presses fold on me, signed contracts where the publisher has then done a complete flit, written for royalties which never arrived, had a novel almost taken and then thrown into the void, seen anthologies come out in my speciality areas where I was never asked to participate, been invited to things I didn’t know existed, and turned up in other markets that totally surprised me.
I’ve had stories rejected by minor markets and then taken up ages later by bigger ones for much more money – and had some of my best work never go anywhere, despite my love of it, totally positive feedback, beta-ing and so on. That’s all part of the job. I treat it as a job, and pretty much let it wash over me. I sell most of what I produce, so when I read about writing, I always reserve the right to shout ‘Hey, you kids, get off my lawn’ and wave my fist impotently.
from ‘Riding out the Storms’ on Tim Waggoner’s blog
I read this article, Riding Out the Storms, and I decided not to yell at Tim. Not at all. He’s done a hell of a lot of writing over many years, and knows his stuff. He knows the thoughts that many of us have, and the foolishness of our internal ruminations. His article, dealing with the ups and downs of being a writer, is really rather good. It’s pertinent, accurate to situations I’ve faced and seen friends facing, and it makes a number of points of genuine value to others. For example, this passage of his caught my eye:
Envy is the writer’s disease. I have no idea who first said this, but I’ve heard it many times over the years. It’s too easy to compare ourselves to other writers who get larger advances, have greater sales, larger audiences, better reviews, more awards. Don’t do this. I repeat DO NOT DO THIS. This way lies madness. Admire other writers’ work, learn from it, learn from their accomplishments and their setbacks, but never compare yourself to them. Unless you’re a narcissist, you’ll always come out second best when you compare yourself to someone else, if for no other reason than it’s impossible for you to be someone else. You can’t have anyone else’s career. You can only have yours.
He adds:
Social media makes envy worse… now every writer trumpets their successes (no matter how minor) on social media as part of relentlessly promoting themselves (as they’ve been told they have to do). Now there’s a shit-ton of information out there to make us feel bad about ourselves. It’s harder than ever to stop ourselves from making destructive comparisons. That’s why it’s so vital that we keep fighting the writer’s disease.
All true. That constant announcement of sales and successes is motivated by everything from a desperate need to say “I’m still alive, still trying,” through to meeting contractual obligations – passing along the way with moments of genuine excitement, and moments of panic that no one will really read your story/book.
I too make these announcements on and off, occasionally taking the piss out of myself, because I probably should –both make them and take the piss, I mean. Every so often I am genuinely thrilled at a particular sale, and play it straight. Every other so often, I’m painfully aware that the publisher has virtually no marketing budget, and someone has to do it (a specific commitment to social media presence and promotion seems to turn up in more and more contracts these days).
And the more author Friends you have on social media, the more you will see news of sales and successes. So you see ten (or however many) exciting announcements in a week, and you yourself haven’t finished or sold anything for months. Bummer. These are ten (etc) different people, but it feels like THE WHOLE WRITING WORLD IS SUCCEEDING EXCEPT YOU. Never mind that it might have taken one of us eighteen months – or three years – to achieve that sale, or it might have come about almost by accident. I’ve sold stories as a result of a chance Message or enquiry at a key moment, and if I hadn’t been on the computer at the time, it would never have happened. I’ve lost opportunities the same way, by gardening instead of monitoring the Interweb undercurrents. You can’t do it all (I have high hopes for the climbing beans this year).
Also remember, we’re far less likely to post about failures (except the spectacular ones which make a good anecdote) and the routine churn of rejections, maybes and so on, because a) it makes us look like depressive whingers, and b) it gets boring very quickly…
Envy, as Tim Waggoner indicates, is no bloody use to anyone.
Which is all to say, why not let him play on your lawn for a few minutes, and read his full article (link below). I really would check that shoe as well. Some of these bugs can be weird…
You can find plenty of jolly interesting Tim Waggoner publications out there. We have a copy of his collection Dark and Distant Voices (Nightscape, 2018) nagging at us right now, and really must review it soon.
He’s also written two dark stories for Occult Detective Quarterly, in ODQ #2 and ODQ #5, both featuring his character Ismael Carter. Occult Detective Quarterly can be picked up here:
Dare you read about a mighty hound stalking and bringing down an innocent pork chop, in the thrilling life-or-death struggle that is the lot of the modern lurcher? Have you fed your lurcher too many sardines and then had to move house? Today, dear listener, we let you in on the secret of our amazing, unique dog feeding regimen – except that it’s neither amazing nor unique, it’s just raw feeding done without bothering to measure anything accurately enough.
It is the case that old greydog and his pups can occasionally be seen dining together on a mixture of bacon rind, out-of-date luncheon meat and leftovers. This is because greydog himself is a professional writer, and therefore shockingly poor. But we’ll pretend that doesn’t happen, and stick to what we officially do, in the ‘Raw Truth’ expose which follows…
Lurchers are funny things. Our current two are Scottish deerhound crosses, and some have said that deerhounds will starve themselves rather than eat something they don’t fancy. Our female, Chilli, is of that ilk, and turns her nose up if she’s had the same thing too many days running, or if it’s not exactly what she wants at the time. She is extremely fussy, and can even cross-question us over specific cuts. Too much fat on this meat, human servant-creature!
chilli looks shocked at being offered a badly cut steak
Django, on the other hand, is a complete gannet. He will reach up onto shelves to get a piece of dried up crusty bread, an empty yoghurt pot, or even a fork with a microgram of bolognese sauce on it. This tireless hunter has an impressive record of tracking down and killing innocent takeaway containers, margarine tubs and similar small creatures (our late Jade – a Bedlington cross – would be even more acrobatic and remove meat from the frying pan halfway through cooking).
django gets excited over being offered cardboard
But despite Django’s unfortunate habits, all our dogs are raw fed. And yes, we recognise that not every one can stomach (?) filling little tummies with such a diet; not all vets understand or like raw feeding; some people haven’t the facility to store sufficient meat or buy it cheaply enough, and occasionally a dog just doesn’t like it. We think it’s better for their health in the long run, and they love it, but it’s entirely up to you. Preaching can be a sure-fire way of turning some people off – so we don’t.
There are different schools of thought when it comes to raw feeding. We go for a straight forward approach – a range of meats, fish and organs (nothing to do with church services), and an adequate amount of bone. We don’t weigh anything, or keep any records. We feed the dogs like we bake cakes – by instinct and sometimes rather incompetently.
A typical meal, which we feed twice a day, will be a standard doggie bowl which contains:
A large heap of raw meat;
Bits of uncooked organs (see below) or fish, every other day;
Maybe a raw egg or a few scrapings from the human plates;
The guy who hammered on the door trying to sell us double-glazing.
Ignore that last line – he actually went on a really long holiday, and had such a nice time he’s never coming home. Just like we told the police.
If you’re feeding raw, it’s better not to overload on the cooked dinner remains, but the odd bit thrown in, or for a treat, is fine. Once a day, depending on the mix they had in their bowls, they get offered a separate bone, of which more later.
Although we’ve never tried one, there are commercial raw complete mixes available if you feel that everything which follows sounds messy and hard work (it’s not, especially, but we can see the appeal of pre-prepared packs).
happy raw-fed django and chilli
Note that our approach involves NO kibble, dried mix or biscuits except as rewards when out walking, or for good behaviour. Our dogs are very fond of Morrisons’ gravy bones, which they greet with ridiculous enthusiasm (we’re sure those things have some addictive drug in them). But you can buy dried liver strips, or make your own treats, if you don’t want to go there. The occasional treat biscuit makes no discernible difference when raw feeding, so we don’t sweat about it.
You could alternatively carry raw liver and chicken wings in your pocket, of course, but that plays hell with the dry-cleaning bills. It also makes people worry about the blood dripping from your jacket – which can be an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on how sociable you’re feeling.
IMPORTANT: We are not canine experts, vets or nutritional specialists – don’t take our word for anything. What follows is what we do, not what we say YOU should do. Look everything up at least twice from different sources; don’t always believe what you read on the Interweb; get advice from an actual vet, rescue or re-homing centre, whatever you feel you need.
So, what do we mean by these complicated technical words – meat, organs, bones? Do read on…
RAW FEEDING
1) MEAT
Meat enters the hovel in large quantities – ours would be an ideal household for disposing of dead gangsters, unwanted politicians and other nuisances. The bulk of this meat is in the form of raw minced chicken, minced beef, minced pork, and when a story has sold, minced lamb. Unless you have one of those lurchers who starts taking against or reacting poorly to it, chicken mince is a reliable standard which is easily obtained in commercial quantities.
Once you have your basic range of raw meat, you can vary the mix that goes into the feeding bowls. It’s true that some dogs are committed plodders and want the same thing again and again, but the idea is to provide variety.
Meat doesn’t always have to be minced up, of course. Bargain cuts of all the above go down nicely – some fat is good, but try to keep the fat content down overall. And experiment – a raw chicken carcass makes a lovely toy, especially when you have visitors you don’t like. Or why not wait until someone calls round, and give your pup half a trimmed pig’s trotter to present to their new friend?
People ask if raw feeding is expensive. It’s not, really, but your economy is seriously helped if you have a large freezer. All the meats are cheaper frozen – we buy both frozen blocks* aimed at dog owners and cheap supermarket mega-packs of mince.
a frozen beef/chicken mix with some organ and bone content already in there (from they love it in the uk)
In addition, we haunt the supermarkets and buy heaps of anything raw and meat-shaped which is on offer or on its sell-by date. And thus we have strange conversations with check-out staff on why we have a trolley piled high with out-of-date pork. As greydog is a shambling old bearded wreck, most of them just assume he’s mad, and is making a modern sculpture out of rotting chops in his living room. Which saves time.
* There is one advantage to frozen meat blocks designed for dogs – many of them have a guaranteed bone content, which helps regularity (see also below).
2) ORGANS
The insides, innards – or as scientists call them, the icky bits – are Jolly Good for most dogs. They contain a number of vitamins and minerals that help keep up tip-top condition. However, you don’t want to overload your pup’s system with an excess of any one organ at a time. Variety, and not too much too often, is the key.
do NOT attempt to feed this organ to your lurchers, however hungry they are
Top of our own dogs’ Want List is raw heart, which they adore. It’s relatively cheap, and can be bought pre-chopped if you can’t be bothered to hack it up. Liver and kidneys are cool, except that some dogs are unenthusiastic when presented with their first raw ox liver (usually the cheapest form). It’s common to find that flash-frying liver, or dipping kidneys in boiling water for a moment, gets over the suspicious sniffing.
Tripe is also popular – green tripe is the best if you can get some. The white supermarket tripe has been boiled and bleached, so has lost a lot of its oomph, though there’s no harm in feeding it for a change. Go for chicken gizzards and anything else you can get hold of – experiment, and grab bargains.
We could go into some of the other organ meats, but then you might stop reading. We’re from Yorkshire, and grew up at a time when you could buy pressed cow udder to put in your sandwiches, so are not easily grossed-out.
3) FISH
Fish is Jolly Good (but only in moderation, as with organs) for the range of vitamins and healthy molecules. Django once ate a large raw fish-head quite happily, but we’ve never quite conquered our concerns about fish-bones. We supplement the usual meats now and then with a portion of anchovies, herring, mackerel etc, and white fish when it’s on offer – checking the larger fish for hazardous bones first*. We find that overdosing on oily fish tends to promote noxious back passage explosions, and we don’t just mean gas. See http://greydogtales.com/blog/lurchers-beginners-12-poo/
People have two other reasonable concerns about feeding fish. One is parasites, and the simple answer to a lot of parasites is to freeze the fish for a couple of weeks before feeding – that deals with most of them. The other is toxins and preservatives – which can usually be managed by not feeding fish too often. Some fish, especially larger ones, accumulate toxins as they grow. Preservatives are added by the commercial food industry, and you can check the labels (if they’ve been honest).
* A non-raw alternative is just to give the pups a can of sardines or similar oily fish (canned in water) now and then as a treat.
a happy camper after his dinner
4) BONES
Here we’re going to say what works for us, because we’ve had plenty of discussions on the subject. A certain amount of bone in the diet keeps teeth healthy and bowel movements firm. One approach is to feed products with a stated bone content, as mentioned above. The other is to provide bones or a very bony piece of raw meat as an extra at some point in the day – in our case, in the evening to shut the mad puppies up for a while and let us watch television in peace.
The RAW bit is very important here. An uncooked chicken leg is a treat – a cooked chicken leg can be a serious choking hazard, as the bones become hard and brittle during cooking. Although less worrisome than splintery chicken, we use the same rule for things like meaty ribs these days, and give raw ribs, but not cooked ones.
this bone is not fresh enough
Nowadays we feed only lamb and pork bones. These are relatively easy for most dogs to crunch through, and are very popular. We don’t give our dogs large beef bones, whether raw or cooked, because they’re damned hard. Experiences vary, but we’ve come across three problems – the dog getting a tooth stuck in the bone; damage to the teeth, and too many large hard splinters being created.
On a separate note, quite a few of those big commercial pre-cooked bones seem rather stale and dubious to us. There’s no doubt that some big dogs absolutely love bought prepared beef bones and will easily go through a large marrowbone, so again, it’s up to you. A big part of having dogs is getting informed, making conscious decisions, and then observing carefully.
Pig trotters also work, cut in half, but we’ve found it’s best to cleaver off the hard nails at the end, which don’t seem to break down.
Whatever you give, make sure they have a bowl of fresh water to hand/paw, and try to keep an eye on them until they’re done. We usually pick up any small slivers and fragments left afterwards, to be safe.
5) NON-ANIMAL STUFF
Another huge area of debate. We’ve never seen any harm in putting things like a bit of grated carrot into the mix – a number of dogs like carrot, and we had one that would eat whole carrots. Peas are quite popular as well, and cooked sweet potato. People argue over whether or not dogs get vegetable matter from eating innards in the wild, and so on. We can’t be bothered to argue. Django likes the cooked potato that rolled onto the floor; Chilli doesn’t. Raw animal protein is still the largest part of their diet by far, every single meal, which is the point.
django explores his greens
What really matters is to look up ANY fruit and veg you give your dogs beforehand, checking that there aren’t any compounds in them which would affect their kidneys and other organs. Fruit and vegetables (including nuts) are tricky little sods, and some naturally contain chemicals you do NOT want in your pup. Others are only safe if given in small quantities every so often. Onions are a good example of the latter. If you dog eats something from your plate that had onion in it, chances are it will have no effect whatsoever – it’s not one of those Omigod! foods. But consumption of too much onion, or onion too often, can be dangerous.
Incidentally, we’re not panicky folk. Dogs, like humans, are pretty resilient. Just err on the safe side – don’t live in paranoia – and get veterinary assistance if you’re worried about what your dog might have eaten.
Vegetarian note: Yes, it’s possible to bring up a dog on a vegetarian diet – but if you make your companion do this, you’d better be darned sure you’re providing all their essential requirements. Dogs are still primarily carnivores, and no, the physiology of dogs has not altered appreciably since their origins. Do eat veggie or vegan yourself by all means – we have long meat-free phases and are all for it, practically and philosophically – but please remember to put the dog’s needs before your personal beliefs. It doesn’t have the choices you have.
6) SAUSAGES
Finally, and of no real relevance, our dogs really do love raw sausages, as if they lived in one of those kids’ cartoons with an angry butcher running down the street. It wasn’t our idea, and we’re fairly sure there’s a lot of useless filler in most sausages, but hey, give a dog a break.
sausage dogs, hunting their natural prey
TRANSITION
Before we close, we should probably say something about transition from a cooked/processed diet to a raw one. We have successfully shifted an adult dog over from commercial processed food to an entirely raw diet, and she loved it. She experienced no ill effects whatsoever, and was probably perkier afterwards. But you should probably get advice, because it can be a big move for small tummies, and their digestive systems might be in flux for a while. Some recommend a one week to two week period where you gradually move the diet over, to allow for shifts in the digestive tract. There’s only so many times you want to buy a new living room carpet.
And that, best beloveds, is what happens chez greydogtales. Which may not be as amusing as usual, but life’s like that, and parts of it may have at least been informative. What do we know? We’re too busy herding lurchers…
A load of other Lurcher-y entries can be found by this Index Page, which is now conveniently out of date. A bit like us.
A quick post to offer our dear listeners a free Carnacki tale written by crumbling greydog a while ago. Downloadable and all, designed with a cover and Author’s Note at the end, but only available for four days. The story in question, ‘A Dark Trade’, was written for Carnacki: The Lost Cases (Ulthar, 2016). It’s the first and only ‘traditional’ Carnacki story from me, despite what people think. And it at least has the virtue of being relatively short – a mere four or five thousand words.
