Overheard at Table 2: Summary of Your Writing

Someone posed a question on Social Media asking writers to give a quick summary of overall writing.

The only thing that came to my mind was, "It's pretty much a stream of consciousness conversation I've been having with myself since 1977."

Overheard at Table 3: How Do We Get to Be Filthy Stinking Rich

M: There's a lot of money in this town.

C: Yes there is.

M: A lot of people are filthy stinking rich.

C: True.  There are.

M: How do you get filthy stinking rich in this country?

C: How do you mean?

M: Well, I want to get filthy stinking rich.   

C: Well, in this town, mainly it's oil.  Oil, when it's up, gives annual bonuses that lets some people buy boats.

M: I want to be that rich.

C: We ARE that rich.  We're the President and the VP of a $90M asset manufacturing company, on track to make $65M annual revenue.  We ARE rich.

M: Yeah but we're not FILTHY STINKING RICH.  That's where I want to get to.  How do I get there?

C: Look, if I knew that, I wouldn't be here talking to you.  I'd be driving my Ferrari around my private island.

M: And I'm sure if you ever found out, you wouldn't let me in on the secret.

C: Sure I would.  There'd be enough wealth to go around.

Overheard at Table 1: What Modern Prose Is Missing Is ...

I have to admit that trying to get back into reading has shown me something quite interesting.

Currently, I'm reading several different books concurrently, and I am struck by the difference in styles.

For example, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan by John L Stephens was written in 1840.  While some of the phrasings seem archaic, the sentence structure is generally sound and the proper use of punctuation makes the book easily readable.  It flows.

Corporate Christianity, written 2013, which I wrote about a few days ago, was so incoherent that it is practically unreadable.

Midnight Fright: A Collection of Ghost Stories, Watermill Press, 1980.  This little dollar paperback contains five short stories written by late 19th century writers, including Dickens and de Maupassant.  Some of these stories are a bit tedious, but the diction is clear.  The words flow.

The Guest List, by Lucy Foley, William Morrow (HarperCollins) 2020.  At first it was difficult to get into.  The diction is simple enough and of course I speak and understand contemporary colloquial English, so I didn't understand why I was having difficulty with the text. 

Then I realized: punctuation.  There is a lack of appropriate use of punctuation that allows the written sentences to be read with ease.  There is a cadence to sentences, and a flow to ideas that punctuation helps make clear.  When not used to appropriate effect, the eyes flow too fast over the words without being able to understand the ebbs and flows of the sentences.

I can discard Corporate Christianity as having no editor, a writer with no coherent thought pattern, as the reason for the horrible prose, but The Guest List has had an agent, and editor, a process that has aided the production of this book in order to get to mass market.  Yet, it appears that no one ever said, "Here.  Put a comma here, so the reader doesn't find themselves too far downstream without a paddle"

Overheard at Table 3: Origami Cranes

Driving in to work today, playing "Providence" by The Fat Lady Sings, I thought of this poem:

She wrote her prayers
on tiny scraps of paper,
then folded them into 
origami cranes.

She put them in a basket,
carried them outside,
and tossed them into the air,
where they caught the wind,
took flight,
scattered themselves into the sky
and became stars.

MR

2023-0116

Overheard at Booth 3: Great Opening Line

A great opening line for a novel:

 

I still recall his deep, resonant voice, saying, "They were a family of alcoholics.  Nobody ever talked about the dead one."

NOTE: Or maybe just have the quote be the opening line.

It's a good opening line.

Now it just needs a novel to follow behind is.

Overheard at Table 2: Memorial Service Guilt Trip

I play in the church band, and our drummer's dad died just before Christmas.

Yesterday, we get a message on all the various group chats from Church that there's a memorial service today at 5pm.  Just so happens that my wife is headed out of the country today (took her to the airport this morning), so I was freed up to go to the memorial service tonight.  I didn't know the drummer's dad (he didn't belong to any church and their relationship was strained), but I was going to go for the drummer, because he's my friend.

My wife - full confession - has been having some strains on our relationships at church, and it's an hour away. so I know that if she weren't leaving today, she would want me to skip it to stay home and help continue with the kitchen renovation.  But since she's gone ... my time is now my own.

So, the moment I dropped my wife off at church, here comes a text message from the Church Band leader (who is also the Pastor's wife) to the 11 people who are part of the church band.  This is a group text just to us, NOT part of any of the other current chat groups.

The message says that the drummer and his wife (who sings in the group) do a lot for the church and really help out, and that we all should really go to try to support them.  She ended the long text with "Mourn with those who mourn."

Now, this text really irks me.  First of all, now, none of us in the church band now will know if we are showing up out of our desire to be there, or because we were guilted into going.   One guy immediately replied that his son was being rushed to the hospital so he wouldn't be there.  

Imagine feeling so guilty that you had to take the time to tweet that!

Second, the message had a tone (yeah, I know, we're not supposed to put "tone" in texts or email, but this tone was unmistakable) of condescending guilt, as though we were teenagers who need to be cajoled into common courtesy and decency.

My thought is, "I'm a fully grown adult in my fifth decade on this planet, and I will go to whatever service I want to go to and I will pass up any service I want to pass up.  And I'll take whatever consequential results arise from either decision, but don't treat me like a child."

Giving her the benefit of the doubt, the Pastor's wife is probably concerned that no one will show up, simply because no one knew this man (again, he was not a congregant), and is simply trying to make sure that there is sufficient attendance not to seem pathetic.   Still, though ... it irked me.

Irks me still.

Even as I'm pressing my slacks and trying to determine which suit coat to wear.

Overheard at Booth 2: Guidelines for Modern Critique of Art

Because we currently live in a culture in which constructive criticism is seen as negative criticism, there are now certainly guidelines to follow when dealing with someone's creative work.

1) Never offer any unsolicited criticism.  Ever.

2) If they ask you for criticism, ask them first what kind of criticism they are looking for.

    (NOTE: most people these days want nothing but praise.  Anything less than OH MIGAWD THAT IS THE MOST FANTASTIC CREATION EVER IN THE HISTORY OF ALL HUMAN ART will be viewed as negative criticism)

3) If they ask for HONEST criticism, speak ONLY of the positive aspects of the art.  No matter how banal.

4) Then, when you are done with that excruciating exercise, go have yourself a drink and read something by Oscar Wilde or Dorothy Parker, and imagine yourself as their contemporary, at a time when honest criticism was viewed as true and honest and pure, because tearing apart someone else's art showed that at least you CARED enough about it to shred it.