On Writing and Telling Stories...

1. The scroll through old journal entries hit upon another personal essay that I chose to republish on Word Press. Edited a little bit.

It made me cry while reading -- it's a story about my beloved Grandmother, who died in 2009, and her extended family.

And it is entitled Opal Klophemier's Daughter.

For some reason -- I've never been able to turn it into a novel. Perhaps this is the best and only way it should be told.

2. I've begun to realize my frustration with FB fandom forums -- it's bit too much like IM chat, where no one is really listening, and everyone is talking. You know that type of conversation you have with someone in which both people are thinking what they want to say next?

Reminds me of something an creative writing prof told me once. This was back in the 1990s, when I was taking a fiction writing course at Gotham Writers Group. It wasn't that expensive and met weekly in the evenings. I was at the evil library company at the time, and it was long before there was much of an internet to speak of. Oh it was there, but still rudimentary in form.

Anyhow, the writing teacher said, "think of dialogue as two people jockeying for position. Both attempting to control the conversation and say their piece."

Too often it feels that way.

Years later, I'm sitting at my desk today and listening to Lando attempt to explain to a Project Manager what is required on our end. She interrupts him every five minutes, is defensive, and tries to control the conversation. At one point they are literally talking over each other. He kept telling her to stop and hear him out. It became a battle of who could speak the loudest. At the end, he looked at me and cackled.

I'd brought him in, because I wasn't getting anywhere -- we'd either end up in shouting matches, or she'd interrupt me constantly with "I understand".

As Lando stated, "I don't think she has a clue what to do."

And I'm thinking, yup. We're talking at each other.

FB is noisy. But is anyone listening?

I've never been much of a fan of chatting. Or tweeting. Or texting. Small soundbites isn't my thing.
I'm not really found of speaking on the phone. No, I prefer letter writing, where you get the chance to say your piece without interruptions or the other person hijacking the conversation and twisting it towards an unrelated topic, such as linens are on sale today at Macy's, let's buy some, when you were busy discussing a movie or a book or maybe your Dad sick in the hospital.

I like the exchange of letters. I had a lot of foreign pen-pals growing up. Two in France, one in Turkey, a couple in the UK. And I used to exchange letters with my Aunt in Vegas, as well as various friends. When I went to Wales for two months to collect folklore and stories, I'd write long letters on the back of post-cards to various friends and family members in teeny tiny print.

It's why I love DW and prior to that LJ, I like being able to send letters out across the miles to people. And get them in return. I remember when I was on the ATPO and BC&S Buffy boards, how people on the boards would write long emails to me, and I'd write back. There was one woman, Kat Robinson, who was a navy nurse stationed in Japan, whose husband was being shipped out to Turkey, who wrote to me daily. My letters kept her sane, and her's kept me sane. When I finally got the courage to leave my job at the evil library company, she sent me flowers with lemons in the bottom of the vase and the message -- "with lemons, keep making lemonaid, and remember it's always darkest before the Dawn". A Buffy quote. And her husband took me out to eat one Memorial Day weekend, when was in town with the Navy, to thank me for keeping his wife alive and out of a depression. My emails to her made her days.

It reminds me how our words matter and conversations matter.