Let it snow,let it snow,let it snow

**Jerry Oz** · 07-08-2014, 03:35 PM

The internet helps those who prefer to hide...

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-08-2014, 03:58 PM

Like hurling insults at passers-by, from behind an impenetrable fence.....

**Jerry Oz** · 07-08-2014, 04:13 PM

Like standing in an international embassy, safe from prosecution in a strange land and choosing to do any immature behavior possible instead of comporting yourself responsibly,

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-08-2014, 04:33 PM

Yes!!

Quite!

Definitely.

Absolutely.

Mind you..... it does sound like it could be fun, sometimes....

**144man** · 07-09-2014, 12:01 AM

That could be a slippery slope leading to who knows where.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-09-2014, 03:04 AM

I won't rely on SatNav, then...

**144man** · 07-09-2014, 05:17 AM

Yes, SatNav won't tell you if the road is paved with good intentions, and we all know where that leads.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-09-2014, 05:21 AM

...turning left, which you just know isn't right...and into a river.....

**144man** · 07-09-2014, 05:24 AM

We've all been there.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-09-2014, 05:26 AM

I remember that familiar line in the TV series 'Life of Riley', starring William Bendix.

"What a revolting development this turned out to be..!"

**144man** · 07-09-2014, 03:17 PM

I don't remember that one at all.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-09-2014, 03:40 PM

No? It was one of those American TV series which amused this kid in the days of b&w pictures.

There are some clips on You-Tube. Having checked out the series, it looks like his exact catchphrase was "What a revoltin' development this is..."

**Jerry Oz** · 07-09-2014, 06:11 PM

Stan Lee, iconic comic book creator and writer, used that line recurrently when Ben Grimm and the Fantastic Four found themselves in a pickle. I'm thinking that he was a William Bendix fan...

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-09-2014, 06:35 PM

That's how catchphrases become so. Most people who use them forget who originally said them....

**Jerry Oz** · 07-09-2014, 09:55 PM

I'll buy that for a dollar!

[[ Do you know where that one came from?)

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-10-2014, 04:24 AM

'The Marching Morons',by C. M. Kornbluth, by way of 'Robocop' -?

**144man** · 07-10-2014, 12:43 PM

Takes me back to the golden years. It will always be SF to me, not Sci Fi.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-10-2014, 12:53 PM

I know some will see it as being pedantic, but I'm someone who prefers to pronounce UFO by spelling out the letters, and not as "you-fo"...........

**144man** · 07-10-2014, 01:07 PM

I also still pronounce it as three syllables.

Have you read C.M. Kornbluth's "The Little Black Bag"? It's one of my favourite SF short stories.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-10-2014, 01:14 PM

No, I've not......I must check it out

I remember you mentioning your appreciation of SF before..but it's not something to which I'm instinctively drawn. What little I know of it seems to unsettle me...was the X-Files classed as SF? They made for very good television viewing, if often unnerving....

**144man** · 07-10-2014, 01:36 PM

A good SF book is better than a good SF film. I'd class the X-Files as SF because there are aliens in jt.

One classic SF short story that seems to have been undeservedly forgotten is Frederik Pohl's "The Tunnel Under the World". It begins with a "Groundhog Day" scenario", yet it was published as long ago as 1954.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-10-2014, 02:47 PM

A well-constructed novel, read by someone with a keen imagination, is the ideal.

A film is often passively viewed, by people whose attention is anywhere but on the film.

**Jerry Oz** · 07-10-2014, 03:12 PM

"The Puppet Masters" by Robert Heinlein is one of my favorites. It's written in the first person, which is what I like about it. I'm not good at writing stories from a first person perspective. They tried to make a movie from it, but the flick was poorly produced.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-10-2014, 03:24 PM

Are you really meaning 'writing stories from a first person perspective'......or, reading stories, written from a first person perspective' - ?

**Jerry Oz** · 07-10-2014, 05:35 PM

I enjoy reading from that perspective and wish that I was capable of writing a story in that way. I think too hard about things, sometimes. To write in the first person perspective, you either put yourself into an interesting [[fantasy) story or create a protagonist that you know as well as yourself, which ain't easy to do. I'm not comfortable exposing myself to the world and I'm not detail-oriented enough to create someone new that I believe I'd be interested in knowing.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-11-2014, 05:03 AM

When you say you think too hard about things, you mean you feel you spend too long about it...?

If you're not comfortable exposing yourself to the world, you could use a pen name.....

**Jerry Oz** · 07-11-2014, 03:38 PM

I have a pen name. Those who know me would know that I wrote something if it was published. The exposition refers to things that I feel are intimate and personal but only known to me and God. I couldn't write, especially in the first person, without the character being my surrogate and I'm pretty sure that those who are closest to me would recognize that I am that person because 90% of it would be obvious. I can only imagine something that might be shocking causing them to call and start the conversation with "Jerry, I'm reading your book and I see where your hero thinks that most churchgoers are posers and hypocrites... Are you talking about me?"

Especially if I was. In other words, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and writes like a duck... You got a duck. I never found myself in a murder mystery, but I'm pretty sure that the character's insights would be identical to my own [[for the most part). I'd get so many dirty looks from people who wonder if some secondary characters are based on them.

When I say that I think too long and hard about things, I sometimes go back to something that I wrote a day before and find that in hindsight I should have worded everything differently. And added more detail. And changed the tone. And the setting. And...

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-11-2014, 04:40 PM

It does sound to me as if you can easily write only if it closely mirrors your own life, and thoughts. You're concerned what others might think...but you've not actually written and made your work available.. so I wouldn't worry about that too much, just at the moment.

Your last chapter : again,not to worry. Every writer does that. Some days, all that can be summoned seems like porridge....

**Jerry Oz** · 07-11-2014, 05:15 PM

True enough. I have nothing to lose and I'm actually only going to write because I like doing it, so who really cares? We all out up walls to hide who we truly are from others, so I might actually free myself by putting windows in mine.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-11-2014, 05:28 PM

It's very therapeutic to write for oneself in the first instance, before making the results available to others.

I'm not sure that we all put up walls, but some people [[and probably all people, at some time) do have a block, because there is something about themselves which makes them uncomfortable. There's an acute awareness of a need to share with others, but also a fear of rejection from the very people to whom they are reaching out.

It might help to try looking at yourself from the outside in, and not the other way around. Different perspective....that sort of thing.....

**Jerry Oz** · 07-11-2014, 06:13 PM

I just did. Wow! I didn't know that I had so little to work on until just then... Now I'm starting to believe that my lack of friends is because everybody else has a problem and not me.

Thanks, pahdnuh!

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-12-2014, 04:11 AM

If you're going to write, then create a whole new scenario, blurring reality with fiction.

Take what you know, have experienced or have heard, then embellish it.

That way, you get to say what you want to say...but with plenty of alternate explanations, if ever you are challenged.

**144man** · 07-12-2014, 12:54 PM

If you write a story with several characters in it from the viewpoint of an impersonal narrator, you have the problem of breathing life into each character and creating individual personalities for them all. Surely it is easier to write in the first person, as each character's essence is coloured purely by the impressions they make on the hero.

As writing in the first person is merely a literary device, I see no reason why anyone would confuse the hero with the author.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-12-2014, 01:17 PM

It depends on the natural character, coupled with the personal style of the writer. One who is given to observation, and with an eye for detail, will have no problem with a whole set of characters and their development.

Another writer will indeed naturally write in the first person, if they instinctively think that way.

I agree, concerns with having the hero/heroine or any leading character confused with the identity of the author, is negative thinking, and placing imaginary hurdles in any line of creativity. To be resisted.......

**Jerry Oz** · 07-12-2014, 01:24 PM

The confusion should be on my part, more than someone else's. I just wonder if I can have the protagonist so some flawed, awful thing and have those who know me feel that everything else he or she did reminded them of me, so would Jerry actually do that? If course, the answer is "probably".

Writing from first person perspective also absolves me from having technical knowledge of everything. Instead, I'll be able to offer my descriptions and observations as a lay person.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-12-2014, 01:32 PM

You need to give some serious thought as to why the concerns of what people will think of you via your writing, is so important.

Is there some conflict within ,which writing would ease, but also leave you feeling uncomfortable simply reading your words?

**144man** · 07-12-2014, 01:38 PM

If you write in the first person the other characters do not have to be developed so fully as they are only seen through that person's eyes, whereas an omniscient narrator sees everything.

Sometimes the story itself will make it obvious which method is appropriate. If the correct choice is made, the story should practically write itself. When I used to write for my own amusement [[though I did show the results to family and friends), I didn't find one way easier than the other.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-12-2014, 01:48 PM

Yes, I'd agree with all of that.

It does depend on the subject matter and the plot.

I know I would always prefer writing objectively as a narrator. Otherwise, unless I'm recounting personal experiences, the thought of being biased would likely cramp my style and speed. Questioning oneself is a real threat to creativity.

**144man** · 07-12-2014, 01:51 PM

Jerry, if you were writing a song instead of a story, would you have the same problem? You can write a song about being the most miserable person in the world when you're completely happy, and no one would think that's the way you were when you wrote it.

Incidentally, I once wrote a story in the first person in which I committed a murder, and no one who read it ever thought it was about me or that I would ever be capable of doing such a thing.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-12-2014, 01:54 PM

The best song stylists can perform emotions which they may never have experienced.

Agatha Christie wrote about murders, and became famous for it, but was never accused of committing it. She had a criminal mind, but used it positively.

**Jerry Oz** · 07-12-2014, 01:55 PM

I agree with you 100%, 144man. It'll all be simple fantasy for me and allow me to go somewhere that I've never gone and do something that I will never do in real life. Maybe I'll find something out about myself...

And other's opinions are really not that important to me, WGB. I sometimes used these threads to sound out what I'm thinking, so if it sounds like there's serious angst involved with my character development, it's not. I don't want to write something that isn't expository and unique. That requires that my protagonists do something differently than every other writer's subjects would do, even morally questionable things. Whether it's a male or female, I'll be writing from my personal viewpoint, so if I allow somebody to shoot a kid in order to save two other children, it may spurn conversation. Especially if in a pinch the hero has to pick which kid will die.

Why write if not to be provocative? We'll see if anyone ever reads it and cares enough to comment...

**144man** · 07-12-2014, 01:55 PM

Wgb, I found when writing in the third person, it could be jerky at times, whereas when writing in the first person, everything seemed to flow more easily.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-12-2014, 02:12 PM

Everyone has their natural voice style and key, even in the written form....

**Jerry Oz** · 07-12-2014, 02:26 PM

Jerry read WGB's post and paused to consider it. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps, Jerry should consider his "natural voice" when he began to write again. But then, what if he was writing about an unnatural situation? It was worth considering and he determined that to find his natural voice, he'd write the same events from different standpoints and various perspectives to see which of them he preferred. In the end, what difference would it make?

He considered responding to the post but decided against it. I'll just take a moment to practice, he thought. Write a little bit about nothing. Nobody will ever read it, besides myself. And with that, he began to write a little bit about nothing at all and he was glad that nobody would ever see it or know what he was doing.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-12-2014, 02:31 PM

Jerry. Will you just stop thinking about it so much...and just start writing.

Anything.

Soon!

LOLOL

**144man** · 07-12-2014, 02:45 PM

Jerry, your post #678 which you dashed out in what must have been a very short time tells me I want to read what you write.

**Jerry Oz** · 07-12-2014, 04:59 PM

You two will be the first to see anything that I do. Well, besides Mrs. Oz...

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-12-2014, 05:34 PM

If it first gets past Mrs Oz, of course....

**Jerry Oz** · 07-12-2014, 08:29 PM

Jerry sat at his computer, typing. His fingers hit the keys of the keyboard, click, clicking the words out as soon as they came to his mind. He knew that time would be short before she came into the room and wondered what he was doing. It was imperative that he express himself before she could tell him what he should be writing instead. In her mind, she knew him better than he knew himself.

But this project was not intended to be a collaborative effort. His words would create it and only his name would be attached to it. Only he knew what was really on his mind and he could only express it in type, never verbally. As such, this endeavor was too important to fail, and he was rushed to finish it before it was too late.

Knowing that his time was short, he began writing the document in earnest: "Taco Seasoning Recipe" by Jerry Oz. The words came naturally to him and he felt that having taken the first step in this journey, he would manage to find the strength to complete it, no matter the perils that he would face.

Just as he saved it, he felt a chill in the air. Something was wrong. It was as if the creative chi that was in the room evaporated immediately. He paused. The gig, it seemed was up nearly as soon as it had begun. He took a deep breath and looked over his right shoulder toward the door to the office. He didn't need to see what he found to know that she was there, staring, reading. Doubting.

"Two teaspoons of chili powder?", she asked. "That's not enough." And so, the collaboration began.

**westgrandboulevard** · 07-13-2014, 06:39 AM

I had a mother just like that!

It wasn't always what she said, it was her countenance.

I'm told I am very like her although, in recent years, I believe I am favouring my Dad more in disposition and mannerisms than before.

One thing I still retain from my mother's nature [[I have her eyes) is, I am told, experienced very often by friends and relatives,when in conversation with me.

It is known simply as 'The Look'.........