do u think u can help me with my writing?
She made it sound so easy. I don’t think she understood what she asked.
I remember a story about a pianist, supposedly Vladimir Horowitz but probably apocryphal. After a concert, it’s said that a woman came up to speak with him, amazed by how well he played. “I’d give twenty years of my life to play like that!” she gushed.
Horowitz looked pleased. “Ma’am, that’s exactly what it takes!”
Or, more realistically,
“i met u on gaia and love ur work”
This is a story about some email I got a few months ago, after I’d handed the link to Graveyard to a few people. The first one looked something like this (names excised to protect the dim):
Subject: i met u on gaia and love ur work
hi, i met u on gaia im g——— or on aim m————
after reading that link u sent me “graveyard” i really liked ur wrigting so i searched u on google and thats how i found ur site.
do u think u can help me with my writing?
Usually I’m thrilled when developing writers come to me and ask for some personal mentoring. I enjoy the opportunity to watch them develop and grow into themselves. I get to see myself make a difference, sometimes. One writer even told me that he hears me correcting him as he works. It’s quite a compliment, really, a vote of confidence, a reminder that someone out there thinks I know what I’m doing, and that I’m doing it well. I don’t get very many.
Sometimes I’m less enthusiastic. In general I like to believe that people with the benefits of computers and modern public education, for all the faults in both, ought to know the basic fundamentals of English usage. People who self-identify as writers, particularly, should have the discipline to avoid being outright idiots in that regard. I like to believe that writers coming to me for help are competent, or at least willing to meet me halfway and avoid wasting my time.
I tend to get a bit irritable when people work to undermine this basic faith.
On the other hand, I do try to give people the benefit of a doubt. As frustrating as they can be, the would-be writers who don’t grasp the fundamentals need help the most. A well-turned sentence can improve a good impression, but subliterate writing can make such a bad impression that nothing else will matter. My office regularly throws out résumés, unread, for laughable cover letters.
Part of me believes in salvation from ignorance and redemption from stupidity. Part of me believes that the effort is well-spent, that they really do want to improve. Part of me believes that, even if I don’t see any results, something I’ve said might click, a year or two later, and that I might make some small and important change.
Most of me knows that I’m a dreamer, but I still like to believe. It seems better than the alternative.
There’s plenty of time for mockery if things don’t work out.
On Monday I visited my mother’s father, my Gung Gung, to pay my respects.
I don’t actually remember very much about him; I was five when I saw him last and he was buried thirteen years ago. He was a giant for a Chinese man, six feet tall even in his old age, and from stories I believe he was a kind and dignified man, if distant and bound by tradition. My mother tells me that he never held any of his grandchildren that came before me, only rarely held those after, and that I must have been his favorite from the way he indulged me when I came to visit.
I don’t remember this, though, because all adults are giants to five-year-olds and by the earliest I remember my cousins were already (I think) getting too big to hold. More than anything I remember that he smoked quite a lot, what brand I never knew, and that he kept a can of peanuts at his desk. It was always the blue Planters can, honey-roasted to give them that crunchy, candy-like shell. In Hong Kong this is not a small thing; they are not very easy to find. I remember never having them before, but I liked them when he shared, and I buy a can once in a while even today.
That’s all. He was distant to my cousins and my sister doesn’t remember him at all. In fifty years, the best first-hand memories of my Gung Gung will be the blue Planters can of honey-roasted peanuts. In a hundred there will be none at all.
I didn’t have very much to say to him, so I brought a can to leave beside the incense and oranges. That seemed like the only thing to do.
With a little luck he will leave one more post to tide you over until his return. He says that he will check in periodically but definitely be back by the end of the month. This is not so very long in the grand scheme of things.
In the meantime I will try to make sure to approve all the comments in a timely way, and also to filter out spam as it may arrive.
Thank you,
~Catboy! =^.^=
Earlier this year, one of the Cafes at YaoiCon invited me to be a server. Normally I write Tybalt stories (they don’t take my others) for the YaoiCon Fiction Anthology, but this year it was cancelled. I’ve gotten used to the idea of contributing to YaoiCon and the invitation was no small compliment, so I accepted. This was my first year as a face, as someone physically involved with the programming and at-con events. Writing is a solitary kind of pursuit, and in earlier years my contribution has really ended at least a month before the convention actually started.
This year was very different, and on the whole I don’t think I mind at all. If staff asks me to return I’ll be more than happy to accept. I loved meeting everyone – other servers, constaff, and guests alike. We had some scheduling difficulties and I only formally served one table, but I got to circulate and meet quite a few people. Everyone (servers included) was exhausted and I presume cranky from the two-hour-plus wait, but they were still some of the most friendliest, most wonderfully enthusiastic people I’ve ever met. Their sheer energy carried me through the night, long after I should have staggered off somewhere quiet and collapsed, and I loved every minute of it. Even dead on my feet, I wished I had more time to meet all of them, and then more time to know them better.
I think that’s why I have to stand up and say this now.
To everyone who came to visit us at the Cafe, if any of you are reading this…