Our Thanksgiving holiday feels traditional to me because it's the way I've always done it. There are a lot of the traditional foods and desserts, the football game provides background noise, and I always exhaust myself. Our out-of-town family flies in on Thursday so we have our dinner on Friday. This works out because my two daughters can have dinner with their "other" families. (we haven't done a very good of a job melding the families, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.)
Now Thanksgiving is becoming a shopping day. I feel bad for the people who have to work on what could be a perfectly good holiday. Turning Christmas into an event at the mall can't be far behind.
I've been working on a short story that I need to send out to my writing group by Friday. The story isn't very long, and has two points-of-view. Some people get very fussy about more than one POV in a short story. The rules will start flying around the room. Hands will be wrung. Now don't get me wrong... I like rules. I like people to stop at stop signs. I don't like pilots to fly planes while drunk. I could go on for pages. But writing has to breathe. It has to be like the story I'm seeing in my mind while I write. If there are two characters circling and dancing around each other, then I want to know what's going on in their heads. Knowing other people's thoughts are a luxury we aren't allowed in the real world, but fiction isn't reality. It's better!
Now Thanksgiving is becoming a shopping day. I feel bad for the people who have to work on what could be a perfectly good holiday. Turning Christmas into an event at the mall can't be far behind.
I've been working on a short story that I need to send out to my writing group by Friday. The story isn't very long, and has two points-of-view. Some people get very fussy about more than one POV in a short story. The rules will start flying around the room. Hands will be wrung. Now don't get me wrong... I like rules. I like people to stop at stop signs. I don't like pilots to fly planes while drunk. I could go on for pages. But writing has to breathe. It has to be like the story I'm seeing in my mind while I write. If there are two characters circling and dancing around each other, then I want to know what's going on in their heads. Knowing other people's thoughts are a luxury we aren't allowed in the real world, but fiction isn't reality. It's better!
On shoes: not the wrong one, haha. Just say in your submission email that you've written POV shifts on purpose, and tell everyone not to say anything about that :p
ReplyDeleteI've tried that approach with my submissions before, but certain writers still need to explain why I'm wrong. I plan to burst into song: If it's wrong, I don't wanna be right!" (close enough) I plan to check your footwear, too.
ReplyDelete"Fiction isn't reality. It's better." Unfortunately true.
ReplyDelete