After many long years under the Writing All Wrong tent, I’ve decided to move on from the moniker, theme, and writing critic brand.
I enjoyed the experiment, but it was a niche voice in a drowning void.
There’s another story I’d rather tell.
It’s more personal. Profound.
Frankly, I’m a bit apprehensive. But it’s a compelling narrative for an audience that might be waiting.
It’s a story in which there are too few storytellers.
So I’ll be telling mine.
Stay tuned.
I have only one “good story.” This is it. Save for embellishments, it’s 110% true.
I’d always heard that you couldn’t see your audience from the stage. But I could hear them, their raucous roars once compelling me there now dying down as Slim Goodbody welcomed me to the platform.
Yes, that Slim Goodbody.
“So, what can you do?” he asked.
I froze. That was not why I was up there.
Not only was I unprepared, I was incapable of doing what he was asking. Big difference. Public speaking is something you can actually do off the cuff, prepared or no. But if you physically cannot dunk a basketball, then there’s no way you’re walking off that stage with your dignity. Incapable.
I was prepared to kiss my dignity goodbye. To a dude wearing a this:
I needed a miracle. What I got was magic:
Continue reading “How David Blaine Saved Me from Slim Goodbody”
Every adjective needs a noun, but not every noun needs an adjective. Or something. It is indeed not a truth universally acknowledged that a powerful noun, object, thing is in need of some equally powerful, poignant, cheesy modifier.
We’re all guilty.
That’s why we’re Writing All Wrong.
Dear Writing All Wrong:
I know that you sometimes review writing, and you’re pribably [sic] going to make fun of me for it. That’s OK though, because I don’t think you get a lot of emails because people think you’re too mean. That’s also OK, because you’ll probably point out something I should be working on anyway. Anyway, here’s the first couple of chapters of my book, Unfinished Dawn.
[CHAPTERS REDACTED] (sorry.)
—Jeremy Stark, Westerville, Ohio.
You’re absolutely right. I’ll make fun of you. I am too mean. I don’t get a lot of email. And I’ll point out things you should be working on anyway. Like adjectives and modifiers.
“coiled, razor-sharp, Concertina wire” — Glad you cleared up the confusion here, since Concertina wire comes in a “fluffy bunny” variety.
“smoldering remains and scattered ruins” — Other than ‘and,’ the rest of these words can go.
“He peered grimly through the charcoal ichor of foglike black ephemera.” — This sounds like what a chimney sweep would write about himself to make his work seem interesting.
“He was heavily armed with an AA-12 Automatic shotgun, a potent pair of Glock G26 9mm subcompact pistols, M67 fragmentations grenades strung together like cloves of garlic on his sash, and a custom-designed IMI Tavor TAR-21 assault rifle.” — Too many numbers, clumsy mixed metaphors, weak modifiers (“custom-designed?”). Are you writing gun-owner fanfic here, or are you going to include a copy of Solider of Fortune for reference?
“The now-cool black clouds of night’s closing pages were turned by the warm, gentle fingers of amberlike dawn’s eager arrival.” — There’s a word for this: sunrise. Use that.
If you’re doing more describing than you are writing, you’re doing it wrong.
Writing All Wrong can be reached via email (WritingAllWrong@me.com) and followed on Twitter (@WritingAllWrong).
The Life Autistic 