Me and Myopia

I may be in this group, this one I dislike. Those who are narrow, but think anyway.

It doesn't do much good to have an active brain if all you do is see everything to support beliefs you already have. I think we're supposed to add to our experiences, consider new stuff, and not simply continually convince ourselves that we are right. A quip I read years ago sticks with me: If you're looking for it, you can find obscenity in a Mickey Mouse cartoon. Life should, I think, be more than a process of validation.

This has little to do with the Skookum Man, whom I've just "met" on a horrid TV show. I guess he's like Yetti or Bigfoot or the Abominable Snowman, another one of these huge hominoids that leaves in the wilds and is very camera shy. I'd like to think they're out there, but have a trouble with the numbers.

Seems to me that they'd need to live in a tribe of about twenty to continue living, what with infant mortality and all. I'm not sure why we can't find them. The TV show was half about all the great technology they were going to use to catch him on film, including pheromone spraying bikes that played mating calls, and much less on the results (one pic that could have been most anything). They did capture a rock he threw at them, so that's something.

The thing that bugged me the most is they had a re-enactment of some hunters who'd seen him by the side of the road. They'd been driving, spotted him, and left their truck to pursue him on foot with "high-powered hunting rifles." Now, I've never hunted in my life, but they showed them leaving the cab of their pickup and cocking a shotgun. I can see Hollywood doing that (cocking a shotgun is fairly dramatic and makes a nice sound), but why would the hunters go along with the charade? They said they'd been hunting deer and elk...but with a shotgun? Does "buckshot" refer to bucks? Immediately the show lost credibility, irrecoverably. Even the mention that the state of Washington has imposed a ban on the hunting of unknown bipedal hominoids did nothing to salvage the damage of these shotgun toting fools.

Oh, I'd love to see some hunter facing a bear with buckshot. Only not. I think you'd be better off with a bow.

...some writing stuff in "more"...



Finished the book I got yesterday at the signing, More Than They Could Chew. I'm not going to presume to critique it, but you can check out an excerpt if you're curious. Very dark, very raw, touching and humorous.

Which leads me back to writing style. I think I was in my second writing class when the teacher started talking about "voice," or at least that's when I first heard it. In fact, the comment was something like he could see mine developing (he'd seen, by that time, close to ten of my efforts). This pleased me, but I don't know why.

It never occurred to me to write like anyone else, not to copy their style. In this, I feel smug. I'm not sure what my voice is, but last year after reading the only short I started that year, a friend referred to the characters as "Russell people," and that made me smile. I guess I write the same characters over and over, but I don't think I'm alone in that.

I'm not much worried about it, either.

I'm not sure what I'd want my place in literature to be, not that I'll have one. I'd like people to see my writing as smart, but only in the sense that there may be more going on than a synopsis indicates. I'm not sure I'd ever think I'd get a fan letter along the lines of "you opened my eyes" or "I learned so much," but I'd be content if my stories and writing reflected a depth in simplicity.

Oh, man. That sounds heavy. I'd best follow Janine's recommendation and lighten up a bit with some Steve Martin, whom I've always "kinda liked, sorta."