Three From Freefall

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My last two posts were long and dense, so:

Here are three pieces from my Friday Freefall group. We are a cheerful bunch, where we choose a “prompt” and then everybody “freefalls” by writing swiftly without second thoughts or revising. Then we go around the table reading our stuff out loud. Each week, everybody wonders how I will turn a prompt into a science fiction piece.

Everything today is first-person. Two celebrate prairie life, winter and stampede, old trapper and young physics nerd. The middle piece, about exploring a mysterious building, takes place in the future. Yes, I made it science fiction.

Prompt-(celebrate the) solitude

The foothills had a new blanket of snow. The wind fluttered, never quite dying down. The sky was half overcast, which I decided meant no snow on this new day. Good, because I couldn’t take anymore. My nephew was running my trap line, my niece had my old cabin, and what was I to do? I would enjoy God’s good land. I was retired, and I deserved it. Tromp, tromp, tromp across the fresh snow—a little icy, if truth be told. But there was no one to tell it to. Down a little hill and along some brush. No friendly rabbits. No sound of birds. Up to another rise and along a long expanse of ground. I’d surprised some grouse along here, a few times, a few years ago—heck, a decade ago. Time had fled somewhere, and people I know had all fled too.

Tromp, tromp, tromp. In the Iliad their shades were grabbed and they went groaning down to Hades. I guess all the Greeks hated winter. It wasn’t bad for me but, under the winter sun, there was no one to turn to and say, “I wonder what Ajax and Achilles would say?” or “If I have to tromp around I’d rather talk to Hector and Paris than to the Greeks.” No, no scholars in this white cold solitude.

I hate it when my hands are cold and there’s nobody around. But the land abides. I could arc around and by mid-day I’d be at the old cabin. I bet it would be warm with my niece baking apple pie. Oh boy!

prompt—I got it

It’s a spooky awesome building, with stone fascia and flush dark windows, more squat than tall, raising up to five or six levels. The colors are more than light gray and dark grey windows; there are also rich vermillion, scarlet, and ultra-violet peeping at the edge of perception. What mad eye framed this fearful edifice? I approached with the same feelings as its fractured face. We were both beyond cubism—I felt awe, fear, rejection, mystery, gloom and a glimpse of a world that maybe I didn’t want to know about.

Surrounded by a large expanse of half dead grass, in a never-developed industrial park (or so I assumed) the building squatted devoid of any human touches. No one sauntered out to any picnic tables, no cheerful deliverymen. Only silence. The front doors were armour-glass, dusty. I felt a chill shoving the door open but I really wanted to know. Why? Who? What was this place doing here?

Somewhere a generator hummed, the lights shone, but none of the people this sort of place attracts were around. The lobby desk had a dead rubber plant. Maybe this place preferred plastic plants. I don’t get it. I moved about, walking silently, taking in the pictures on the wall. I saw a Martian landscape picture I recognized, by one that I didn’t, by a Martian crawler, by one with people in orange jumpsuits posing in front of a crawler. Another landscape, and then a big portrait of a man I had seen in childhood. It was Dick Branson.

Was this his place? He was certainly the sort of visionary to build it. You never heard of him since those quick plague years, but yes, if he was part of the crew that brought the plague back then that would explain a lot. I got it. What a sad, sad answer to this mystery building. 

Prompt-fake it till you feel it

Don’t you just hate this stupid stampede? A German blundered into the comic store and said, in his immortal words, “This store is the only good thing about this silly stampede.” So of course we had to write down his words and put them on a sign: Stampede Sale!

I like when Joss Whedon made his movie about the far off frontier planets. People had horses, but… If you’re going to make an action movie, you have to have a hover-car chase! And so they did, while firing their six-shooters.

Do you know why English literature is not popular? No ray guns! No car chases or explosions. Now, what’s up with that? At least in the comics old Aunt Agatha will swing a mean samurai sword.

So every year we nerds have to endure stampede. At least there’s lots of beer. Ya, but you can swig beer at a Star Trek convention—at least there’ll be one on the following weekend. At lot of guests come to the CON after using Stampede as an appetizer.

My friend—the lady who always goes as Princess Lea (complete with slave costume) tells me to just fake it until you feel it.

So here I am, with a physics degree, master of the dark forces, responsible for twelve gigajoule servers, and you want me to feel like, “yee-haw”? I’d rather be on a see-saw. Let’s wear our gothic clothes over to the park—oh you make such a fine Lolita— and go sit on the teeter-totter.

Sean Crawford

Calgary

July

2015

Footnote: Do you want more such fiction, or do you only want my serious essays? 

Marriage and a Gay Single Mother

www.essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Preface

Introductory Notes

June, Army Base

May, Downtown

July, Epilogue

Footnotes

Preface

This is a re-run from last year, because my man-hours are going into my manuscript, not new essays. And because this month I posted Poetics of Gettysburg, and more U.S. citizens achieved freedom to get married.

Strange what higher education leads to: Once I learned to document and footnote, compare and contrast, I started to perceive things like “freedom of assembly.”

I’ve expanded the army base notes; I have a new epilogue where I document David Gerrold on hatred over the new U.S. gay marriage law. In a sense, this whole post is to put Gerrold’s remarks into context.

Introductory Notes

~How queer: Here in the western time zones we have no Saint Patrick’s Day parades. I guess by the time the frontier moved this far west there was no longer discrimination against the Irish, no need to assemble for Irish pride parades

~ In June of 1989 was the Tiananmen Square massacre. The Mainland Chinese still don’t have any “freedom to assemble” to vent their gut feelings with each other about the massacre. Which means it could still happen again.

~U.S. readers my age may recall how on warm southern nights the sheriff would enter a Black church, make a quick circuit, and then leave again. Blacks could legally hold a bible study, but heaven help them if they assembled to learn world history.

June, Army Base

During this month of June last year, a sergeant major (warrant officer) at the big base three hours north of here raised the gay rainbow flag at headquarters. In this he had the full backing of his base commander. I heard about it on CBC radio.  

During this month, every year, there is a gay pride parade in many cities all over the American continent. Why June? Because in this month back in 1969, in the “home of the brave,” gays achieved “Freedom of Assembly”… something the U.S. police would always deny to homosexuals, by having tavern raids, arrests and names published in the newspapers—oh, the horror!

But once homos could legally assemble in broad daylight, free men and women could look at each other and see for themselves that society had been mistaken all this time: Gays could be wholesome clean winners. Without feeling foolish or disloyal to a society that wanted them to be “bad,” they could have the same good posture and self esteem as their neighbors. In Alberta, my home province, without feeling they were supposed to have a limp wrist, they could confidently ranch and rodeo and wrestle steers to the ground. (Gay women, I presume, would barrel ride)

In Calgary, 1968: “They were forced to stay in the shadows because merely dancing with a member of the same sex was a criminal offence in Calgary.” Calgary Metro Weekend, July 17-19 page 8. (The daily free newspaper at the transit stations)

Much more recently: “When I was 16 years old and living in southern Alberta, the only gay people you ever saw were the crazy freaks on Oprah so it was really hard to have a conversation with anybody and say that’s not really what it’s like.” Canadian actor Gavin Crawford, quoted in Metro page 37

Today: Metro on page 44 has a listing of children’s cartoons on Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon with LGBT characters. I see the new inclusive term for gay is LGBT. I’m still getting used to that.

As for the southern part of this continent, I doubt any U.S. Army warrant officers are raising the gay flag. Not when “certain people” claim equal rights for gay soldiers would mean men having limp wrists as they dig trenches, adding that some male soldiers would insist on wearing a long cotton dress on parade.

I can’t speak for the rest of the NATO armed forces where, as in Canada, gays have long had human rights, but I can say that in Canada any such foolishness would have been news, talked about coast to coast. Besides, I’m linked to the military community, and I would have heard from my sources. Nothing has happened. So I wonder: Down in the U.S., just who are the “certain people” making such silly claims? No doubt the same people who in Tennessee would you look you in the eye and claim “scientists are saying my grandparents were monkeys.” Unhappily, being religious does not mean being honest.

One would hope colleges would be lanterns against the darkness, but no—I’m sure there are young church-going students today who flatly refuse to open any biology textbooks, refuse to see any “liberal artsy” stage plays like Inherit the Wind, and who, even as their excited peers are engrossed in “meaning of life” conversations, would never ask their idealistic “real live gay” fellow students whether or not being gay is a “choice.” You can lead your horse to college but you can’t make him drink.

My U.S. readers might be saying, “Yes, but Canadian army bases are federal, and just as President Harry Truman offended some Americans by declaring equal rights for Blacks in the armed forces, maybe at this point none of the ordinary civilians in Canada believe in equal rights for gays.” My reply is Canadians are of two minds, of course, and at the end of the day they certainly do believe. Even here in the heart of the bible belt, in Canada’s “most red necked province,” my own, the provincial supreme court has “saved face” for politicians by ruling the law must act as if there are human rights for gays, even though the legislature hasn’t caught up yet… People are content; the land is quiet.

In that sense of unwritten rights, therefore, the piece below, praise the Lord, is dated…

May, Downtown  

 Pauline, age 29, strides happily along the street, her arms linked between a suffragette and Joan of Arc. The street is flowing with women. Some are wearing costumes; some are carrying banners. It is International Woman’s Day, and Pauline is among her joyful sisters. This parade is a safe one for her.

Last June, the last time she had marched along this street, she had been conscious of the cold sweeping muzzles of cameras. Someone had said, “The camera will only get you if it has your number on it.” Pauline was among those who on that day successfully took a calculated risk. Pauline was not captured on film. She did not lose her home, her job or her reputation. Old Aunt Priscilla did not suffer a heart attack. Pauline is… a homosexual… She walked in a gay-pride parade because she is an idealistic woman who cannot suffer injustice in silence. For the next parade, she tells people, she will carry a bullhorn.

Today, Pauline marches amidst the blessed warmth of safety where all are welcome. Among her sisters are Iranians, women of color, and “church mothers for equality.” There are men, too. Pauline hails me as the crowd currents bring us together. “Hey, brother! Would you like a cigarette?” We link arms. We smoke. We shout, “Not the church, not the state, women alone decide their fate!” And then we smile broadly.

Later that evening we go to a bar and she tells of her childhood. She dated boys from her Christian youth groups. One day, she told two church elders that she felt attracted to women. At that time, Pauline knew the word “gay,” but she could not think of applying it herself. She could only say, “felt attracted.” They replied that she was merely bisexual: If she got married everything would be fine. So she carried on with hayrides, tobogganing and bible studies. She dated, had relationships, and one day, she married. Her husband Brian was devout; their marriage produced two children.

Pauline told me, “For years, I denied who I really was, and so meanwhile the shame and confusion just grew… As long as you are in the closet, you are in a low-grade depression… We got a new pastor and he had a wife… One day, I found myself wanting to lean over to kiss her. I was horrified!”

Someone else might have retreated further into the closet. But Pauline was a future parade-marcher: enthusiastic, extroverted, and unafraid. She used the crises as chance to face herself.

Pauline said, “It’s almost like you find yourself on one end, and you lose yourself on another.” Gone was her church life. Gone was her dream of days in the kitchen, looking out past a white picket fence to watch for the returning pater familias. Instead, she struggled with a changing image of God, how her kids could cope with her gayness, and the knowledge that her marriage would end. Pauline’s only hope, which has since been realized, was that she could maintain a friendship with her husband, the man she loved. Since then, she has often had to explain to people that one can have an emotional bond without a sexual bond.

Today, Pauline is a great drinking buddy who seldom complains and is keen to discourse on a wide range of topics—being gay is not her total identity.  In fact, when people do not learn of her gayness right away, it is “kind of neat” for them to get to know her as a person first. Otherwise, she can see them struggling.

I prompted her to trot out the laundry list of annoying questions… How could you stay married? Cope sexually? How do you do it with a woman? Were you ever as a child sexually abused? How many men have you had? Maybe you just need a good one to turn you around. How long have you known? Sometimes, she feels pressure from lesbians to deny her husband’s worth during the marriage, but she will not do so. Of the lesbian

mothers that Pauline knows, none had gone into marriage truly knowing that they were gay. For herself, she found out that “you have to think of pleasing each other, so that what you have as a sexual friendship.” Coping? “ With a hell of a lot of lubricant, for one thing.”

Her small-town family has stayed in touch. There was tension and fighting at the beginning, then a lot of pleading on her part, and now they are meeting somewhere in the middle. Her mother’s reaction was typical of any in society. Upon being told, her first words were, “Oh my God, the kids are going to get AIDS.” (Nonsense, of course.) Some of her relatives confused homosexuality with the all-too-common hetero habit of pedophilia. (More nonsense.) Pauline has not dared to tell her in-laws because “… they are not fundamentalists and so they lack a loving side. They are just pure bigots.” She added, “they’d say I was ‘that lesbo bitch dyke that ruined poor Brian’s life.”

Pauline has been “out” for a year and a half. Occasionally, Brian comes up to spend a weekend with the kids, but he needs prompting to do so. A few weeks ago, Brian came with his proposed custody agreement. They argued for two hours before she could get him to agree that her custody rights would not be affected by her getting a gay partner.

Brian, said Pauline, does not understand gays. He even wrote down that she “would not try to convert the children to being gay.”

In some respects, one can understand a shocked husband who remains uninformed. As for Pauline’s friends and relations, such blindness, after a year and a half, may be labeled willful ignorance. This is widespread in our society.

Pauline shakes her head and says, “It hits you, how much you lose by being yourself. The prejudices, the being judged, the lack of legal protection.” At someone’s whim, with legal impunity, Pauline can be fired, evicted, or denied access to city hall, to note but three possible scenarios.

My friend smiles philosophically to say that everyone who comes out has to learn certain things the hard way. Such as not teaching the children to call her first relationship “stepmother.” It seems typical to Pauline that everyone has a bad first lover, often an abusive one. Pauline is hoping to find a special person to love, but it is not easy. Career-minded lesbians her own age often screen her out when they perceive her as being saddled with two kids.

Of course, there is more to life than dating. The gay community offers a variety of leisure activities. Pauline enjoys the drop-in volleyball. Community halls are regularly rented by gay groups. Pauline’s favorite dances are those sponsored by Project Pride, which coordinates over 40 gay organizations, and unity 94, which raises funds for teams going to the fourth international gay games, to be held in the summer of 1994 in New York. Pauline is determined to make it to the Big Apple. “It’ll be a hoot!” she says, eyes aglow.

Pauline also drops in to the university gay student society that holds weekly educational discussions. Religion is still important to her. Often she drags me off with her children to her church, where many of the congregation are gay.

I prefer to socialize with her in the gay bars. Usually we go to one with cool tropical fish. It is heartwarming to see Pauline, who was once in the closet, warmly going up to embrace so may men and women. I am amazed at how many people she knows. Here she may safely hold hands with a woman, or gaze into a woman’s face for as long as she wishes. Eventually, trendy heterosexuals who just don’t understand will come to the bar in ever-increasing numbers. They will subtly gawk and point and giggle and then Pauline and her friends will have to move on. But for now, the bar is nowhere near the end of its gay life-cycle.

I am straight. My friend warmly tells me that she appreciates me validating gay pride. I show no fear that straights will judge me to be gay, nor paranoia that people will make passes at me. So many straights in her bar will trip over themselves rushing to flaunt their orientation.

Pauline’s future is uncertain. So many single housewives stay on welfare until their youngest child is 18. Pauline hopes to avoid that trap by letting Brian have the kids while she tries to learn some sort of trade. However, other gay moms have told her stories of ex-husbands keeping the children—and courts in Alberta are discriminatory. In fact, the latest rumor is that the Alberta Human Rights Commission is to be dismantled, or at least disabled.

And so, Pauline must live in a world she never made. She will not give up trying to change things. Like Moses, she surely will not live to see the Promised Land. Like the prophets, she will march and take the message to her people. And surely, one far-off day, the world will be as loving as the people in one of her parades. I envision her striding alongside her peers, singing

“We are a gentle, angry people, and we are singing, singing for our lives.

We are a land of many colors, and we are singing, singing for our lives.” (Holly Near, 1979)

July, Epilogue

~Shockwaves are spreading from the recent U.S. supreme court ruling that gay marriage is legal and recognized.

~A writer who has taken actions (not just speech) against gay Americans is fantasy (F) writer Orson Scott Card. Now, with the legal marriage ruling, Card has yet again spoken out.

Here is a link where science fiction (SF) writer David Gerrold quotes Card in the first paragraph, and goes on to explain his outrage.

You can broaden your mind without being on a college campus: If you are a Yankee reading this, in a tourist place like Florida or Arizona, with older winter visitors from Canada, you might try asking any of those Canadian grandparents if Canada has turned decadent over the past decade from having legal gay marriage. (LGBT marriage) Don’t worry, you’re safe: Surely old grandparents wouldn’t laugh at you—but they might laugh in surprise at your question.

I’m not the only man who feels comfortable around gays. In the last month, regarding “confederate losers, looosers” I’ve twice mentioned (and linked) the blog of SF writer John Scalzi. He writes military SF. On a recent (July 19) blog post one of his 106 comments was from a loyal fan ( At 1:45 p.m.-ish) saying:

“I wholeheartedly agree that you are “a loudmouth on the Internet.” Who could argue with that? However, I do wish you could refrain from emphasizing quite so frequently that you’re straight. For some of us, the second F in SF/F is so important.”

I guess by “straight” he means how Scalzi mentions his wife and daughter. A self-confident man, Scalzi nicely replied:

“Ha! Well, (man’s name), what you have me do in the privacy of your own brain is your own business.”

Sean Crawford

As Calgary Stampede flags wave,

Stardate 1406.35(44)

2014

Revised July 2015

Footnotes:

~The Inherit the Wind movie version was reviewed by my favorite critic and web essayist, Roger Ebert.

~The Pauline part originally ran as a center spread in the university of Calgary student newspaper, the Gauntlet, in 1994.

~To me a limp wrist is like being a housewife: it should be a nice choice, not an imposed default.  

Greeks and Addicts

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…I believe Greece right now is a nation of civilians, not citizens…

I will sneak up on that idea with some paragraphs about addicts:

Here in Canada it’s peacetime, of course; we’ve never declared war on drugs, and sometimes I think, “Let’s be charitable: A Canadian businessman can’t help doing a little marijuana, or some cocaine, or heroin or ecstasy.” Other times I feel a red rage against businessmen who “can’t help themselves.” Don’t tell me I can’t understand substance-losers. I’ve attended plenty of “recovery” from substance-addiction groups. I’m mostly charitable towards others in recovery, mostly.

Those who embrace recovery from, say, alcohol or debt—and yes, there are 12-step meetings for Debtors Anonymous—always start in the same way: Admitting they have a problem. And surrendering to this admission.

Surrender is a big step. Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, in his best selling sequel Further Along The Road Less Traveled, tells of a man who claimed to understand “the 12 steps of recovery” after merely six months of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. (P. 140-141) The man claimed that step one, “being powerless,” meant it was up to him to refrain from taking that first drink (as he was then powerless to keep from drinking a second, third and forth drink, et cetera) He still had the power, he believed, to not take the first drink. This although he had been drinking throughout his six months of AA meetings: Obviously his power wasn’t working. Peck said, “I guess I can’t help you then.” In Peck’s eyes, the man had not surrendered: He refused to believe he was also powerless during the intervals between having his drinks.

Which leads me to Greece, and the year-long or decade or century-long interval before their next financial crises. I am not sure the Greeks as a nation are ready to have the courage to surrender into facing their faults. Naturally, we know states can change: The Germans used to carry their inflated pay home in wheelbarrows, and scapegoat, and believe in war. Now they have good banks and the most liberal refugee laws in Europe.

The Greeks, judging by radio interviews, seem to vaguely see that their current mess started with “lies” from “corruption” by “them,” by fancy people in Athens far, far away—and that’s their problem. You see, here in my home country of Canada, famous for ice hockey, we have found we cannot have a fancy National Hockey League without also having minor leagues, and a winter ice rink in every small community. As I see it, the Greeks have no reason to magically hope leaders in their national capital will somehow stop being corrupt and stop operating under cover of darkness, not unless Greeks in every small community start being willing to become transparent, responsible and non-corrupt.

But—dammit—Greeks don’t seem to be waving the flag and beating the drum for a Great War Effort to fix their national faults. Too bad. “Those who won’t own their history are condemned to repeat it.” (From Santayana) Judging from my newspaper it is clear: unlike tired reformed Nazis, Greeks still want glory and delusion.

'If only,' deluded Greeks tell each other, 'we weren’t oppressed by Big X.' (fill in scapegoat of choice) Greeks remind me of children who lose money or a toy. Children tell their parents, “It got lost.” An adult says, “I lost it.”

An active citizen asks, “What responsibility can I, can we, all take?” A passive civilian gets twisted up and says, “We couldn’t help it. It’s not our fault. We can’t do anything now. It’s all their fault.” Exactly what an addict would say. Or a Greek. Call it victim mode.

Meanwhile, a little woman in recovery is saying, “God grant me the serenity to change the things I can.”

And what if the Greeks exit the Euro dollar zone, and reprint their old currency, the drachma? And what if things then get economically worse? Will they, then, stand like serene adults saying, “OK, now things are worse, but at least we did what we thought was right, as citizens in control of our economy”? If you know addicts like I know addicts, then you know: The Greeks will just angrily shout, “Things are worse now because of Big X!” Victim mode.

I believe the Greeks, despite the crises, are not ready yet, not even ready to say “our” crises. Just as the Germans while taking inflated money home in wheelbarrows, and experiencing the hellish horrors of war, were not ready: Only losing a war made them ready to change.

Canada was right not to join the west in trying to bail out the Greeks: It’s time to let them seek their own destiny.

Sean Crawford

Calgary

July 2015

Footnotes:

~I hope you don’t think I’m avoiding reality too much, but I must confess: I’m typing this off when I could be working on my manuscript.

~I’ve learned from a debt book by Jerry Mundis that other cities (not Calgary) have meetings of Debtors Anonymous. Very informative. It seems you’re allowed to have a life while still paying off a debt, or still writing a manuscript, or still decluttering. It’s OK to be happy—who knew?

(Actually, self-made millionaire Paul Graham knew. Graham, my favorite web essayist, puts “remember to be happy” on his brief To Do list, ever since reading the findings of a palliative care nurse. His brief essay is linked here)

~Maybe I’m wrong about Greece, I’m no geography expert; in fact, I doubled my knowledge of Greece by reading the first chapter of that popular book by fiscal expert Michael Lewis, Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World, the one where the cover shows George Washington with a black eye. Lewis went around talking to ordinary Greeks. Very informative.

~I’m no addictions expert. I can say I’ve done both a “walk through” and a “work through” of the 12 steps of recovery. (The former was because my peers were ready to do the steps, and I did what I could alongside them) Please don’t worry about me; I’m clean and sober.

~I’ve often blogged here of my humble awe before one of my favorite epics, The War Against the Chtorr, by David Gerrold. No doubt Gerrold had fought his own demons before he was able to imagine the Chtorr, and a young adult growing to be a hero. Long before spaceships or flying machines, Americans knew that context, “birds of a feather flock together,” matters. For the hero’s growth, it truly matters that losing the war with Russia and the resulting Moscow Treaty, some years ago, had humbled the high-ranking adults around him.

In my version: In Book One the young hero, after being conscripted, is sent to the United Nations. There he observes some very angry U.N. delegates. He walks over to some fellow soldiers. Glancing over at the delegates, some veterans rub the young man’s nose into the fact some people would prefer to die before admitting they are wrong.

So if very angry Greeks have preposterous views, not admitting to facts so obvious to us over here, well, they haven’t psychologically “hit bottom” yet. High unemployment is not the same as an economy that is hanging dead, dead, dead.

~Any books I’ve mentioned above should be easy to search for, so no links to them: I am following my “no links” general policy, (archived July 2012) but here’s a link I found during the week as I was waiting to do my Thursday blog post. The comments to the piece have further links.

Attending Writer's Seminars

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Writer's note: A Part Two, easier to read, is archived August 2015.

This Part One is largely for my fellow science fiction "nerds" who, by definition, may be lacking social skills and in their own bubble, a bubble that becomes horribly visible when they arrive late.

Writer’s Seminars:

How to Contribute

Introduction

Sometimes enthusiastic writers get together to learn from experts and each other. This can be at places as diverse as a bookstore, community centre, or a hotel convention space. You will find that a writer’s seminar, workshop, panel discussion or coffee klatch… may be taught by one teacher or led by a chairman or a panel of experts at the front of the room. The crowd may be small or big. The chairs maybe set up classroom style, or in a circle, or around a table. Always there is time set aside for audience participation. 
While it can be scary to contribute in a big group, it can help your confidence to be aware of a few things.

Awareness allows choice

As writers, especially when we do a nonfiction piece, especially an essay, it is important to be aware of the length of our average paragraph, because if you have something you wish to emphasize, then you can signal this emphasis to the reader by making a paragraph much longer or shorter than the average. The paragraph will stand out.

At a writer’s seminar, when people are contributing comments, it is important to become aware of the length of the average comment you are hearing, because if you have a comment longer than average it will be emphasized, and people will think it is important, important enough for you to take extra time to speak. If you enter a seminar late, then it’s best to take the time to listen and gain awareness of the average contribution-length, so you do not emphasize by accident. With awareness you may emphasize by choice.

Length is Related to Energy and Pacing

There is a story I found in a magazine article on communication. A man wanted to get a laugh, so he found a very good joke by the famous comedian, Bob Hope. Then he waited for his chance. One day, he was standing with some people and, after a few people had told jokes, and the group was laughing, he contributed his Bob Hope one—No laughter! The joke just plopped, fell flat. Why? What happened was: He had not been aware of how all the other jokes were short with fast energy. His contribution was not funny because, being long and s-s-l-l-o-o-w-w, it did not match. (Although it had matched Bob Hope's set of jokes)

Needless to say, a happy gathering of intellectual writers may talk in long thoughtful paragraphs with each other. I can appreciate that.

Meanwhile, if my fellow writers are getting really excited about popular culture, or Star Trek television writing, and making their contributions short and energetic, then while I may not share their excitement and energy, I find that if I can be equally short it will be OK for them. 

If I enter a seminar room late then I will listen, taking time to raise my group awareness, before I contribute.

A Large Group is like a Radio Net:

Think Before You Speak

As you know, the radio call sign for the Calgary International Airport is YCC. There is only one airport. In contrast, an army battalion of 450 men may have scores of call signs, all on the same radio frequency, where only one person may talk at a time. How do they handle all that radio traffic? Easy: It does not take very long to learn to follow the slogan “Think Before You Speak.”

Soldiers, glorious and proud, are advised it is OK to humbly write out what you need to say on a piece of paper, if that is what you need to do, before you start to transmit. (I will mentally rehearse) Another skill for soldiers, and for civilians too, is learning to be brief and concise. Like learning to take notes in college. We civilians may learn how to leave someone a brief phone message, or a brief e-mail. Once you are aware of the need to be concise, you quickly get the hang of it. It's fun. 

Soldiers are taught how, before they press the button on the transceiver, they should think of the acronym BASS, standing for Brevity, Accuracy, Speed and military Security. I guess for us civilians "Security" could mean considering: Would any absent person's feelings be hurt if they were present and listening? The whole group benefits when we show r-e-s-p-e-c-t.

At a writer’s seminar there may be scores of people in the room; it can be scary to contribute in such a big group. Remember to breath, and “think before you speak.”

Sean Crawford

July

Calgary

2015

Footnote: 

I dug this up because I am not writing new essays just now; my attention is on my manuscript which is close to deadline.