Musings of the prodigal son returned home - Writers Forum

Strathen · 02-21-2005, 04:00 AM

Hi all,

Well I've been here for a few weeks now and have yet to put anything up of my own. In my intro I said that I write a lot of letters and emails and a few of my friends are interested in me giving writing a go (as am I). So the following is the last letter I wrote and I'm just looking for general feedback as to what direction I should persue in writing.

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Musings of the prodigal son returned home.

At last, after near on 5 years of self exile the prodigal son has returned to live at home in God’s country. As I walked out of the solitary Dunedin International Airport terminal and looked upon that familiar landscape, a tear came to my eye. Not for nostalgic reasons, but as a cool southerly whipped up and extorted the salty little bugger from my sinuses. Good to be home really.

So what have I noticed in the last few days that I’ve been home? Well a lot really. I have travelled from lands in fear of Osama and the ever threat of terrorism. I have been politely asked to surrender my second can of deodorant in my bag for ‘security’ reasons. My bags were never left unattended, thus helping those around me cope with the fear carefully imbued in them about nail bombs and suicide bombers that are, well, not suicidal.

I left all of this behind, or so I thought, coming to God’s country. But alas in New Zealand, evil has a new name: ‘Play dough’.

That’s right, I turn on the radio to hear a maelstrom of debate raging across the airwaves of little kids being banned from playing with play dough. This is not a small thing, but from my understanding will become a national standard. What kind of dim witted, conservative, obstreperous lackey has decided that Play Dough is now the number 1 threat to the well being of our kids and our society??

I’ve seen Barney, I’ve caught a bit of The Wiggles. Hell, I watched an episode or two of Bob the Builder when I was stoned and couldn’t be bothered moving to grab the remote. These tuneless buffoons are apparently okay to be raising our kids on, but something that you can use to expand a kids imagination is deemed to be the spawn of Satan. Is it just me or is society slowly becoming like the Waterboy’s Mum labelling everything the devil?!

It’s not restricted to play dough, no, apparently kids are no longer allowed to play any food games. No more roll a 6, put on the woolly hat, mittens and a scarf, grab a knife and fork and try to eat as much of a King size chocolate bar before someone else rolls a 6 and repeats the due process until all the chocolate is gone. I now fear the children that are growing up...

So NZ has managed to get itself in to a stronger political and economical position since I left. No doubt things will change whilst I’m back. The rest of life goes on. Hallensteins still does cheap clothes that are actually better than the high street stuff, Macca’s still does student fries and the surf is still as consistent as ever, just far too cold to put a toe in let alone get out there, sit out back and not catch waves yet tell people I do.

One thing of note regarding the food though. Was at a KFC in South Dunedin today and noticed that the KFC logo had as a part of it ‘KFC means chicken in New Zealand.’ I looked around and judging by the waistlines of my fellow patrons, they aren’t wrong. Mental note, only have a 2, not a 3 piece pack and no tower burger on the side.

But all in all it’s great to be back. Have a weird energy that I’ve put down to living in the country. The air is so clean out here that at first I struggled for breath as my lungs had no idea what this stuff was coming in to them. Got it sorted now though and I have started smoking twice as many cigarettes as I use to to compensate.

The country is building up for the 20/20 cricket match in Beige tomorrow and there is a plethora of rugby coverage on the tv. Ads I’ve seen overseas with soccer players and AFL players on them, proudly display the mighty AB’s over here. No poofball, and bugger all turf humping. While I mention rugby, deep commiserations to the English fans and there 8 losses from 13 games since the world cup. Must be hard to come to grips with the worst record post world cup ever. Congrat’s to Wales though, a hard fought win and well deserved. One lad in Wales even cut his testicle off as he couldn't believe they had won?!

I had some more musings to set out, but alas as the night grows old I’ve just remembered that my character on my computer game is about to go up a level and I’d best get back to it. Will write more soon and I’ll let you all know about my new job I started at the Uni 2 days ago helping out with the student ID’s and that. Now there’s some fine examples of kids not being allowed to play with play dough. Some of them appear to have been fed the lead based stuff instead…

Until later

crzywriter · 02-21-2005, 04:06 AM

wow, i really liked this. It was so easy to read (no small feat at 4:07 a.m.!) and it brought a smile to my face. thank you for writing this as it has already brightened my day. I can't really tell you what direction to head in writing, because that's something that has to come from your heart, but I can tell you that, based on this, I think you're a good storyteller.

all the best, and i shall be looking for more stuff from you,

~Crzy

mammamaia · 02-21-2005, 11:39 AM

howdy, strathen...

in re your question, you seem to be attempting to write a humorous piece here, so i'll assume that's a direction you may be wanting to 'persue' [sic]...

your writing isn't bad... it's better than many beginning writers, actually... but not good enough yet to sell, sorry to say...

my best advice is to get youreself a strunk and white and brush up on grammar, sentence structure and especially the rules of punctuation...
plus, study really good writing and learn to edit your own work... here's what i found in just the first paragraph:

Quote:

At last, after near on 5 years

...more commonly used phrase is, 'near onto' or 'nigh onto'... could be just the simple 'nearly' ... less is still more and the K.I.S.S.! principle is good one to follow... plus, the 5 should be written out...

Quote:

of self exile

...this should really be 'self-imposed exile' to make sense...

Quote:

the prodigal son has returned to live at home in God’s country.

...'at home' is odd in this context... and more than a bit redundant...

Quote:

As I walked out of the solitary Dunedin International Airport terminal

...'solitary' means it's the only one... all by itself, vs clustered with other airports... and you seem to mean something more like 'deserted' or maybe 'remotely situated'...

Quote:

and looked upon that familiar landscape, a tear came to my eye. Not for nostalgic reasons, but as a cool southerly whipped up and extorted the salty little bugger from my sinuses.

... imo, 'as' is not close enough to 'because' here... and tears come from tear ducts, not the sinuses... is 'wind' or 'breeze' missing after 'southerly'?... 'extorted' doesn't make sense, meaning something obtained through intimidation... since it would appear in a thesaurus with 'squeeze' or 'wring' i'm guessing you do what too many new writers do and grab stuff out of it without checking the words' meaning in a dictionary first... a mortal sin, in my writing religion!.

..

...all in all, while you do show a certain bent toward writing humor, reading further, i see that meant-to-be comic bits don't come off as well as they could... so you can work on that by reading more stuff by the most successful humorists of all ages...

...the whole key to writing well is reading both well and voraciously... what direction your writing takes is up to you and where you seem to be 'drawn'... you seem to like to write and can do it somewhat better than many, so just keep on writing and learn to read your own work as if your worst enemy is critiquing it!...

hope this helps a bit...

love and hugs, maia

Talia_Brie · 02-21-2005, 09:36 PM

In a way I think I disagree with most of what Maia has said, mostly because of the context I'm looking at. This feels like a blog entry to me (if not a stand up routine), rather than an article or anything like that. Especially at the end.

As a result I'm not concerned about the syntax, because it is written in a deliberate style that is meant to reflect a mood of conversation.

I also thought extort was the right word, and I didn't have any problems with 'near on 5 years'.

Maia's other points are probably pertinant. I'd also look at the word solitary to check that it actually says what you want. I think it does (knowing a little about NZ) but I'd still think about trying something else.

It could have used a better edit before you posted it, as there were some obvious errors, typos etc, which were sort of annoying.

Other than that:

Quote:

The country is building up for the 20/20 cricket match in Beige tomorrow

*cough* Hammered *cough*

Sorry, just had to slip that in.

Strathen · 02-21-2005, 11:06 PM

Thankyou all for the positive comments. Gives me a lot more cause to be persuing writing as a living. Also apologies for the lack of effort and not proof reading, will be a lot more vigilent in the future.

Crzy - Thankyou! Your comments are exactly how my friends respond which is why I came here to learn to be able to share it with more people.

Maia - your comments are extremely helpful and I will be taking them all on board as I am going to start to look towards writing some articles for local newspapers. Your comments tell me what I need to do and I'm aware that my grammar needs a lot of work. Maybe even some formal training?? I don't know what a 'strunk and white' is though??

Talia - I do always write in a conversational tone and that's why a lot of the grammar is often deliberately bad. I basically type as fast as I think/talk which is where the conversational tone arises. Is there a place for that kind of writing anywhere?
As I mentioned to Maia, it is also through a little laziness as I know that my grammar is weak so rather than improving it in the past, I've purposely avoided it.
And yes Talia... some may say 'hammered', others refer to it as being 'schooled'. But the boys won on the fashion stakes and didn't they look good!!!

mammamaia · 02-22-2005, 10:34 AM

strathen...

strunk & white's 'elements of style' is the bible most writers of the past almost-half-century have relied upon for the definitive rules and regs of good writing... no writer should be without a copy within easy reach...

i'm not a believer in formal training for writers unless they're so terrible at it, that only a professional teacher can explain 'why' to them...

the key to becoming/being a good writer is READING good writing... if you have a decent grounding in english, thanks to your 'enforced' education, then you most likely don't have to spend any money on the discretionary kind...

if you'd like some one-on-one feedback on your journalistic efforts, or help of any kind, just give me a shout, ok?

love and hugs, maia
maia3maia@hotmail.com