Writers Write!
I swear, no practitioners write more about what they do than writers do. Writing about writing: Are they not worried about the infinite loop? If you don’t believe me, march your incredulity over to your local book seller and inquire as to where you may find the section on “books on writing.” Or look here, I’ve done the work for you. I went to Amazon (who, my familial readers should know, did not hire me :-() and searched for “books on writing.” 497,718 hits!
By comparison, a search for “books on running a backhoe” returned six hits. Why is this? As children we’re taught to write in the first or second grade. Nothing challenging, maybe the assignment is: Briefly describe your classmate. This actually happened to me. When it was my turn, one of my classmates described me thusly (verbatim):
Rod Nibbe
Rod is seven years old. I love
Rod. He loves me. Rod laghes hard.
Rod’s mouth is wide open in years
from now his mouth will stay
open. He makes the world. We all
love Rod.
Timothy Gieschen
See how easy it is to write? And, I should add, to write well. No big words. No deep symbolic meanings (although “He makes the world” causes wonder). Good cadence. Prescient even — forty seven years later and yes, Tim, my mouth is still open (much to the chagrin of my betters).
Another good one. Verbatim again. Note the use of foreshadowing in the last sentence. Foreshadowing. People, this is a seven year old!
Rod Nibbe
Rod has a good Mother
and Father. Rod sits in the 1
row. He has blue pants on
to day. Whin He laouphs He
shaks the whole sclool evre time.
He plays with the girls.
Russell
Here, while arguably punctuation is a growth area for Lori, that’s something easily improved with practice. But note the feminine voice in her prose does come through quite clearly.
Rod Nibbe
Rod was very nise in
the begining of the yerr
he has a red shert on
to day and whit he
thinks he is funny but
he is int funny. do you
no wat 8+8=[] he likes to
lafs a long with timmy W
Lori
Another female point of view not entirely inconsistent with Lori’s. Note the complete absence of of adverbs. And remember, Teri’s never read a single book on writing!
Rod Nibbe
Rod was good at the
begininning of the year but
now he is bad. He laughs
so hard that his head will
come off. But I don’t
care. And Rod said that
5+8=11. He has a red and white
shirt on today. He likes
Mrs. Kerwitz and likes
Tim G. He sits in the
first row. And he swings
crooket on the swings.
Teri
(For the record, I don’t recall making any such claim about five plus eight).
Here’s another good one. Precocious even. See if you don’t agree that had this been written as dialog it might sound a bit like Tom Sawyer.
Rod Nibbe
Rod is my buddy.
Rod came over to my house to stay
over night. We had a blast in the
basemant that night. He was laughing
so hard that he made me laugh at
the dinner table. Then my mom
sended he to eat some waer els.
Rod sneesed. We jumpt all over
the couch. Rod came over to my
birthday party. Rod’s mouth is
open so much I could jump in it.
Rod loves Lynn K. Rod and me are like
brothers.
Tim W
In truth it was Tim’s sister I had the hots for. That’s the real reason I hung out with Tim, and especially the reason I went to his house so often. I feel like crap admitting it. Especially knowing I was like a brother to him. Sheesh.
Here’s what Lynn K had to say. At least half my classmates wrote that I was in love with Lynn Kaphingst, something I will neither confirm nor deny. Nothing indicative of early talent here, more or less just a fact dump. But she gets her points across quickly, so points for brevity.
Rod Nibbe
I can see Rod today.
Rod is in Love with Paul
Johnson and Timothy Wright.
Rod is in love with me.
Rod sits in row one.
Rod is on a baseball
teme. He has blue pants.
Rod has a brane.
He has black hair
Lynn K
A brane! Eat your hearts out Lori and Teri.
Diane grabs the reader early with elements of terror and suspense. Already showing promising signs of using compound sentence structure.
Rod Nibbe
One day I saw. Rod and he had
a red shroot and I thought that
theri was a fire on him and he
was at my hose and wen I
saw that he had a red shoot
I ran out of the house
Diane
Just because it was my day that didn’t exempt me from doing the assignment. My only excuse is that autobiography is a difficult form to get right. Too much telling here and not enough showing. Early indications of an Oedipus complex (note capitalization of Mother). Also, nothing here about my supposed love for my classmates. Lynn K especially must’ve been pissed about that.
Rod Nibbe
My Mother and father play
cards. My father like to read
dog book because we are going
to get one. his name is going
to be corky. We are going to
get him in three Weeks.
My Mother and father
buy me alot of presets for my birthday.
Rod Nibbe