Shortcuts

I’m usually uncertain, at first, what it is I’m going to write about.  I did the same thing with my gourds;  I start off with a vague idea, but the brushstrokes can only be applied one at a time, just as my words, and in the end I’m as surprised as anyone.  I worry I’m the only one laughing, but oh well.  Can’t afford a shrink.

So I’m working on my query letter to prospective publishers, just throwing down thoughts at the moment, and I found myself comparing my website to a Reader’s Digest version of the book I’m pitching.

When I suddenly remembered a night class 25-odd years ago in Writing 101.  I hadn’t intended to be a writer; I wanted to be a lawyer, but unlike doctors, they need to know how to write, or they should.

 

Never afraid to speak out in class, I compared our topic to something I’d read in Reader’s Digest.  The Professor jumped on me like, well, you know; embarrassing the hell out of me by ranting, disparagingly, about the publication and its readers.  My classmates, all adults, cringed as they watched and soothed my psyche after class.  Yes, I went back.

I was ultimately vindicated when, towards the end of the semester, another student found and pointed out in class a quote in the textbook from, yep, Reader’s Digest.  The room was full of smiles, but one.

That just goes to show, you never know people’s prejudices.  If I was at a cocktail party, Professor Pompous would have scoffed, turned and walked away, not caring how he left me.  While I try to be a kinder, gentler person, I do love to watch when, as a former coworker said,

"Sooner or later, they (all) get it in the neck."

My new Cliff Note-Bibles are the 2014 Writer’s Market, Dreamweaver-and Photoshop for Dummies.  Couldn’t we all write, “Something for Dummies”?  I know I could; there are just too many possibilities from which to choose.