Thoughts on Snowden OCTOBER 4, 2013

Snowden is a hero.  He committed a public service.  Had he exposed a tax-evader, the Government would have rewarded him with a cut of the loot.  But because he exposed wrongdoing by the Government, it seeks to murder him as a “traitor.”

Thoughts on Writing APRIL 10, 2013

“Either write something worth reading, or do something worth writing.”     Benjamin Franklin

I try to spend my time as carefully as my money.  Time is what life is made of.

A buyer of my book pays money; a reader of my book pays time, a piece of his life.

Honor, respect for my reader, and ethical integrity require me to give my reader my best in entertainment, reliable information, help, amusement, whatever I led him to expect.

What has my writing done for my reader?

Have I given my reader a pleasant engrossing respite from his daily grind and troubles?

Robert Louis Stevenson said, “Fiction is to grown men what play is to the child.”

When a writer expresses something I have felt but never put into words, I am delighted.  Can I do this for my reader?  Have I given him words he might need in his own life?

If writing nonfiction, have I followed the highest journalism ethics, like fact-checking? For journalism ethics, see http://www.dupreyethics.blogspot.com/

In 1555, preacher Hugh Latimer said, “There is a common saying amongst us,”Say the truthe and shame the diuel.”

Shakespeare had Hotspur say this in Henry IV, Part I, 1597.

Have I made my reader’s world bigger?  Richer?  More interesting?

Has my reader gained a new appreciation for something?

Does my reader now know something he had not known before?  Fiction too can do this.

Can my reader now do something he could not do before?  Fiction too can do this.

Have I given my reader a better understanding of himself and others?

Have I made my reader think?  Given him new insights?  A new perspective?

Have I aroused his curiosity enough for him independently to go see or do something?

“Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.                        ~Robert Frost~

A writer is a cook.  Is my dish fresh, tasty and nutritious?  Or is it junk food for the mind?  Have I wasted my reader’s time, a piece of his life?

More Thoughts on Writing APRIL 25, 2013

Life is a predicament which precedes death. Henry James

My goal is to make my characters as conscious and articulate as Antigone and King Creon in Sophocles’ tragedy. They find themselves in situations where they must decide what to do. Whatever they do, including nothing, will have serious consequences.

Each sees all the good reasons for each possible choice, and all the predictable results of each. They clearly express these, and their emotions are almost overwhelming.

Greek tragedies typically end with a corpse-littered stage, and good reason for each murder and suicide. The audience feels for, and understands, each major character.

Sophocles’ genius in creating such characters and situations is the reason he is still admired, and his plays are still staged two and a half millennia after his death.

Everything is grist for a writer’s mill.