Rothacker Reviews

Taylor Caldwell: On Writing

I picked up a book titled The Writer's Handbook,© 1964, at a flea market in the summer of 2002.  I laid it back down on the table.  Later that day my parents stopped over.  My Dad said they had been to a flea market and picked up a book for me.  He was so proud of the fact he only paid a dime for, you guessed it, The Writer's Handbook.

The book is chocked full of neat essays on how to write techniques for every type of writing imaginable in addition to writers writing on writing.  (I have no idea why I didn't shell out a dime for this one myself)  One chapter that caught my attention was titled The Essence of Good Writing by Taylor Caldwell . 

" Like all other artists, writers are not made.  Writers are born," claims Caldwell.  She goes on to depict the born writer as a slave-master to his work; as someone who must write, no matter what else is sacrificed;  as someone who must be born with an ear and eye for creativity; as a lonely, solitary and miserable man; as someone who truly values the monetary worth of their work; to work with rejection slips as an impetus to improve and states that writing is the most arduous, disciplined work in the world.  Here are the last few sentences of the piece:

But what can a writer do?  He must write.  That is his destiny, and his curse.  Writing has its rewards, I admit*.  But few writers attain a tranquil old age, or merely old age.  Creative writing burns you out, physically and spiritually.  But go to it!  There is nothing else.

One feels that Caldwell had the ability to delicately balance these opposing thoughts in the palms of her hands and still thrive as a writer.  She must have been quite a character! 

In between her cold doses of reality, Caldwell did unearth the following gems:

Writing is the most intimate art form for communication.  Above all things, the real writer, usually inarticulate in speech, solitary and retiring, desires communication with his fellow human beings.

The very essence of good writing is in expressing a common experience or emotion in fresh language and with new vitality.  But it still must be a common experience or emotion, so that every reader will exclaim in himself, "Why, yes, that is exactly what happened to me and that is exactly how I felt, even though the words and descriptions are different!  It's wonderful to know that I'm not alone, as I thought."

*Taylor Caldwell wrote for thirty years before she was published.

 

Imagine Thought

Troy Worman over at Orbit Now wrote a post titled, Imaginary Board of Directors.  This is a group of people, dead or alive, that one gathers in imagination for a purpose of their own intention.  It could be to help them think, to deal with a problem, about their careers and so on towards infinity.  I formed my own counsel a couple of years ago and record activity that usually takes place in a meditative state, in a separate journal.

The practice of such counsel involves thought.  Thought on your own part and thought from the participants.  Lets say you present a problem to your group, a thought.  Your next job is to become quiet and listen.  Usually a member or two from the group will have an opinion, a thought.

Gentlemen like Napoleon Hill, Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer believe that a thought never dies.  I haven't studied into this belief in depth but I have given it enough attention to form my own thoughts.  At this time I believe a person must be alive to first create a thought.  Once created, that thought remains forever in some energy form.  And, once out in an energy form, out in the ether, that thought can be potentially picked up by anyone. 

Questions

Is it possible for a thought to be created by someone (or their spirit) before they are born?  Can thoughts communicate with each other without a living person involved?  These are just a couple of questions that hover in my peripheral vision when I get on this subject. 

Imagine

What if, when you get in a state of meditation, you pepper the ether with a flurry of creative thought?  What if threads of your thought are picked up in the future by someone capable of adding to it and making something happen?  Your thought does not have to be blueprint.  It doesn't need to make sense.  The point is to think it up and get it out of your head.  I think by way of seeding the future, thoughts revolving around your own immediate world will begin to germinate at a much quicker pace. 

Illumination by You

Did you ever catch on to a shooting star before it bursts above the horizon for all to see?

This story comes by way of Roy Williams' Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads.  Dean Rhoads owned Lincoln Manufacturing.  His company made equipment that kept restaurant food hot.  Often times restaurant equipment sales people called upon him, trying to sell their wares.  Dean describes one of these chaps, who sold a multi-mixer, a device that mixed five milkshakes at one time.

"He was very pleasant, but didn't appear to me to have any unusual or outstanding characteristics that would inspire me to invest in his new venture, so when I heard that Ray had bought a little hamburger stand called McDonalds I chose not to invest."

Dean's observation of Ray Kroc would be similar to our own observation of most people that we meet.  We do not look for unusual or outstanding characteristics.  Obviously such traits can be found in others.  It probably is safe to assume that today, even Stevie Wonder could see Ray Kroc had something special going on.

But how to do it before the star shines bright?  Shine your own light on the star.  This doesn't mean to go mining for gold in others to benefit yourself, unless intrinsic benefit comes to you by helping others.  It means to shine light upon the star early on, so the star has a greater vision of the sky ahead.

Outside of parents, I think K-12 teachers have the greatest opportunity to shine light on our youth-stars today.  In a genesis sort of way, there is no more important profession on our planet today than that of teaching.

But one doesn't need be in a profession so as important as teaching to shine light on others.  It might be the guy in the next cubicle or the girl cutting hair next to your chair that could use a little of your own attention.  And you know what else?  That person doesn't have to be the next Ray Kroc.  It could be that your attention, your light, helps them to get through another day.

To Handle; or to Hold?

"So you find me hard to handle, well I'm easier to hold."  The Allman Brothers.

What we have here is the base camp and mountain peak of getting along in relationships.  The need to handle has always intrigued me.  And, like a wild bronco never to be broken, I was as sensitive to this type of military warfare as a blind-deaf-mute is to the aroma of fresh brewed coffee. 

My mother-in-law has perfected the craft of handling to tactical brilliance.  For her, it was a matter of survival and she did what she had to do.  I admire that.  I also knew thirty plus years ago if I wanted a view of Rosemary today, I'd only have to look at her Mom.  So if we were to get along, I'd have to develop a strategy and ten extra layers of skin.  This wasn't going to be easy.  There wasn't anything I hated more in the world than being told what to do.  In a few years disco music surpassed this song on the charts and held that number one ranking for years.

In a recent post at Pause, Jory calls this "an almost Pavlovian reaction of resisting."  I will admit, when the bell rang and I was given a directive, drool pooled at my feet.  Skin did not grow as quickly as I'd like.  Over the years however, I found that growing skin was not the answer.  Growing another set of ears and opening my heart was.

When a full frontal assault didn't work (need to handle), Rosemary reverted to guerrilla warfare, mother-in-law psychology.  Striking with the deft skills that were subliminally implanted in childhood, she went undercover and appeared as a spy...appeared as my friend.  To the ordinary layman, she had overtaken Sun Tzu's place in history.  To me, she was the President of the United States wearing a bad wig.  This tugged at my heart like the many predicaments that Bill got himself into.

Maybe, if I could just try to understand the need for the wig in the first place, she could do away with it.  I did and it worked.  I quit drooling years ago.  Life is so good.  We both work together to accomplish a common cause.  We now give, take and hold each other.

Rosemary:  "David, could you please pick up your underwear?"

David:  "No problem dear, I'll get right on it."

Carla:  "Cause if he don't, my Mom will kick his ass."

Circling the Fat

I can't get the remote off of the Phantom Professor .  It seems as if I could, I'd put Elaine Liner's link permanently in Good Writing and be done with it.  Not only is she an engaging writer, she also is teaching the art of writing directly from her blog.

Circling the Fat is one of those essays that's impossible to stop in the middle of.  The continuance of dialogue is so Frito Lay.  Elaine also has this Mark Twain sense of humor when it comes to depicting Valley Girl types. It's hillarious.

 

Beyond

In order to review something, one must experience it first, right?  Conventional thinking would say so.  Conventional thinking is ok.  It keeps things neat, tidy and inside borders. It lends some ruliness to the universe.  Unconventional thinking says different, it's even ok to invent a word if necessary.  I am not necessarily fond of borders, fences and limitations.  I think in order to grow, one must venture out and beyond.

I am creating the Beyond category to try and vaporize some borders in my own mind.  If some of my visual paintings sound goofy, it's cool.  I've already had a conference with myself and we're both ok with it, we've agreed to just let it fly.

                                                                 *******************

It is two o'clock in the afternoon.  You started at eight in the morning.  You've put in eight hours.  Without an ounce of hesitation you lay your head down on the desk and catch a ten minute nap.  During the brief respite the boss walks by and sees you.  Smiling, he continues on down the hall.

A Reading Addiction

Wanna know how bad I got it?  Me neither.

I hang out in the magazine / paperback book aisle in the grocery store.  I open up the top selling books to chapter one and read the first line written. 

I love to read advertisements in the coupon flyers.  I always wonder how effective the ads written about how wonderful the company is as opposed to those directed towards customer needs, are.

I read the neighborhood newspapers.  My curiousity lies in the writing style difference between these and big city editors.  Personally, I like the less-than-stuffy attitude of the little guys.

I read maps.  "that's sick Dave."

I read newsletters sent to us snail mail.  Can substance be found there?  Or is it Slick-Willy corporate hype?

I read magazine ads.  The Business 2.0 XPLANE ads are clever.  The VP of No ad has I think, forever buried their ax in my brain.

I read all school-parent communication.  Just how does the entity responsible for our younger generation, communicate?  If I'm feeling Sister Mary Alberta and her ten gauge, two foot ruler in the words - then it's not good.  I certainly haven't felt this way in the Hillsborough County School District communication to us!

I read errrr, women's magazines.  (NOT the kind with guy's pictures in them!)  If I am previewing one in a store, I place it inside a Muscle magazine.  This way people feel sorry for me.  "Oh Bob, look at that poor fellow.  He must be dreaming."

Carla gets Cosmo for Girls or Seventeen... something like that.  I page through these to see what is being said to our youth.

Back to the women's mags.  I am fascinated by both Oprah and Real Simple.  For a magazine to be as pre Arpil 8, 2000, as these are (thick, as in ads), there must be something worthwhile inside.  There is.  My perception is that they speak to not only our human spirit but to useful everyday existing.

I read the Yellow Pages.  I get such a kick out of companies who carry on about how great they are.  Who cares?  "you do need a life Dave."

Of course, all of the above are in addition to about eight monthly trade journals and various writing and biz magazines.  I didn't mention the Internet, blogs and books, have I?

Back to the women's mags.  The content for the Susan Thompson post came from Rosemary's latest issue of Real Simple.  It's a beauty!

Susan Thompson

Susan's story comes to us by way of Real Simple magazine, September 2005.  It is under the title "It's Never Too Late."  Five separate stories are written about women who have changed something in their life.

Susan, now in her late fifties, left the corporate world in 1996 to start volunteer work and to take writing courses.  Inpsired with her work, she enrolled in a two-year program to learn how to teach adult literacy.  She supported herself with a job at the public library.

Susan ended up with an adult education teaching gig at a center in Brooklyn, New York.  Here is a comment of hers in the article that caused a pause:

"Going from dealing with multimillion-dollar pension plans to working with people who can’t come to school because they have no bus fare made me aware of different experiences. In business you get intellectual excitement and financial rewards. When you work with people in need, you get a true sense that the 30 minutes you spend with them has an impact."

Susan's comment is so human spirit.  She is the stuff that heroes are made of.

Do you suppose there is a way to alter one small viewpoint in each of our worlds today?  One slightly altered perception into that which has become routine?  Do this in regards to a fellow human being and allow your own spirit to be so much more human.

Company: I Win but I Lost

Since I began to do reviews on positive customer experiences at area businesses, I've dreaded the time I might return to an establishment and receive poor service. 

In her post Be right, or Do Right? Rosa Say talks about such an experience.  I might add too, Rosa demonstrates great patience when dealing with the employee who insists on being right as opposed to doing right. 

Since moving to Tampa over two months ago, we have had only one experience where the employee insisted on being right as opposed to doing right.  And since I said we wouldn't be talking about negative customer service, I will not mention our experience at Blockbuster, 19070 Bruce B. Downs, Tampa.

The difference between the establishment and employee who gives great customer service and those who insist on being right is that I will not mention the latter here...unless I'm overtaken by a case of smart-assedness and sneak in a jab.  But what about the difference between the establishment and the employee giving good customer service for this establishment?  Or for that matter, the employee who gives poor service, as in Rosa's story.

Do we give credit or blame the business if our experience was with just one person?

The Beauty of Blogs

I have yet to complete my thoughts on this topic.  But instead of throwing it into the draft file to simmer, I thought I'd let it simmer out on the main burner.

Comments on who or what gets credit or blame?

Rosemary Rothacker

I have liberally used Rosemary's name throughout my posts without explaining much about her.  I'll begin a little brief today so that I have information to link back to.

For starters, Rosemary is the best wife and Mom on the planet.  I got the wife part covered.  Victoria 24, and Carla 13, got the Mom part down.  Rosemary has sonar, radar and two onboard periscopes - none of us gets away with anything.  Although she has been the subject of intensive research, we have no idea how she cooks, cleans, helps with homework, does the budget and talks on the phone - at the same time.  This is one superwoman power she cannot lay claim to alone, for I have seen a great many great Moms do this as well.

Secondly, Rosemary is the greatest manager that I've ever personally seen in action.  From a strictly objective viewpoint:  Her bank branch was always one of the top three in performance; in the top one or two in transactions handled; and, maybe her most significant achievements - were the high octane personnel that she cranked out for promotions.  It could've been so easy for her to keep people around the branch for a year or two longer.  For, in fact, it would've made her job much easier.  But it was never about her, never!  She would come home so excited and could hardly wait to tell me about so and so's promotion.  I too was always happy for these associates, they were good people.  But I knew this also meant longer hours and more hardwork until she could bring the next batch of personnel up to speed.

Rosemary's official title today is Assistant Vice President, Loan Production Officer for Amtrust Bank .  She has retired from managment duties to concentrate soley on wholesale lending.  She is regarded in her multi-state corporation as a residential mortgage expert.  What makes her awesome in this role is very similar to what made her a good manager - selflessness.  It's always about the customer.  She puts the customer ahead of any personal interests.  She then applies a mind numbing knowledge of Amtrust's products to the customer's needs.  Finally, her follow-up is above and beyond.  She will not let up until the deal is finalized - even though there is a point where she must hand off the transaction to underwriters and processors.

Shameless Plug for Rosemary

If you are in need of a home loan, equity loan or to refinance your home or in need of advice, contact Rosemary at rrothacker@amtrust.com  She has the ability to handle all business via fax, DHL, the Internet and e-mail.  Make sure you tell her Dave said to drop her a line!

We are located in the Tampa Bay area.