Fragments From Floyd

Fred:

One of the greatest gifts God can give any of us is the ability to communicate. The ability to tell a story or to use words or images to affect people is such.

I once worked for an editor who said a good writer "explodes a picture in the reader's mind."

Doug

As Doug said in his comment about a good writer, I also think your photography explodes a story in the viewers mind.

Good point Michelle. Fred's images do exactly that.

Fred, on your point about always wanting to write, remember Stephen King's story about meeting his idol, Isaac Asimov. King was a teenager who hitchhiked to a college where Asimov was speaking. At the reception after the speech, he introduced himself to his hero and said: "I've always wanted to write."

Asimov looked at the young man with disdain:

"Bullshit kid," he said. "If you really wanted to write you'd be home writing and not here bothering me."

King said after he got over being devastated he went home and started writing.

"It was the kick in the pants I needed," he said.

Doug

Yes, you have a lot of roles that you have played/are playing/will play. If you don't have a strong sense that one part of your life has overwhelmed all other parts, it can be difficult.

I was once handed a business card by a wait person that proclaimed, "John Doe: A Rather Nice Fellow". That's how I think of you. Somehow, though, I suspect that it wouldn't be satisfying to you to be know "just" as a Rather Nice Fellow. How about "Naturalist Philosopher"?

Hey there Fred...nice to have you back. Nice to be able to talk back, at least.

I wanted to comment on Doug and Amy's comments. I've read the piece Doug referred to about King meeting Asimov. Something similar happened to me when I was 16 and I met Nikki Giovanni. Much to my dismay, she told me that I needed to go have a life...that was the best thing I could do for myself as a writer. She was right, and at 33 it's still just the kick in the pants I need sometimes.

And as far as the card thing goes, Amy... I think it's a great idea. Except that I'd need too many. As a mother, a writer, a student, a wife, a friend, a daughter...there are just too many roles I have to play. So I'll have to go for the "rather nice" one, because if I could get though each day feeling as if I tried to be at least RATHER nice in all I did, I'd consider that day a success.

One more comment on last weeks music discussion-- I'm studying the brain right now, and the imput we receive from our ears is filtered directly through the temporal lobe. The way that it is processed is vastly different from the way we process other senses. Maybe this contributes to the way people feel about "their" music. Even if it's crap, there is music from the 80's that takes me back to being a teenager. Also, I think it's pretty closed-minded to assume that music can't get any better over time. Of course there's what we refer to as the "plastics." (Yes, I include Brittney Spears in that broad catagory.) But even music from a genre that I do not necessarily appreciate, like hip-hop, has something to say to someone. And I'd like to think that music has evolved over the years. As someone said last week, look at Norah Jones...

When someone asks me what I do, I simple say that I am surviving--which is the truth and is better than saying what I feel at the moment. Yep, I'm a photographer and I like it alot most of the time. Yet, I am a also a hell of a good mother and a hell of a good wife and I am also a bleeding heart animal lover. I am a surveyor of my surroundings.All of this most people don't want to really know about when they ask the question.

I took my 10 year old son to meet Brian Jacques a couple of weeks ago. For those of your that don't have 10 years in the house, he is a wildly popular writer with the 10-14 age group.

The told the kids that good writers "paint pictures with words." I thought that was a clever way to describe it.

Fred, I'm new to your site. I also teach high school in Virginia near Goose Creek, but it's another Goose Creek; it's in Loudoun County.

Anyway, I like the writing here. Thanks for following your vocation.

>>All of this most people don't want to really know about when they ask the question.<<

How true, most are simply being polite and others are taking measure...it's much easier to turn the conversation back to the inquirer, most people prefer to talk about themselves anyhoo.