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Benzinha
You could split the posts up and do installments each day for a really long story. That might be easier. Thanks for the inspiration. I have been trying to get back to writing stories and be more descriptive, and I'm not quite there yet, but I did post something more along those lines. Your stories helped!
posted by
Temple
on March 19, 2004 at 3:13 PM
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Dave Cryer, the problem is that I had so much to tell and had to hold
back. I had to shorten the story for the BN because I just don't know when to stop. I tried to just hit the highlights and let the rest fall away into memory. I also try, when I write, to make others want to do what I just did, visit a PowWow. And for those who can't, I want them to feel that they were there for a minute or two. I want to give the readers facts that they can possibly use in their writing of a similar scene without actually having to experience it personally.
Thanks for commenting and reading.
posted by
benzinha
on March 17, 2004 at 12:37 PM
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gome, the fun of grandparenting is in the pointing out of small details in
the world, in the scene or experience before the kids and putting my own, your own, spin on it, based on all that you know and have seen and felt. And, letting yourself feel that youthful "belief and awe" again.
posted by
benzinha
on March 17, 2004 at 12:33 PM
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Flippin coins, thanks for pointing out what you liked in the story.
Dialogue puts the emotion into an otherwise dry telling of what we saw and did.....thanks for the comment.
posted by
benzinha
on March 17, 2004 at 12:31 PM
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maj, thanks for the "Walter the Farting Dog" connection....shall do that.
Also, I hate my taped voice and yet, if I ignore that I hate it, I can say that I do read stories well to the grandchildren. I try to make them real and alive, dramatic without going over the top. Well, I do go over the top sometimes when reading, just for effect.
Do a post on 'voice' for me, for all of us, okay?
posted by
benzinha
on March 17, 2004 at 12:29 PM
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LadyK, At my age I should just accept my voice, whatever it is and go with
it. I know that when I'm writing too very carefully, I kill the spontaneity (sp?) of the piece. Okay, I accept that I have a voice and will just write as I always do and hope that the voice tells the story well.
posted by
benzinha
on March 17, 2004 at 12:27 PM
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The joy is most certainly in the detail here - such precise description and evocation of the scene. Good writing.
posted by
_dave_says_ack_
on March 17, 2004 at 1:54 AM
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benzinha----- What a great story
I look forward to the day I am on excursions such as this with my grandchildren. They don't exist yet but they are not too far away.
posted by
gomedome
on March 16, 2004 at 7:11 AM
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It's in the way you tell the story,
straightforward and fairly simply (which is good - don't get me wrong!), but so direct and so enticing, as you slip those few lines of dialogue into the text...bits of information that draw the reader in and on. I too like your 'voice'...
posted by
Ufatbastard
on March 16, 2004 at 3:06 AM
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I also wich I'd posted that in my OWN blog! Oh well.
posted by
majroj
on March 15, 2004 at 11:12 PM
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Ever listen to a tape recording of your voice?
Your voice sounds different to you on tape because it doesn't resonate through your whole body and into your inner ear. This can be interpreted literally and spiritually. The trick they say is to know when what you have written or said is close enough to your "inner voice", then leave it alone; we will hear it differently than you mean it, anyway, but that is part of the romance of reading versus cinema.
I only wish we had audio blogging so you might have put the music they danced to onto it as background. I could imagine it; there's something about some of the songs with their keening male voices which makes the hair on my neck and arms rise, just as bagpipes playing their wild martial airs do, and it did then.
posted by
majroj
on March 15, 2004 at 11:10 PM
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Use your paypal blogging bucks?
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?cgiurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2Fws%2F&krd=1&from=R8&MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&ht=1&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&query=Walter+The+Farting+Dog
posted by
majroj
on March 15, 2004 at 11:00 PM
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AND--
the more you try to identify "what you're doing right", the more you will surely kill what you are doing so right. Just be wonderful you, and let the rest of us find this resonant voice of yours :)
posted by
LadyKenobi
on March 15, 2004 at 10:46 PM
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Aw, thanks, grandma
You're young and saucy too, you know :)
posted by
LadyKenobi
on March 15, 2004 at 10:45 PM
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LadyKenobi, from you, that's a real compliment. I reread my story trying to
hear the voice that you and Temple heard and I can't hear it.....frustrating for an old person like me who is busy searching for her own voice as she writes. Others can hear it and I can't. This frustrates me. To be unable to identify what I am doing right, so that I can repeat it again....
I love your writing voice, young and saucy and a Bit biting upon occasion, like my youthful voice used to be. I try to think "GRANDMA" the whole time that I write about the grandchildren and think "MY BABIES", too.
posted by
benzinha
on March 15, 2004 at 4:06 PM
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what a cool, COOL experience for the youngins
reminded me of all those wonderful vacations out west.... I just really enjoy hearing your voice in this.
posted by
LadyKenobi
on March 15, 2004 at 1:34 PM
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Temple, maybe I do have a southwestern storyteller voice!!! Never thought
about that, just knew that I search for a voice for my stories. I love New Mexico. I love Reservations full of wonderful people and I usually like my frybread with frijoles, not sneezes on it.......thanks for reading, commenting and stopping by.
posted by
benzinha
on March 15, 2004 at 10:12 AM
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You are such a wonderful storyteller!
I wish I had a grandmother or mother like you. The rythm of your story, and the words you choose...the whole tone....reminded me of my friends and their families growing up near the reservation in New Mexicol. I always love what an amazing part of the culture that is. I wondered if that was part of your storytelling. So lovely and wonderful. I miss fry bread! Powdered sugar for me, please :)
posted by
Temple
on March 15, 2004 at 4:48 AM
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