and that is the end of that
Last year I wrote stories for the daily paper's short story "yarn" competition.
no expectation of winning, perhaps a wild hope of being noticed.
i deliberately wrote stories that *I* would enjoy reading.
Today i read a"yarn" winner. the author complains about the difficulty of a writer gaining recognition, or publication. so far so good, i can agree.
now i can also understand.
here's a comparison:
Another winning yarn is about an old woman, the author's granmother, smoking and dying and complaining in lonely misery.
there's a Jack Reacher book that begins with a teenager's mother dying of terminal something. the mother is a drunken, lonely, alcoholic drug addict.
the jack reacher book then develops as expected. with several "nice" people dying unpleasantly and fifty or more nasty people dying very ... satisfactorily.
but here's the thing:
in that one introductory death of mother, the jack reacher book packs in more ... positive affirmation... mother-child love and loyalty
... more hope... than in the yarn which dedicates itself to just one death.
truth to tell
... the yarn mother may not even have died.
the story was so "meaningful"
... so packed with "significance?"
... that I may have misunderstood.
not to worry. it's in the bin now.
and next year i shall write stories for my own enjoyment.
with no "yarns"
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Oh, and btw:
This post will go to reviews -- and to rants
I tried to use the Google Blogger app to update the original post.
By the time I had successfully (I hope) updated -- the app had deleted, discarded, drafted, lost... the original post.
Time to uninstall that app.
And this update is done on the PC. Where what you see is, quite often, what you get.
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