Blind Prophecy

Here are the answers to the questions I got asked.

(from *-*-*deevalish”>) What is the one piece of advice or knowledge that you would like all of your siblings to carry through out their lives?

Have a cause. Have a vision of how the world can be better and commit yourself to doing your part in making it so. Many people talk about making the world a better place, but not as many give serious thought to the ways that they can make that happen.

Your vision of a better world doesn’t have to be the same as mine, but it’s important to have a clear idea of what you wish the future to be like. Many people actually find that there are multiple causes when they do this that they actually have multiple causes. For me, those include celebration of diversity, environmental health, greater appreciation of the arts, and a greater sense of social responsibility among the next generation.

Each of us has individual talents we can contribute to this cause. For me, I’m a communicator (writer, public speaker) and use that to promote my causes. For others, being a parent or teacher is their contribution to the cause, being an artist, being an office grunt volunteer, or whatever.

(From *-*-*masqthephlsphr”>) How’s the new editor job going? Whip those writers into shape yet??

It’s going well enough. I still feel like I’ve got a lot to learn about the local community before I’ll be able to do my job effectively, but that’s a learning curve I can deal with.

We’re having a writer’s meeting this evening, so I’ll give my speech about respect and professionalism at that point. My biggest issues are meeting deadlines and respecting word counts. Tonight will be about giving them “fair warning” that they’re all essentially on probation as of now. I don’t want to come across as a jackass Johnny-come-lately, but I don’t want them to think that the old method of doing business is acceptable either.

(From *-*-*bhadrasvapna”>) What five words describe you? Now use those five words each in a separate sentence that has nothing to do about yourself. Then combine all five words into one sentence.

Passionate. Caring. Youthful. Collected. Writer.

Heather made a passionate plea to the school board to increase her prom budget by $1000 so she could buy the extra-sparkly tiara.

George stormed out of the meeting, not caring one bit for Heather’s selfish whining.

The board members shook their heads at the youthful lovers spat.

As she collected her thoughts to make her case, Heather realized that her prom king-to-be had suddenly disappeared.

Suzanne, who’d been assigned by the school newspaper to cover the meeting, scribbled thoughts in her notebooks, her writer’s instinct telling her that there was a story behind George’s less-than-subtle exit.

In the collected works of writer Viginia Wolff, you will find the passionate thoughts of a caring wife, youthful artists and troubled revolutionary.

(also from *-*-*bhadrasvapna”>) What is the funniest thing you have come across editing other people’s stories?

Oh, just one example? Typos are always fun. Such as “poopular” instead of “popular” or “sluttish” instead of “sluggish.” But the thing that had me laughing the most was an article that came from a writer who was still learning the basic mechanics of email. Somehow, he’d sent me an article, followed by a very angry letter he had written to his boyfriend about the dirty underwear left in the kitchen sink that morning. Okay, so that wasn’t something funny actually in the article, but it still makes me giggle. “Do you want to have roast sh*t for dinner tonight? Is that the plan? Or cum-stain salad?” (probably paraphrased, but it was something like that).

Filed under: livejournal by Jere Keys