h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Mehr of the Marketplace - A6059126
Author: dancingbuddha - U238893

Another piece I couldn't keep hidden forever. Thank you muchly for reading. And please do not ask me what it is supposed to mean: if I knew, this wouldn't be here in AWW.

db - if you had kept this hidden, the likes of me would become under- nourished and might even become

as it is, you've put it out here, so my can breathe in light through the cracks -

thanks for the fragrance of home - - -

Helen

I sincerely doubt that: you have your own taps (and I hear the English love beer )

yes, but we do need to drink from the Springs of others do we not?

words, wisdoms, white wine, wonderings, wanderings, whisky,

Beer's OK but I'd sooner inhale Inspiration

apparently the word inspiration comes from the Latin 'inspirare' - from 'spirare' to breathe - - -

see?

'cor - I'm philosophical today - and its weekend - usually can't think at all at weekends

H

wow, db. i mean, you know, just... wow!

i don't know where this came from. (of course, i do though.)

and i am so very glad it came this way.

thanks.

i mean, you know, just... thanks!

m

Very fine, as always.
This seems like it should be part of something bigger, though.

Is it enough to make the words just so, db?
You have a gift for that. You can write with a rhythm, and your work always seems so well turned.

We know you can strut and preen. I think you should take up a new challenge and resolve to write a piece with a beginning, an end, and above all a message!

Pin

m: thank you. good to know you enjoyed it.

pin: thank you for your suggestion. i let your words marinade in my head for a bit, and i must confess i'm a little confused. are you saying that i've gotten into the habit of writing pieces that are well written, but obscure and difficult to relate to? or that i'm writing pieces that don't have an easily graspable structure?

or are you saying that this particular piece should, by virtue of its content/style/effect on the reader, be part of some piece that has a point to it?

~ db

cactuscafe: spot on! hope i can continue to produce fragrances for your consumption

~ db

Hiya

Before I let rip, let me just say, well done for entering your writing here in the first place! I know I won't alone in reading and liking this piece.

In some ways, it's a really interesting excercise (and full marks!) in a certain style of writing. Stylised it is!

And to that extent, the style is engaging (up to a point) and well-executed, if a little heavy-handed at times.

I can sympathise with the UG Archivist ***is that fin?***, talking about a message; perhaps focus would be my word.

Anyway, I certainly thought you evoked an atmosphere in the early paragraphs, kept up the quality of writing throughout, and made me enjoy reading this piece, but overall it doesn't seem quite finished.

Just my , with salt to taste (of course).

Night
Spiff

spiff: thank you for your comments. however, it would be even better if you could elaborate on them, so i may act on them if i so wanted.

>> the style is engaging (up to a point) and well-executed, if a little heavy-handed at times <<

can you explain exactly where it becomes heavy handed, and at what point it stops being engaging? are these specific places in the story, or aggregate perspectives?

i'm not sure what either you or pin mean when you talk about 'focus' or 'message': this is a story of an encounter between the author and Mehr, and when i wrote it, i thought it formed a compact piece that stands by itself - must it be part of a larger narrative? when you say that it doesn't seem finished, do you mean that that's what's missing? if not, what else is missing?



~ db, confused

I'm always a bit uncomfortable (perhaps worried for my own sensibilities) to find myself at odds with commentary from with the likes of Pinn and Spiff (with whose views I'm most often largely in agreement), but here it is...

To me, this piece feels quite self-contained and satisfying, and I was surprised to read reviews saying it seemed un-focused and/or without a finish. Maybe that simply speaks to the differences in what we expect or want from a short-short story. I came away from it with the sense that I'd shared a profoundly moving (if somewhat hallucinogenic) episode from the author's life - one that set the author on a new (or renewed) path, with a new way of experiencing the world around him.

While the story could carry, I suppose, relating some more detailed effects of this 'meeting with Mehr' on life 'outside the bus', I believe that would only diminish the impact of the encounter and deny the symbolism of the shaman's great leap of faith.

So, there's my -- just, you know, to keep the ante up.


m

thank you, m: but you know what they say about evidence for a scientific theory - confirmatory evidence is good, but disconfirmatory evidence is better, because it makes you ask questions that you would otherwise not have asked. so pin's & spiff's comments, though unclear in meaning to me at the moment, are most welcome...

~ db

hullo db, Michael, pin and spiff,

- I find this discussion to be very inspiring - and I really like the way that on the AWW we can all help each other out with the structure of our writings - -

The structure of writing is something I have been thinking about recently - I would like to take part in discussions of this type - I am waiting till I feel within me that I have the knowledge and the standing to be able to do so - -

- so at the moment, I just trade pictures with my fellow writers -

reading this discussion though is helping me to learn, so thanks for that -

sometimes I work away at structure, sometimes I don't - just depends on the eventual end, and purpose, of the piece of writing - but I have until recently, made up the rules -

for me, its a bit like creating a dwelling for a fizzing nameless creative spark - and hoping that the dwelling is in some way hospitable for my guests (ie my readers) - even though they may not be particularly at ease with my crooked walls, and my purple and yellow ceilings -

I am going away on holiday now for a week, but on my return, would I be able to discuss these matters with any of you people? - structure, critique, rules, no rules, this, that and the price of grapes -

thanks all - I am ather enjoying starting to be educated at the age of fifty!

Helen

PS - for 'ather' read 'rather' -

Helen

Yeah, it's Pin. (Sorry if it wasn't clear from the UGArchivist account).

I said what I said up there because I thought you could use the challenge, db. I read your stuff and I'm always taken with how slick and polished it is. You're good enough to give the impression of not having to try too hard.

Given to envy as I am, such effortless elan makes me look for faults. You seem to be more intrigued by the atmosphere and rhythm of your writing than by its message. That's , and h2g2 needs more of that tendency overall.

I just wonder what else you can do, that's all. Honey gets a little samey after a while, and I wouldn't want your teeth to fall out before you've bared them.

As a matter of interest, how long did this take to write, and how much refinement did you do once you had it all drafted out?

oh, goody

it took me 45 minutes - 1 hour to write 97% of it. 3 months later i came back to it and added half a paragraph, because i didn't like the way that particular one ended. the rest of the 1.5% i spent spell checking and cleaning up typos.

this was only unconsciously styled - i put no thought into the episodic structure, meaning, or message whatsoever. the hardest part was - once i had the image of the marketplace-on-a-bus, and of mehr-in-the-room-with-a-window - keeping a consistent impression, somewhere between the colour of borges' library and the sound of an old scratched cassette tape...

that said, the reason my pieces are like this is that that's all the time i have to write - what with school, relocating to another country for it, and massive influxes of intellectual exposure, i'm having trouble finding time writing anything consciously, with any sort of message than the (implicit) ones that say that 'i wrote this because i had to', or 'behold the muse of mood!'

matter of fact, the last time i wrote anything consciously was a little over a year back, and you can find it here: http://groups.msn.com/bloodworks - but be warned, it is much more exploratory, pretentious, unformed than these short pieces of mine. it was the first time i was trying to write something novel sized, and there are a lot of ideas that i haven't managed to piece together just yet, which is the reason for the writing hiatus..

so no, this isn't all i can do , and when life eases up for a bit next spring, you may hope to find more varied outlook than this

~ db

oh, the story-in-progress is on that website is called 'bloodworks'

about the writing time - there's one thing i forgot to mention: that i carried the two focal points of the story in my head for a whole day before i decided i had to put this into words lest i lose it. since that day was spent for the most part in being haunted by those images, i don't know if that counts as writing time, since i don't begin to write until i know exactly what i want to say, and how the finished piece should feel - the details of the english and the exact style sort of sorts itself out when i actually do the writing. if i actually consciously manufacture the content, i spend hours staring at what i've written while i intermittently add a few sentences at a time

~ db

oh, there's another confession i have about the nature of these short pieces of mine that i have been dumping in the general direction of AWW lately, but i will only make it once kat & waz read this piece...

Hey

Big confession, db. I went off to do something mundane back there, and began to think I'd been unfair. I worked out that I shouldn't goad people like that on the off-chance it might make them even better. I realised that if someone did it to me, I wouldn't like it, and might sling my hook.

So I came back to recind all that, but found you rose above it anyway.

I took a very quick glance at your msn stuff, for a taste. I'll enjoy reading that. It's up to you if you want crit.

You're good. I really wasn't sure whether this piece took you minutes to write, or weeks to make it sound like it took minutes to write. I'm pleased it's the former (though as jealous as hell), because it proves the hunch that you have exceptional flair.

You see the significance? If someone can write nearly perfectly without trying too hard, then making an effort could make them brilliant. But if that someone works as hard as they can and achieves nearly perfect, then they've topped out just short. (Maybe practice could still make perfect for the grafter, but my money's on the other guy).

When you've the time, make sure you do write, and make sure you explore your range. h2g2, in spite of itself, is going to spawn a literary giant one day, and you just might have it in you to be that.

Provided you push yourself, OK?

Pin