Monthly archive: October, 2007

The Meme Challenge~

31/10/2007, by 2 comments

Well, it served me right. There I was poking around in other people’s blogs yesterday. I visited my writer friend Ruth Douilette’s blog and discovered I’d been asked to publicly respond to a writing challenge:

Write a meme about my strengths as a writer. Hmmm…… what’s meme, I thought? I looked in my trusty Oxford American online dictionary:

meme |mēm| |mim| |miːm|
Noun Biology
an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, esp. imitation.

That didn’t explain very much to me, so I went to the lazy woman’s dictionary, Wikipedia, who said:

Richard Dawkins coined the term meme, which first came into popular use with the publication of his book The Selfish Gene in 1976. Dawkins based the word on a shortening of the Greek “mimeme” (something imitated), making it sound similar to “gene”.

I still didn’t understand what this was all about, but then I found this online site, The Daily Meme:

In the context of web logs / ‘blogs / blogging and other kinds of personal web sites it’s some kind of list of questions that you saw somewhere else and you decided to answer the questions. Then someone else sees them and does them and so on and so on. (what color you are most like, what cartoon character are you, what 80s movie are you).

Ah. Here was the answer to my question. What an interesting assignment and an interesting thing to try to do for ourselves as writers. I actually had to go to critiques I’ve received from other writers to begin to see what they see when they read my work.

I find it curious; when I get these critiques I tend to focus on the portions of my work that need work and not the wonderful things they say.

Like Ruth, I find it hard to sing my own praises. Call it modest, or hard working–there, that’s the one. It sounds better to me, anyway. It’s a bit the way we see ourselves in the mirror and the way others see us, isn’t it?

So I sat down and copied off what people have said about my work over the past several months. Here are a few:

You have this ability to take readers into your space.

Compelling

Lyrical and evocative

The language is telling, delicate and reflective

Wow! Who is that writer? I always see myself tripping over language, editing relentlessly to get the clutter out of the way.

But that hasn’t answered the question: what are my strengths as a writer?

When I write memoir I try to put myself back in the situation I am writing about, to enter the brain space of the experience. I think I’m honest when I write. I try to look hard at what I’m writing about; not just the surface details, but what lies beneath things. I have a gift for observation–my mother has always told me this–and I think I capture nature when I write about it. Other writers have told me that.

There! That didn’t hurt, and I feel ever so slightly better about myself after that exercise. Oh, and I research things I don’t know about– likes memes, for instance.

So thank you, Ruth, for the assignment.

Thank you, Mridu Khullar, for originating the task.

Here is my challenge extended: Write a meme about your strengths as a writer

Tim Elhajj

Ross Eldridge- you will have to send emails or, better yet, start a blog. This could be your first entry!

Blog contents copyright © 2005-Present SC Morgan. All rights reserved..

Blog Fatigue~

29/10/2007, by 5 comments

     I’ve been feeling a bit “bloggy” as of late. There are quite a few reasons for this:
     A) I signed up for a MediaBistro personal essay class– a mistake, but who would have known (except Gary Presley who said, more or less, I told you so). So I’m still busy subbing and critting stuff over there, but I’m losing enthusiasm rapidly.

     For the money, I really thought I’d get more than a “yeah, this is pretty good,” or a “nope, this isn’t working.” I get more, and better, feedback from my friends at IWW (just as Gary said).

     One of my classmates is pretty disgruntled too. But, she says, it’s not the worst class she’s ever taken. Once, as an assignment, she did a review of her class and was asked to leave. She wants to try to finish this one without burning a bridge. I’m not sure I care.

     B) I’ve been kept busy by the lawsuit recently and have been blogging over there about various and sundry happenings in that corner of my life (Noticias de Punta Uva). It looks, for the moment, as though we are on the “right side,” if you translate that as getting the hell out of dodge.

     C) I’m trying to continue to sub chapters of memoir to IWW. I had a major meltdown over that recently, as several people who I have poured my guts out to will recall. I thought I’d stop writing it, as I couldn’t seem to figure out where I was going with it. Many people at IWW have been kind enough to write back with encouraging words.
     
     One person assured me that nobody really knows where a memoir will take you when you are writing it. It is the journey inwards that provides the meat for the eventual insights required to make a good one. If there is no angst, she said, it probably means the memoir is fluff.

     I know that none of these things should keep me from writing, and I HAVE been writing. It’s just that when I look at my blog (right now) it seems to represent an assignment or something and I can’t figure out what to write about. So I thought I’d write about this.

     That’s the problem isn’t it? Fitting life and writing into a manageable schedule.

     And I’m retired for Christ’s sake.

Blog contents copyright © 2005-Present SC Morgan. All rights reserved..

The Kingbird Convention

12/10/2007, by 1 comment


Tropical Kingbirds in an avacado tree-
photo by Jack Chamberlain


Yesterday, at lunch, we had the most spectacular show. Swooping down out of the sky came a whole flock of birds we have never seen here before. They had absolutely no fear of the Kiskadees, who screamed their lungs out at them and finally left in disgust.

Instead, these new guys took over the front yard foraging and generally having a great social time of it. There were several varieties, and it took us awhile to realize that they were all traveling together. We began looking at them with the binoculars and then referred to our Stiles and Skutch, Birds of Costa Rica.

It appears the Kingbirds have arrived from the north for the winter. There were Eastern Kingbirds, Western Kingbirds as well as our local Tropical Kingbirds.

They are relatively small (about 6-7 inches) but aggressive bird. In fact Tyrannus, their family name, means tyrant or despot. They take no guff from anyone. Our bird book describes them as “aerial hawking insectivores.” I’ll say.

After I realized what they were I told Alan, “No wonder they weren’t intimidated by those pesky Kiskadees. When you grow up in big families you get pretty tough skin.” Like some Catholic kids I have known, they emerge from a nest of multiple siblings with the older ones stomping on the heads of the younger ones for lack of space.

They were all similar in size; the only thing differentiating them was the color of their shirts and jackets. The eastern variety was wearing a buff colored shirt an outer jacket of deep steel-grey. Eastern Kingbird is a misnomer as it also nests as far west of the Mississippi as Oregon and British Columbia. The Western and Tropical Kingbird are so difficult to tell apart from a distance as to be near impossible for an amateur bird watcher like me. Both had tawny to pale yellow shirts on and their jackets were grayish-brown. According to our book one has a slightly hooked beak, the other straight.

They were simply joyful to have arrived in the tropics. Swooping and doing aerobatics, they romped about for a couple of hours feasting on bugs and flying insects. When they got tired, they literally sat down beside each other on the fence railing and seemed to have a chat, then resumed their festivities.

I think, from what I’ve read, that they will depart soon–if not already– for Columbia, where they winter. At least we didn’t see any today. But, there must be a big party planned in Columbia soon.

And perhaps we will see them when they head north in the spring.

Blog contents copyright © 2005-Present SC Morgan. All rights reserved..

Wanted: Virus. Short-term Use Only~

05/10/2007, by 3 comments

We have decided to list our classic 1976 GMC motor home for sale. Now that we live in Costa Rica full time there is really no need to keep it. It’s hard to let go of, as they are rare and ours is in immaculate condition. But time marches on. At 9 MPG it’s a fossil fuel hog, and we pay for its monthly storage making it less valuable to us every year. So I listed it with three Web sites that specialize in GMC’s.

I have been getting emails enquiring about it on a regular basis. I said in the ad that the motor home was in storage in Woodland WA and we lived in Costa Rica but for “serious buyers” I could work something out.

I have had a couple of bites. One couple looked at it, helped by the generous time of the storage unit owners. That couple felt the price was too high and would continue to look. Another couple is supposed to be looking at it today.

A few days ago I got an email from one Peter Cole asking for more detail about the coach, which I sent to him. I got this answer yesterday:

Thank you for your response,after discussing
with my client who really commended your GMC Royale Motorhome
instructed to move on with the deal at the price of
($20,000),he said he will be going on a vacation soon
and will rest virtually all the transaction on my
shoulder and assign a shipper like wise that i will
work with and stressed that he will be issuing out a
cashier check of ($28,000) which was a refund payment
of a cancelled order earlier made by him but
will be filed in your name,you are only required to
deduct the cost of your GMC Royale Motorhome($20,000) and
send the differece ($8,000) when payment gets to you to a
shipping agent whoose information will be given to
you as at when due, he will be needing the fund to
offset shipping charges, taxes and other c osme tic
repairs/touches,the agent will be responsible for
signing and transfering of title paper and also pickup.
So i require of you to send me your
NAME,ADDRESSAND
PHONE NUMBER for payment to be delivered to you via
fedex courier services All other information needed
in completion of this transaction will be given to
you in due time.
thanks


Something about the font made me suspicious, not to mention the multiple issues for the certified check and the syntax of the whole email. Anyway, I came to full attention. I sent an email back asking for his phone number so I might call. No answer as of yet.

I have done some research on the Internet and finally found the scam. According to one site here is how it works:

*The scam appears to send you “real” money—usually a cashier’s check or certified check drawn on a U.S. bank (sometimes even a postal money order)—before asking you to wire or express part or all of that money to the scammer or some third party. The scam relies on our belief that real cashier’s and certified checks and postal money orders are more trustworthy than personal checks. However, the counterfeit checks or money orders that the scammers send are very good and tough to identify as fake.

*The scam is initiated in response to a legitimate activity that you are pursuing—for instance, on a website or in a classified ad, you are selling an item such as car, bike, boat or jewelry, offering a service such as renting an apartment, seeking employment or signing up for a chat room, dating service or other recreational activity. In the original versions of the Nigerian scam, the “offer” arrives unsolicited—in a letter, an email, a fax—and some of the new versions, particularly the “you’ve-won-a-sweepstakes” ploy, still arrive unsolicited.

*Once the scammer is in touch with you, they often chat via email or phone, talking about the item or service you have for sale. They appear friendly, sincere, and aboveboard. Also, they don’t want you to send any money in advance, only after you have their “money” deposited in your account. They work hard to win your trust—but appearing trustworthy is the con artist’s primary tool in getting you to act.

***

I have kept a couple of Nigerian scam emails in my files because of the language they use. The ones I’m familiar with offer $1.5 million in a bank account of a person–as well as his entire extended family–who has tragically died in a plane crash. They even offer links to the news story. I have kept them because no writer could ever imitate the way they are written. I find them humorous. I never expected one to crop up from a motor home listing.

I’m now glad I’ve read some of these Nigerian investment emails because the writing in the email I got about the motor home was very similar in nature. My daddy always told me, you never get something for nothing.

So beware fellow shoppers or sellers, the world is a nasty place for the uninitiated and naive.

There is another one from one Kamantha Els in my inbox this morning. I note that they all have yahoo accounts. If I were a PC user and actually had things like viruses, I would send them one in a zip file telling them my bank account information was enclosed.

Evil lurks within us all.

Blog contents copyright © 2005-Present SC Morgan. All rights reserved..