Joe's feedback - A Writer Writes

Soon I will figure out how to negotiate around Blogger. I got a two hour tutorial from a lovely young woman in Copper Harbor named Amanda (I will give you her blogging address soon, but I don't dare go look for it now. She deserves a bigger audience) and I think I really needed the four hour tutorial. Anyway, I pushed "Publish" before I was ready. In my last post I said I was going to include an email from my brother-in-law Joe. Here it is:

This will either be gibberish or a picture of one of my Detroit dream cars that has absolutely nothing to do with this blog.

a writer writes
My opinion… Why does a writer write… because they want to share a piece of themselves with the world. This means they have to write about something they know… themselves. There are many great writers who ran out of material (the eternal criticism is that they only have one story, one thing to say) F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tennessee Williams, Earnest Hemmingway (who killed himself because he couldn’t write anymore) are examples of writers who ran out of things to say… Harper Lee wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird” won the Pulitzer Prize and never wrote another word again. There are a whole lot more examples and I could go on forever. A writer gives of himself much more profoundly than anyone else. And that is the reward… not the money, not the fame and glory not the adulation. To give of ones self completely and freely is the mission of the writer, not to lecture people or tell them what to do or what to think. If you want to be a writer tell us something about yourself, show us a piece of the world that we have never seen before, a gift, given freely and with no strings attached. Make us laugh and cry along the way, but give us that gift at the end like a present on Christmas Morning. Attached is a picture of this person I know who has spent his whole life traveling around the world as a bohemian artist. Sometimes he hasn’t made much money, and sometimes he even lived in abandoned busses, and other times almost died of starvation in the hills of India. But it’s a great story, a journey through life… and he needs someone to write his story for us. Joe

To me this was a very inspiring compliment - especially from a man who spent his life writing, and teaching how to write. In
his career Joe completed three novels and over 30 original movie scripts or screenplays. He's been a live theatre director and for many years taught Script Writing at the prestigious Pasadena Art and Design Center. In all the years I was writing "Twins of Kashal," Joe kept saying - you shouldn't be doing that - you should be writing "Memoirs of an Old Hippie." All I can say is - I'm getting closer . . . closer to remembering and wanting to write about that day - a day just like today - maybe today - July 30, 1970 - forty years ago - when I stood on an Orange County, California on-ramp with my thumb out . . . a carefree young man who had saved $1000 and was ready to see the world . . . a story about that day and the days ahead as I took off on an uncharted adventure that would circumnavigate the world. Thank you Joe - these blogs are my gift. My fun and joy. My "now" stories - which I may soon mix with my "then" stories, and the dreams that come through in other tales such as Two Crows and Shambala. Any way you look at it - I'm having more fun with each passing day.

Blessings, Dakan