Image © John and Margaret
18th SEPTEMBER 2015 ~ WRITING 101 ~ Day 10
A VIRTUAL COFFEE DATE
It's a simple idea, but offers a bit more structure to your post — and is a lot more fun. So today, write an update post in the form of a virtual coffee date.
If this post isn't fitting for your blog, or just not your style, here's your alternative: use a coffee shop as your inspiration.
Set your poem or short story in a cafe.
Go to your neighbourhood spot with your laptop or notebook and free-write for 20 minutes, prompted by what you observe.
Love or hate coffee? Tell us why.
COFFEE TIME
by John Yeo
I was taking tea with Margaret, who was having coffee with me. We were seated in a third-floor restaurant in the city on two comfortable easy chairs overlooking a very busy main road. This comfortable, quite busy restaurant was above one of our favourite stores. There is a row of six comfortable leather settees with cushions and tables with easy chairs to match, arranged along the windows .The main seating area has simple wooden furniture and we were lucky to have secured our chairs with a view.
We had just completed our shopping and we were relaxing, watching the world go by, both inside and outside this busy eatery. It was just prior to the midday lunchtime and the clientele, mainly made up of retired people and mothers with young children were socialising and conversing while they enjoyed a selection of beverages and food.
There is a free public internet connection here and although it is somewhat unreliable and sporadic I was able to gain access.
I logged onto my social media page to find the following series of comments on a Writing 101 post I had posted earlier.....
(1) ~ MY FRIEND~"Here's some advice. Write about something that frightens you to your core. Write about something that makes you so sad you feel suicidal. Write about something so optimistic that even conceiving of it makes you look ridiculous. Write about people you love in a way that's honest. Be painfully honest. Write about something that you think will bore other people, but that absorbs you completely. Write about sex with a loved one. Write about your jealousy, or your enviousness. Write about your cowardice. Write about people you hate. Write the stories of other people. Steal them. A good writer is a loving, heart-feeling, lying, unscrupulous conniving scheming, retiring bastard."
(2) ~MY FRIEND ~ "I think that these courses are parlour games. They don't teach writing to an adult. What they teach, and how they teach it, is for semi-illiterate teenagers."
(3) ~ MY FRIEND ~ "But that's just my view, John."
~~~~~~~~~
My response to this is as follows .....
MY FRIEND, If I were having coffee with you I would have to thank you very much for your advice, some of which I find very good and very appealing. The first and most interesting section of your comment reveals much about you as a writer? and a person. The first three sentences although worded in an extreme sensationalist way are really quite appealing. I am aware that to hold the interest of a reader in some cases sensationalism is a must, I do feel however that one should strike a balance and allow for the calm ordinary placid side of life to intrude.
MY FRIEND, If I were having coffee with you, I would avoid confrontation and I would have to point out that my writing is honest when it refers to my personal relationships without the need to publicise our sex life to the reading general public.
I find the last few sentences incredible and I have known you for a number of years through the medium of the social media, I do read your frequent posts and I have yet to detect some of these aspects in your writing.
MY FRIEND, If I were having coffee with you, I would have to take issue with your second comment and confess in a purely non-confrontational way that I find the implication behind this remark really rather insulting. These are not exactly courses in the accepted sense but a very good way of engaging with other people and indulging in some writing practice. I have yet to meet anyone who is semi-illiterate taking part in this or any other writing medium that I have enjoyed taking part in.
MY FRIEND, If I were having coffee with you, I would have to shake hands with you and point out that I admire a person who doesn't just hold a view but is not ashamed to spill it out even if, and I quote you here......
"A good writer is a loving, heart-feeling, lying, unscrupulous conniving scheming, retiring bastard."
But that's just my view, MY FRIEND ~
Copyright (c) Written by John Yeo ~ All rights reserved.
A VIRTUAL COFFEE DATE
It's a simple idea, but offers a bit more structure to your post — and is a lot more fun. So today, write an update post in the form of a virtual coffee date.
If this post isn't fitting for your blog, or just not your style, here's your alternative: use a coffee shop as your inspiration.
Set your poem or short story in a cafe.
Go to your neighbourhood spot with your laptop or notebook and free-write for 20 minutes, prompted by what you observe.
Love or hate coffee? Tell us why.
COFFEE TIME
by John Yeo
I was taking tea with Margaret, who was having coffee with me. We were seated in a third-floor restaurant in the city on two comfortable easy chairs overlooking a very busy main road. This comfortable, quite busy restaurant was above one of our favourite stores. There is a row of six comfortable leather settees with cushions and tables with easy chairs to match, arranged along the windows .The main seating area has simple wooden furniture and we were lucky to have secured our chairs with a view.
We had just completed our shopping and we were relaxing, watching the world go by, both inside and outside this busy eatery. It was just prior to the midday lunchtime and the clientele, mainly made up of retired people and mothers with young children were socialising and conversing while they enjoyed a selection of beverages and food.
There is a free public internet connection here and although it is somewhat unreliable and sporadic I was able to gain access.
I logged onto my social media page to find the following series of comments on a Writing 101 post I had posted earlier.....
(1) ~ MY FRIEND~"Here's some advice. Write about something that frightens you to your core. Write about something that makes you so sad you feel suicidal. Write about something so optimistic that even conceiving of it makes you look ridiculous. Write about people you love in a way that's honest. Be painfully honest. Write about something that you think will bore other people, but that absorbs you completely. Write about sex with a loved one. Write about your jealousy, or your enviousness. Write about your cowardice. Write about people you hate. Write the stories of other people. Steal them. A good writer is a loving, heart-feeling, lying, unscrupulous conniving scheming, retiring bastard."
(2) ~MY FRIEND ~ "I think that these courses are parlour games. They don't teach writing to an adult. What they teach, and how they teach it, is for semi-illiterate teenagers."
(3) ~ MY FRIEND ~ "But that's just my view, John."
~~~~~~~~~
My response to this is as follows .....
MY FRIEND, If I were having coffee with you I would have to thank you very much for your advice, some of which I find very good and very appealing. The first and most interesting section of your comment reveals much about you as a writer? and a person. The first three sentences although worded in an extreme sensationalist way are really quite appealing. I am aware that to hold the interest of a reader in some cases sensationalism is a must, I do feel however that one should strike a balance and allow for the calm ordinary placid side of life to intrude.
MY FRIEND, If I were having coffee with you, I would avoid confrontation and I would have to point out that my writing is honest when it refers to my personal relationships without the need to publicise our sex life to the reading general public.
I find the last few sentences incredible and I have known you for a number of years through the medium of the social media, I do read your frequent posts and I have yet to detect some of these aspects in your writing.
MY FRIEND, If I were having coffee with you, I would have to take issue with your second comment and confess in a purely non-confrontational way that I find the implication behind this remark really rather insulting. These are not exactly courses in the accepted sense but a very good way of engaging with other people and indulging in some writing practice. I have yet to meet anyone who is semi-illiterate taking part in this or any other writing medium that I have enjoyed taking part in.
MY FRIEND, If I were having coffee with you, I would have to shake hands with you and point out that I admire a person who doesn't just hold a view but is not ashamed to spill it out even if, and I quote you here......
"A good writer is a loving, heart-feeling, lying, unscrupulous conniving scheming, retiring bastard."
But that's just my view, MY FRIEND ~
Copyright (c) Written by John Yeo ~ All rights reserved.
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