Thursday, May 29, 2014

JUST WORDS: Communication vs. Information

When I was doing a graduate degree in speech communication, I had a professor who said, “It is not that you must be so clear that you can be understood. You must be so clear you cannot be misunderstood.”

On 5-28-14 I posted a poem in CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

One commenter said in response to it: “It is good that she is gone. Your disdain for her is palpable.”

So that you don’t have to look it up to see why he said that, here is the poem:

You don’t need to tell me that I should be happy
for her, I am,
the little ingrate, going off
to college, to live her own
life, without me, the one
who has let her hug me anytime,
as much as she wanted, the one
who trusts her for information
about the current age, in which I live,
but which does not live in me,
I, who have let her fix my computer
whenever it has descended
into digital hell, in HD, yet,
I who have never dropped
a telephone into the toilet,
for it is only her generation
that drops phones into the toilet
from the hip pockets of their jeans,
I who screamed only once, maybe twice,
but not really all that loudly,
even though people in Norway
complained, as she practiced
driving in my new car,
so stop telling me, dammit,
that I should be happy
for her.
I am.

One immediate response is: The reader totally misunderstood. The poem is clearly not about disdain but love, someone who is happy for the girl that she gets to live her life, but sad that she will no longer be in his, at least not in their former ways.

Another response is: The writer clearly failed in his attempt, because he was not so clear that he could not be misunderstood.

Neither response is quite right, because they treat the poem as information, not communication.

My professor’s dictum is useful if giving information. You need to state the “when, where, why, who, and sometimes how” with total accuracy. Even then, of course, some folks won’t read/hear it correctly, but at least the writer/speaker is not at fault.

But writing in the poetry, fiction, spiritual, and dramatic veins are not primarily information. They are relational. There is a great difference between information and communication, the participation in community that non-information types of writing, such as poetry, invoke.

That is why it is important for writers to put a character into the story who is a stand-in for the reader, someone who represents the reader’s interests. Books I give up on are those where no character is voicing my concerns, so that I can be in the community of the book.

John Robert McFarland

In case you missed it, a Tweet Repeat: Not all compulsions are bad. There is a great difference between a compulsion to help and a compulsion to hurt.

I tweet as yooper1721.
                    
My novel, VETS, will be published by Black Opal Books in late 2014 or early 2015.

MY OTHER BOOKS:

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

AN ORDINARY MAN [HarperPaperbacks] Randall MacLane just wanted to be an ordinary man. But sent with a message for Custer, he became a drifting lawman with a knack for killing, and a deep well of loneliness. Then a twist of fate brought him full circle…

THE STRANGE CALLING: Stories of Ministry [Smyth&Helwys] I didn’t want to be a preacher, but I made a deal with God to save my sister’s life. Was that really a “call,” though? I said, “I’ll try t for 50 years, and if I still don’t know, I’ll do something else.” These are stories of what happened in those years of questioning the call.

WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL and Other Stories of Christmas [lulu.com] ISBN 978-1-300-38566-0

If you like baseball poetry, take a look at “Frosty & the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml



Tuesday, May 27, 2014

JUST WORDS: Poetry & Vulnerability

 The second thing I do each morning is to write a poem. [The first think is to start the coffee.] The goal is not to turn out great poetry, [and I always reach that goal,] but to get the day’s words started. Here is the poem for 3-16-14, which I posted in Christ In Winter:

It Will Not Be in the Morning

It will not be in the morning when I rise
Nor will that be the time I fly away
But when the night is dark and deep
that time of staring but not seeing
as in a stand of rooted pines
I shall slip away
between tall trees
A new-born fawn will see me go

I’m re-posting because I’m feeling rather vulnerable right now. A new-born fawn was in our back yard yesterday morning and was back this morning, tiny and wobbly, trailing its mother.

John Robert McFarland

I decided to re-title this blog to JUST WORDS, but so far, Blogger won’t let me edit the title, even though it claims that is a possibility. We’ll see…

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

In case you missed it, a Tweet Repeat: I have learned the unforgettable truth four times.

I tweet as yooper1721.
                    
My novel, VETS, will be published by Black Opal Books in late 2014 or early 2015.


MY OTHER BOOKS:

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

AN ORDINARY MAN [HarperPaperbacks] Randall MacLane just wanted to be an ordinary man. But sent with a message for Custer, he became a drifting lawman with a knack for killing, and a deep well of loneliness. Then a twist of fate brought him full circle…

THE STRANGE CALLING: Stories of Ministry [Smyth&Helwys] I didn’t want to be a preacher, but I made a deal with God to save my sister’s life. Was that really a “call,” though? I said, “I’ll try t for 50 years, and if I still don’t know, I’ll do something else.” These are stories of what happened in those years of questioning the call.

WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL and Other Stories of Christmas [lulu.com] ISBN 978-1-300-38566-0

If you like baseball poetry, take a look at “Frosty & the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml




Thursday, May 22, 2014

WORDS ARE ENOUGH


I know what I’ll do: I’ll trust the words, and the readers, to read and understand the words.

After all, this is an author’s blog, words about words. I’ll not do anything fancy, have different pages for different subjects, arresting pictures, streaming whatevers. The fact that I do not know how to do any of those has nothing to do with this decision to use words alone.

They used to say that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but if I can’t say it in words so that you can see it, I’m not an author. Besides, in these days of photo-shopping, a picture is more likely to be a thousand lies.

So here’s a toast, with raspberry jam on it, to the words, and to you.

John Robert McFarland


I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Trying to Start an Author Blog

Well, it's time for me to have an author blog, according to Black Opal Books, which will bring out my novel, VETS, in late 2014 or early 2015. I suppose if you Google John Robert McFarland, you might also get another of my blogs, Christ In Winter. That's okay.

The problem is this: I am a writer, and I don't know how to do anything but write. I look at blogspot blogs by others, like Mary Larson Child's Portwing Passages, and there are all sorts of neat pictures and stuff. I don't know how she does that.

Also, Jane Friedman says that writer blogs should have separate pages for bio, etc. For the moment, just assume that I have a past. Maybe I'll learn how to make a page that details it some day.

In the meantime, you could take a look at NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them. It's published by AndrewsMcMeel and HarperAudio and there are Czech and Japanese translations. Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CansurMount called it "The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever."

Or THE STRANGE CALLING, or AN ORDINARY MAN...

Or you might look at the Baseball Almanac site for my poem, Frosty and the Babe, about Robert Frost pitching to Babe Ruth. It was written for and read at the 100 year anniversary of the birth of the Babe, at Hofstra U. There is a bunch of my other stuff wandering around on the web.

My writing is eclectic. I never know what will happen when I sit down at the computer.

Please be patient. Maybe I'll figure out how to make this page more than "just" words.

JRMcF