• Home
  • About Me
  • Blog
  • Link to Me
  • Contact & Comments

Category Archives: Editorial Commentary

WRITERS AND SANTA

Posted on December 20, 2019 by writ7707 Posted in Uncategorized 5 Comments

WRITERS AND SANTA

Writing Practice and Finding your Muse

December 15, 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Writers,

Here are parts of something I wrote a few years ago. I felt it strongly then. But now I feel it even more deeply than ever.

I wrote:

Don’t give up on Santa quite yet! He doesn’t just disappear on December 25th.

Santa can be anywhere. He is in a gift from someone who picked it out for you knowing exactly why you would love it. My sister gave me a book on the history of the ballet. I’m a dancer. That book will be on my night table where I will get lost in my magical world of dance for many months to come.

You may be awestruck by the bright twinkling milky way in a dark silky sky. Your eyes open wide. The person with you sees your starlit gaze and is taken by the infinite dots of light even more. He then passes on the moment to someone else. I think that’s how Santa works.

Hey Santa Claus, I’m so grateful you hang around all year. You are my muse. Let’s not ignore him writers. He’s there for us.

And now it’s Christmas time 2019 and I take such comfort from those long Santa hugs in the middle of chaos.

Happy 2019 and love to your writing from Maggie and me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m so excited to announce that my children’s middle-grade book (ages 8 to 11) had its debut on November 1, 2019.

Visit Maggie and her magical Grammy Apple at www.witchymagicandme.com to find out secrets about Nantucket and Maggie’s magical dog, Blissful.

 

 

 

 

THE EDITORIAL COMMENTARY

Posted on June 28, 2012 by writ7707 Posted in Uncategorized Leave a comment

To my email subscribers.  Click on AN EDITORIAL COMMENTARY above for full post, links—and color.

 

Playing Around With A Story Line in Different Literary Genres

 Writing Leap #5    An Editorial Commentary

 

Hi Writers,

Did you ever hear or see something on the news that struck you as particularly horrible, funny or sad?

 If it’s sad, like the event below, I find that writing about it helps me to think about it. 

 A commentary is an opinion about an event that reveals the writer’s feelings about the situation.   A foray into journalism.  Readers may respond to the details as well as the common human experience the piece may portray.

 

Story Line

 

Sometimes Love Hesitates (And Sometimes it Doesn’t)

 

I’m going to play loose with the story line.  In this case I’m interpreting the word love as empathy.

 

***

 

My Commentary

 

         Matt Lauer of NBC has seen many shocking and distressing film clips.  Hardly any have aggrieved him more, he said, than watching a grandmother on a school bus attempt to ignore vicious taunts from twelve-year-olds. 

         The bullying incident upset a lot of us.  I watched the clip and felt sick.

         What was she feeling?  The cruelties were coming at her like bullets. 

         “You’re so fat.”

         “You’re so fat you don’t fit in the seat.”

         “Put your glasses back on.  Cover your ugly face.”

         Did these boys know that her son had committed suicide when one yelled out, “Your family should kill themselves so they don’t have to be around you.”

         She started crying.  The boys pulled at her hair and poked her.

         In the next couple of weeks the outpouring of compassion for this grandmother overwhelmed her, she said.  People responded.  Many sent money.  An airline offered to send her and nine friends or family members to Disney World.

         Perhaps the humanitarian response was more than compassion.  Perhaps it was empathy.  We are her.  Could this woman’s experience have touched raw feelings of our own humiliations at the hands of others?  Or moments of shame when we might have said something unkind?

        

         The outpouring of compassion helped her, the woman said.  But what did this incident really do to her perception of herself? 

 ****

How about you?  Do you write down your reactions/thoughts on news stories that have touched you?  Do you send letters to newspaper editors?   Or comment online?  Go for it!  You know you have a lot to say, even if you think you don’t.  You have feelings and reactions, right?   So you have a lot to say.

Warmly,

LINKING THE ARTS

A Favorite Columnist

 Maureen Dowd, Op-Ed Columnist for The New York Times, won a Pulitzer for Editorial Commentary in 1999. 

She has a razor pen and a kind heart.   She is mistress of the metaphor and plays on words.  Maureen Dowd makes me cringe sometimes but she always puts ideas in my head.  Plus she makes me laugh.

 www.nytimes.com/archives/maureendowd

 A Powerful Word

 Bully

         A person who torments weaker people.

        These days we are all more aware of the prevalence and harmful effects of bullying.   Many schools have created consciousness-raising classes to educate bullyers and victims alike about the dynamic of bullying.  About time.

 

A Favorite Painting

Willem de Kooning

I think of empathy when I look at this painting.  Maybe it’s the warm yellow colors.

Follow Me

Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket

Recent Posts

  • WRITING ABOUT OUR ANCESTORS
  • WRITERS AND ACTUALLY WRITING
  • WRITERS AND OUR LEGACY
  • WRITERS AND SANTA
  • WRITERS AND BOOK PUBLISHING

Subscribe to theNewsletter

Latest Tweets

Tweets by @writingCMW

Archives

  • Home
  • About Me
  • Blog
  • Link to Me
  • Contact & Comments
© Writing Like a Dancer