John Hattaway

Well, it is officially Tuesday morning and since I rarely (these days) go to bed before midnight, and often well after, I have now seen Tuesday from a couple of different angles. Which, as everyone clearly knows, is absolutely imperative to having a clear and guided notion of what is going on in the world, life, and etc. With that said, Erin got to watch me leap out of bed late last night, over her, throwing the blankets and sheets off the bed, and racing out of the room when I heard a rather loud bang take place. First to babies room (Erin behind me) and then the rest of the house (Erin in babies room). A magnetic whiteboard/calendar we’d purchased fell off the refrigerator. I was almost immediately reminded of a couple of experiences in New Hampshire where instead of running or moving away from rather potential danger, I put myself between the danger and the individual I was with. In one instance it was, ostensibly, a large animal trying to scare us off; in another instance it was a truck that was driving erratically and far to fast for conditions and speed limit and area. In both cases, the individual I was with was moved out of the path and I placed myself in the immediate path, though with the ability to move out of the way if necessary. In the instance with the truck on the road in the nighttime (they were both at night, actually), I called the police after the man attempted to appologize for nearly killing us. Since I had his license plate number I called 911… as far as I know they never did anything about it even though Iw as assured that a police officer would be calling me about the incident. Honestly, since it’s been over three or four years since that happened and I’ve changed my phone number at least three times since then, I don’t think I am every going to get that phone call.

With that said, I had my American Lit since 1960 class this morning. I think, honestly, that people intentionally miss the nuance keys that authors place into stories and intentionally choose to be dense when it comes to what is actually happening. More, I think we often mis-represent and mis-understand what the elements of a story are confusing a story that might contain religious elements with a religiously centric story. Rather than discussing a short story that is by a Jewish author and, reasonably, covers a Jewish boy asking questions of his Rabbi as a story about a boy who is asking questions of an authority figure AND they happen to be Jewish we confuse that with a story about a group of people who are Jewish and one of them has a lot of questions he wants or needs answers to. And yes, I am being particularly nuanced in this area as I believe that there is a signficant and important different between telling a story and having it contain a certain kind of person or telling a story about a certain kind of person and having it contain specific elements. In truth, when discussing literature, talk should encompass more of the former and less of the latter; though the latter is informative when discussing author influence and what was intended by said author for the audience. It is important, in a story where you have the and they happen to be Jewish as an element in part because the author is drawing your attention to the nature of (in the case of the discussion) the kinds of questions coupled with the kinds of answers and the disparity between existing questions and the answers one might expect to hear in a given situation as opposed to the answers one might want.

Which leads to: Just because you are asking a question does not mean the person answering the question has to give you the answer you want.

And: Just because you may not be comfortable answering a question does not mean you have the right or lack the responsibility to answer the question in a way that is satisfactory to the person asking.

Fiction is meant to entertain, first, and inform second. Informing should be on the human condition, in some form or fashion, and by informing an audience should be given opportunities to see how things might be different if they are willing to look; but that same audience should walk away from the experience feeling they were entertained in some way. Not all fiction entertains all people in the same way. Because this is true, we have different kinds of fiction from general and literature to Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and others (Cowboy or Western and more). Each genre appeal to a different group; though, when an author does the job or writing well, singular pieces can transcend genre boundaries and end up becoming more than was realized. Regardless of case, fiction is first to entertain.

As I am talking about writing and fiction, and as I am in this mode, I am thinking that I may be taking “In Order to Write” (all of the domains), copying the posts, and adding them to johnhattaway.com and forwarding inordertowrite.com, inordertowrite.net, and inordertowrite.org to point here rather than to have a separate address. I am working on a new page (for this website) that will explain some of the personal logic used. However, the process does require some effort and it is that effort I need to work through before I leap into the process of making the change.

Real Heroes Fly