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Most of the feedback I get from people who like my fanfic talks about my habit of writing in detail. I know this is a good and a bad thing but what the fuck. It's how I write. But I'm not sure how many people realize that I maybe... I'm not sure, assimilated? Emulated? Some other "ed" ending word? I dunno, but I learned of that writing style from the same guy who I took my fanfic penname from, Theodore Dreiser, the author of my favorite book An American Tragedy.
I recommend that book to everyone just because it's such a fucking inspired piece of characterization. You go from the start to end of the main character's life and he does the most... just horrible things but because you KNOW him so well due to Theodore Dreiser's writing style you sympathize with him. I just loved that. The fact that you could write a person doing truly bad things but understand why he did them because of how it was written. I hate to say I've stolen Theodore Dreiser's style of writing but he fucking inspired my own puny style. Hopefully. I could be stealing from a great goddamn writer which makes me cringe and sort of hate myself but whatever. Here's a truly kick ass excerpt about his writing style and pretty much explains why I feel so connected with it:
Theodore Dreiser's style is marked by long sentences and intense attention to detail. Since his works deal with social status and the pursuit of material goods and pleasures, this level of realism and description services his theme; on the other hand, it can make many of his works, particularly Sister Carrie, difficult for some. It should be noted that Theodore Dreiser is not well-regarded for his style, but for the realism of his work, character development, and his points of view on American life. Still, he is known to have had an enormous influence on the generation that followed his.
That's such a perfect description of his style of writing and the traits I try to emulate. Fucking details and fucking intense characterization. I don't think a story can be really powerful unless you let the readers see very clearly in their minds eye what is happening to the character and then make them understand and to go further, care, about what is happening because of how you've written the character. Making the readers see that character and then able to understand and then to care about them is best accomplishment you can achieve in writing fiction, I think.
I still read An American Tragedy around once a year. I'm not someone who really enjoys books from the early 1900's and this book was written in 1925 but something about this book just fucking grabbed me. Probably because the first time I read this I was fourteen years old, very aware I was a lesbian, and living in a fairly devote household in terms of Catholicism. I say fairly because my father is a hardcore Catholic and my mother is a Lutheran who didn't convert and doesn't even attend Lutheran services. A lot is said about the Catholic faith but I always sort of felt guilted or obliged into doing everything my dad wanted in terms of the religion sand I was never properly...
Perhaps educated about Jesus and religion and blah blah. An American Tragedy starts off with Clyde as a young boy and feeling very much in the same situation because of his missionary parents. I'm going to link the eReader page for the book and you can read for yourself and maybe decide if this book is worth your time. It has certainly been worth my time on each reading. But I'm a dork who takes shite way too seriously for her own good at times. I have truly liberal art douchey tendencies at times. lol. Sucketh.
http://www.ereader.com/product/book/excerpt/6986?book=An_American_Tragedy
I'm leaving my retail job in a month or so and everyone I work with there is female and super nice but I just don't feel comfortable there and pretty much exist in this feeling of perpetual ineptitude when I'm on the clock. I have no idea why this is but I know finally why I don't fit in there and never would. And it's simply because as nice and sincere and sweet as my coworkers are whenever a customer walks into the store their voices change.
Not something huge like they go from sounding like Kelly Clarkson to Marilyn Manson but just this shift into a pitch that's higher and overly enthusiastic and it's just... super fake. I know this is something the company taught them because it's what they taught me but honestly? I think in the game of customer service it's best to be yourself. How can you expect people to listen to you and your advice in whatever they're seeking if they think you're playing some sort of fucking part? I know they're not playing a part or pretending to be nice and helpful because I know for a fact they are. But the fact their voices change just sort of signals a weird atmosphere of deception that I really don't enjoy. Plus I hate it when people fucking act one way but feel another. It's lame.
So anyway, that's my big epiphany about why I didn't fit in at Things Remembered. I'm glad I'm not going to be there much longer because the District Manager has gone insane and has openly decreed that any Manager who doesn't make sales goals, even if they make Reward Card or Engraving goals which proves they're giving great customer service, will get one warning and then they'll be fired. He threatened my immediate Manager with this first which is fucking bullshit. The woman is running TWO stores for him! Two! He said that if she can't make sales goals he'll demote her to an Assistant Manager because she obviously isn't Manager material. Yeah, I really think an ASM is capable of running two fucking stores at the same time for three months.
I start at my law firm tomorrow and I couldn't be happier. I'm way nervous though since this is the first "professional" and degree related job I've ever had. I'm sure I'll get over that fairly quickly but I remain nervous right now and suffering from some insomnia. I think I'm going to go take some of my sleeping pills and despite my dislike for Rosie O'Donnell watch All Aboard! Rosie's Family Cruise with my mother. My friends who don't like Rosie as well have said it's a way sweet and entertaining movie. Plus I dig documentaries. I'm weird that way.
I recommend that book to everyone just because it's such a fucking inspired piece of characterization. You go from the start to end of the main character's life and he does the most... just horrible things but because you KNOW him so well due to Theodore Dreiser's writing style you sympathize with him. I just loved that. The fact that you could write a person doing truly bad things but understand why he did them because of how it was written. I hate to say I've stolen Theodore Dreiser's style of writing but he fucking inspired my own puny style. Hopefully. I could be stealing from a great goddamn writer which makes me cringe and sort of hate myself but whatever. Here's a truly kick ass excerpt about his writing style and pretty much explains why I feel so connected with it:
Theodore Dreiser's style is marked by long sentences and intense attention to detail. Since his works deal with social status and the pursuit of material goods and pleasures, this level of realism and description services his theme; on the other hand, it can make many of his works, particularly Sister Carrie, difficult for some. It should be noted that Theodore Dreiser is not well-regarded for his style, but for the realism of his work, character development, and his points of view on American life. Still, he is known to have had an enormous influence on the generation that followed his.
That's such a perfect description of his style of writing and the traits I try to emulate. Fucking details and fucking intense characterization. I don't think a story can be really powerful unless you let the readers see very clearly in their minds eye what is happening to the character and then make them understand and to go further, care, about what is happening because of how you've written the character. Making the readers see that character and then able to understand and then to care about them is best accomplishment you can achieve in writing fiction, I think.
I still read An American Tragedy around once a year. I'm not someone who really enjoys books from the early 1900's and this book was written in 1925 but something about this book just fucking grabbed me. Probably because the first time I read this I was fourteen years old, very aware I was a lesbian, and living in a fairly devote household in terms of Catholicism. I say fairly because my father is a hardcore Catholic and my mother is a Lutheran who didn't convert and doesn't even attend Lutheran services. A lot is said about the Catholic faith but I always sort of felt guilted or obliged into doing everything my dad wanted in terms of the religion sand I was never properly...
Perhaps educated about Jesus and religion and blah blah. An American Tragedy starts off with Clyde as a young boy and feeling very much in the same situation because of his missionary parents. I'm going to link the eReader page for the book and you can read for yourself and maybe decide if this book is worth your time. It has certainly been worth my time on each reading. But I'm a dork who takes shite way too seriously for her own good at times. I have truly liberal art douchey tendencies at times. lol. Sucketh.
http://www.ereader.com/product/book/excerpt/6986?book=An_American_Tragedy
I'm leaving my retail job in a month or so and everyone I work with there is female and super nice but I just don't feel comfortable there and pretty much exist in this feeling of perpetual ineptitude when I'm on the clock. I have no idea why this is but I know finally why I don't fit in there and never would. And it's simply because as nice and sincere and sweet as my coworkers are whenever a customer walks into the store their voices change.
Not something huge like they go from sounding like Kelly Clarkson to Marilyn Manson but just this shift into a pitch that's higher and overly enthusiastic and it's just... super fake. I know this is something the company taught them because it's what they taught me but honestly? I think in the game of customer service it's best to be yourself. How can you expect people to listen to you and your advice in whatever they're seeking if they think you're playing some sort of fucking part? I know they're not playing a part or pretending to be nice and helpful because I know for a fact they are. But the fact their voices change just sort of signals a weird atmosphere of deception that I really don't enjoy. Plus I hate it when people fucking act one way but feel another. It's lame.
So anyway, that's my big epiphany about why I didn't fit in at Things Remembered. I'm glad I'm not going to be there much longer because the District Manager has gone insane and has openly decreed that any Manager who doesn't make sales goals, even if they make Reward Card or Engraving goals which proves they're giving great customer service, will get one warning and then they'll be fired. He threatened my immediate Manager with this first which is fucking bullshit. The woman is running TWO stores for him! Two! He said that if she can't make sales goals he'll demote her to an Assistant Manager because she obviously isn't Manager material. Yeah, I really think an ASM is capable of running two fucking stores at the same time for three months.
I start at my law firm tomorrow and I couldn't be happier. I'm way nervous though since this is the first "professional" and degree related job I've ever had. I'm sure I'll get over that fairly quickly but I remain nervous right now and suffering from some insomnia. I think I'm going to go take some of my sleeping pills and despite my dislike for Rosie O'Donnell watch All Aboard! Rosie's Family Cruise with my mother. My friends who don't like Rosie as well have said it's a way sweet and entertaining movie. Plus I dig documentaries. I'm weird that way.
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