12.18.08
Posted in Harry Darrow at 5:43 pm by Fiona
It’s been a year since one of our brightest lights extinguished. Harry Silverglat Darrow left this world far to early. As Hillary Clinton taught us, it takes a village to raise a child. Well, I’d like to call upon the village to help me with a project. Harry’s daughter, Tess, was only 5 years old when her father died. She will not get the benefit of knowing the many sides of her Dad, but she could if we all would share with her the Harry we knew.
Over the next year, I’d like to put together a book of our collective memories of Harry Silverglat Darrow. I’m looking for photos, artwork, and especially stories to share with Tess so she will have a permanent record what a wonderful guy her dad was. I will compile all of these into a beautiful hard bound book that she will be able to read whenever she wants to feel close to her Dad. I’m hoping for participation from classmates at Shawnee Mission East High School, Carnegie-Mellon, Kansas University, Hudson Scenic, Wolfe Productions, any of the various film companies where Harry Art Directed, and friends.
If you have anything to contribute, please email me or comment here on my blog and I’ll contact you via return email. Please pass this on to others who might have something to contribute!
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12.06.08
Posted in grannie's sayings, Writing at 5:17 pm by Fiona
My grannie had a magnificent collection of proverbial sayings stored in her head. When I was little, it was like having my very own Chatty Confucius talking doll. I’d do something misguided and it was like pulling her string because out would come one of these sayings. One of these sayings that I heard often was “you only get one chance to make a good first impression”. It wasn’t that my grannie was obsessed with what other people thought as much as she was obsessed with living up to her own standards of being the best that she could be. She would have made a great Marine!
It’s because of this saying from grannie that I am often shocked and amazed by some people who claim they want to be writers. I mean, really! Are these people serious? I see them in writing classes all the time. The ones who don’t know the difference between there, they’re and their, or just don’t care enough to worry about using the right spelling. They seem to think that some editor is going to rescue their poor spelling and word usage. Well I have news for them! They won’t even make it out of the review pile. Why should they when there are so many other writers who have taken the care to put their best foot forward?
I’m currently taking Terry Spears’ Happy Hookers online class and one of my fellow students wrote this sentence in one of her assignments:
The piece you typed is from the beginning of the first chapter, so not really your first impression as their is a prologue.
How ironic that this person is actually writing about first impressions, isn’t it? If I were reviewing manuscripts for a publisher and encountered this, it would go straight into the rejection pile with a pithy note “learn to spell”.
My grannie felt that being sloppy when it wasn’t important only guaranteed you would err sometime when it was important. I have to agree with grannie.
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