Barbara J. Hamby

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Poor Writing = Poor Reading Duh!

Since writing became my major late life interest, I read with much more difficulty and occasionally with less pleasure. I see many flaws in others’ writing, as well as my own. This morning I read a story in an online magazine, a pretty good story, but several flaws jumped out to distract me. In a relatively short piece, the writer spoke from inside the heads of all three characters, a no-no according to my mentors. A writer must always consider point-of-view.

Bestsellers are the worst. It amazes me how poorly written some are. In bygone days, now gone forever I fear, I could nonchalantly skip over errors unnoticed. Sad, in a way, but I force myself to read the bad books and stories as a lesson to myself: how not to write.

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Preparations for our Asian cruise are progressing--slowly and painfully. This afternoon we sent our passports and the paperwork to apply for a visa to China by Federal Express to a visa servicing company in San Francisco. We have to trust that the passports and the visas will get back to us safely in time for our departure. The amount of paperwork and information required for visas to spend just a few days in China was daunting, but we hope we got it all together correctly.