The First Dance - Junior Prom

This image indicates a junior prom in 2011. Mine was in 1962. That makes me somewhat elderly I suppose.

I have been a dancer all life long, even on stage a bit as an amateur in musicals. I love every part of dancing and especially the chance to handle the female form in unusual ways. You get to throw them around and instructors teach you how to do that with artistry and grace. I cannot tell you how fond of that I have been.

Once my heart opened, music moved right along. That didn't happen fully until middle age. But first I was into choral singing (baritone) in high school, then self taught guitar and in middle age, the keyboard and a return to choral singing.

I have become a competent writer too. I was schooled well enough that the engineers I worked for saw my skill. They used me because writing was essential to engineering in my neck of the woods. Engineers pretend not to care about writing and composition until the job needs a polished product. Then if they can't cut and paste good former word assemblies they get a guy like me to do the creative part.

We are called technical writers when writing is exclusively the job, but I was an engineering designer. Engineering presentations are wicked training because they teach a person that creative writing is always at some point what I call word smithing - building the presentation. There is a required form of some kind, however loose.

Learning to recognize that one's writing contains the error of broken form and also to let loose enough of one's own work to truly edit it are both essential skills. A writer worth getting a professional chance must have these skills at a sufficient level.

You just cannot expect the boss to take up the fundamental slack. If he has to get that involved then he doesn't need you. She, maybe. That an editor will do it is a myth created by novelists for their stories. Only specialists in some arcane field or other can get away with abysmal preliminary editing of a project.

The larger word collections, like a novel as an example, are even more demanding in this way, not less. That's because the truly professional wordsmith must lead the reader through dense complexities and make them seem easy while doing so. That is what a good form enhances.

Do you think this applies to poetry even more? No shit, Sherlock. Do you think some poets may have no clue? *Sigh*

The First Dance

I can't believe
I had the guts to ask you
out, let alone dance
with you as if I
knew how, me faking my moves
and dripping my sweat
between my wide eyes
as I stare at you, drink you
in as you move like
all that's beautiful.

January 7, 2011 9:15 AM