|
Letters to the Editor strike many readers as one of the best sections of a magazine or newspaper. Read below to see this month's Letters to Humdinger's Editor-in-Chief, Chris Goebel. Submit your own Letter to the Editor by clicking here. I will now respond to letters in my blog. |
|
03/17/06 Chris, The love and nurturing of writers shows itself in every Humdinger. This investment in the publishing of engaging and entertaining forms of various prose and poetry is greatly wanting in our present times. Your purposeful pen to paper,that both inspires and showcases the writers in Humdinger, is deserving of much praise. Kudos, Bill Perryman From the Editor: Bill, I'm thankful you mentioned "nurturing," because that's one of Humdinger's greatest goals. Your letter is exactly the type of thing to inspire our continued investment in tomorrow's future writers. That, and delightful offerings from writers such as yourself :) Pen to Paper~ Chris 12/09/05 Writer Slams Humdinger’s Website what a mess. the site is ugly to look at and no fun to navigate. i cringe at the thought of your going to print for fear of its visual impact. you can make it be about the words all you want, but in the end words need eyes and eyes need to be rewarded as much as hearts and minds. best of luck. i'll check back in 6 months and see what's what. peter liddle Editor Chris Goebel Responds: Peter, Thank you a million times for your honest appraisal of Humdinger’s website! Long ago, I learned the value of an honest critique. I looked back at the sight and realized that some of the graphics, particularly the flashing words, made the Humdinger website look like an experiment. So, I removed the flashing words and restored most text to black. Then, I realized that the links needed reworking. Finally, Website Wizard, awesome as it is, allowed me to change the background pages for Humdinger with a few clicks. So, Peter, how can I thank you enough? Suffer as you did to view the ‘Zine, you cared enough about a stranger to type in a few words. What a holiday present! Pen to Paper~ Chris 11/08/05 From one of the poets published in November's Humdinger: I just got a chance to check out the Humdinger site for November and all I can say is, thank you! I greatly appreciate your write-up about my work, Chris. I am confident that your readers will also appreciate the personal touch you put into your site. I also liked the new photos you posted and in your work specifically, which is perhaps more outspoken than mine, I could not agree more with the lines, "Even I should thank the Sun for the Shine,/when God knows 11/02/05 From a reader, but since it was not addressed for the public, I will let him remain nameless: On a side note, is this only an ezine or are there actually printed materials involved? Editor Chris Goebel's response: For now, Humdinger is only an E-zine (an electronic publication), BUT just today, I began examining options for bringing Humdinger into a printed form. If you saw the November Edition, all of its pages combined are longer than most printed Literary Magazines! So, expect to see Humdinger go into print within five or six months, but I hope sooner. 10/25/05 War! Stephen Nichols responds back to Mark Blickley AND Blickley responds. Take cover! Chris, My oh my! Blix wrote: "Thank you Chris for trying to cover for me, but the truth is I spent the better part of three years trimming and primping my tale of existential angst concerning eyesight lost but vision gained--yet I must say the redeeming aspect of Nickels' review that made me proud was that an adult who dedicates his life to video games did not have his eyesite affected by the optic strain normally associated with computer screen technology, but by my very own words!" 82 words in one sentence?! My rule of thumb is this: Any sentence that can't be said with a non-Herculean breath shouldn't be written. :) steve Editor Chris Goebel's response: Steve, I'm afraid to type now that someone might tally my word count . . . Seriously, I'm considering this literary argument and debating with myself . . . ah, I do hate some longies, but I love so many. My current concern is with the modern audience. As Tolstoy discovered late in life, a writer should appeal to the majority of people belonging to his/her society. However, good writers use a variety of sentence lengths and at times, I get into triple semi-colons. Hmm. Where's the dividing line? Ah, but Blick responds with his thoughts on this subject! Pen to (should I say, Passionate?) Paper~ Chris 10/25/05 Hi Chris: Defense? Against who? Steven Nickels? whom I'm sure never set foot on a three dimensional ballfield and who most likely played on an athletic team only when his sports game software was fully loaded, what? This has all been fun, but I want to seriously address writers about Nichols' critique of my nautical magnus opus. When you're writing real prose, don't be afraid to use long sentences. It's true that the attention span of many readers are shot because of overwrought technological stimulation that is politely called "Visual Literacy." But are they the audience you're writing for when you create fictions? (If you're writing genre fiction-- Spillane-like pulp-- for the love of God do not write long sentences). Emails and other electronic correspondnce rely on simple and compound sentences, rarely complex sentences. However, good writers should be as concerned with rhythm as good musicians, and a simple rule about long sentences is that after using a lengthy sentence, follow it with a short one. Reading your piece out loud, or having someone else read it to you, is the best way to troubleshoot for flow. I learned that as a playwright during rehearsals when I listened to actors speak my words; it was so much easier doing re-writes via aural editing then it was by my repetitive re-reading of the text. When I applied this technique to non-dramatic writing it worked quite well, "Pittsburg Pirate" notwithstanding. Now back to my defense of the masterpiece I composed in 15 minutes. It is strewn with baseball jargon (or littered if you prefer) and my only sin was not re-reading before emailing it to Chris because I did not think she was going to run it. When Chris suggested I look it over I told her was I wasn't interested. It's quite esoteric, but if you know baseball you might get a chuckle out of the nearly line by line incorporation of baseball terms juxtaposed with pirate nautical terms. It's why I ended up in Pittsburg with a one-eyed protagonist. And Nichols, aka. Nickels, wasn't so far off about my .200 batting average. When I played second base for teams in school and in NYC's Central Park Leagues, I often hit around two hundred because of my lack of speed. But man could I field and move the runner over. Editor Chris Goebel's response: Whew! It's amazing reading the various styles of arguments here. One is a quick blade and another is a torturous death, both effective on the battlefield. I agree, as I said earlier, with implementing a variety of sentences in our writing. Also too, our audience matters greatly. Which is the better audience, a particular group, or a society? Then also is the concern the Impressionists faced: what must we do to preserve our art? Must we modify modern writing to reflect a societal change toward the implementation of technological advancements and therefore, less free reading time? For most writers, there is a "write" answer. Write. Steven King said, "Study, dammit." Let me put the same to recalcitrant writers: "Write, dammit." Then find that audience. Pen to Paper~ Chris 10/24/05 My Letter to the Editor I just want other writers to know that the .200 batting average (2 hits in 10 at bats) that Official Scorer (that's a baseball term) Steven Nickels gave me for my magnus opus pirate story had absolutely no affect on me whatsover because I normally spend autumn weekends beneath my desk in a fetal position. And by the way, I don't write long sentences, just short paragraphs. Thank you Chris for trying to cover for me, but the truth is I spent the better part of three years trimming and primping my tale of existential angst concerning eyesight lost but vision gained--yet I must say the redeeming aspect of Nickels' review that made me proud was that an adult who dedicates his life to video games did not have his eyesite affected by the optic strain normally associated with computer screen technology, but by my very own words! Editor Chris Goebel's Response: Blick, I love being a writer because we defend ourselves so precisely. Your defense is eloquent; I'd expect nothing less from one of my contemporaries and associates. Pen to Paper~ Chris 10/24/05 Dear Editor: I've been doing very little writing since my last submission, mostly because life has been catching up to me. It doesn't mean I'm mentally barren, though. My muse must be maintaining some prune-rich diet because she's pretty regular in leaving her creative piles around the wastespace of my brain. Problem is, I've had so little energy recently in preserving these nuggets that many of these piles are now, in true shit fashion, starting to rot away. And my notes don't help much either, since whatever ideas I commit to paper ultimately end up as some strange, nonsensical little blurbs when I come across them months, or even days later. As usual the "Projected Projects" pile is going ever taller, and Leon's getting larger. So I ask someone who talks to a great of writers: any good recommendations on preserving story ideas? Thanks in advance. Cheers, Tim What type of response would you like from us? Straightforward, please. Editor Chris Goebel's Response: Tim, Thanks for your letter and I can help, precisely because I associate with so many writers. By the way, "Leon's getting larger" is one of my favorite scenes from the movie Airplane. I can't stop laughing when I see that part! Here are my recommendations for preserving good story IDEAS: Buy a $10-$15 Moleskin leather journal at B&N or some other great book store and write your thoughts down as they come. I use a graph page Moleskin with an elastic binding cord. This is useful because it doesn't come open and get messed up, graph-lined pages inspire me to deviate from the norm, the Moleskin has a pocket for private thoughts and the front page has a reward-for-return page, which I have completed because my Moleskin's worth a fortune; my brother uses this technique: he calls himself on the cell phone and leaves messages with story ideas. The down side is that most of the time, his cell is filled with his own messages. The upside is that he doesn't have to pay for a recorder; buy a mini-recorder and carry it around with you everywhere. Many writers have done this. Perhaps you noticed my comment about my brother being a writer. Actually, my brother, father and maternal grandmother are all writers. It's hard to get them to SUBMIT ;-) 10/19/05 Hi Chris: I'm rushing out to teach but was able to check your website out for the first time in a while and saw that letter to the editor about "Chunks." I was also a bit surprised at the dedicated to Katrina victims tag after the title. I agree with the reader that because the piece isn't delicate, that tag doesn't seem to fit. Crayon to Color Book, Blick
Editor's Response: Thanks for straightening things out, Blick. I meant that it was a dedication in that your piece understood their plight. BUT, the author is the most correct about an interpretation of his work, so I'm going to change the description of your piece. Pen to Paper~ Chris
This is from a letter I received on 10/18/05 and it's just what I needed! Help me, though, because I need to know how to help readers who find the site "a little difficult to get around" as this writer indicates . . . Suggestions, anyone? Keep in mind that humdingerzine.com was created with a template. Pen to Paper~ Chris Reader's Feed Back: Editor Chris Goebel's reply: Thanks for your comments and help. I'm always seeking specific suggestions from readers. I corrected the introduction to Blick's piece and he's thankful too! Pen to Paper~ Chris
Dear D., Often, we make editorial suggestions to writers and they get those back to us in a few days so that they are ready for publication. |
Submit your own Letter to the Editor by clicking here.
