Most people want to become writers for themselves. They enjoyed being introduced to a fictional world by J.K. Rowling or Robert Louis Stevenson or whoever, a world full of adventure and plenty of opportunities to distinguish oneself. They thought it would be cool to have a job where you get to live in that world all the time.
Or they have an agenda. People are living the wrong way, they think, and so they're going to show them the right way to live by writing a novel. If Sartre and Kierkegaard did it, why can't they?
Or they thought it would be cool to see their name in print, to have their work in the hands of people all over the country.
Man U's Biggest Fan. Photo by notsogoodphotography
It's fine to have a few selfish motives to get you interested in writing. All writers have a few of them. The problem is what happens when you start to write. You get fifteen thousand words into your novel and all of a sudden it's not so adventurous anymore, you can't figure out how to communicate your agenda, and you realize the book sucks so bad no one's going to buy it and see your name on the cover.
Who are you writing for?
If you're writing for yourself, you'll eventually give up. It has to be about something bigger than yourself. It has to about your community or your calling.
When you're killing yourself through the first draft, it's got to be about more than just you. Otherwise, why go through all the pain?
PRACTICE
Write something for your biggest fan (it could be your mom, your son or daughter, or your wife). Write a story for them, something simple you know they would get a kick out of.
What could be better than writing things for the people who love you?
Take fifteen minutes or so to write. I hope you'll post it in the comments to share when you're done.
This is for my granddaughters. Grace just turned six and Lilly is 20 months old, but they’re the primary people I am honing my writing skills for. I’d love to leave them a legacy of words, stories about the bones of their family tree.
We took a trip to the park, my parents, my younger brother and I. It was a big park, one I’d never seen before, filled with tall, tall trees and wide-reaching ferns, with winding pathways and waiting-to-be-explored fairy hollows. I remember being overwhelmed by green, all different shades and textures of green. I think I was about seven or eight years old, so my brother would have been five or six.
The shadows were deep in this place, sunlight flickering down between branches and leaves. I noticed the interesting way those flickers made our faces look different than usual,
creating creases and shadows, shades of color we’d never exhibited at home. It was fascinating and a little bit frightening, too.
We lived in the San Fernando Valley, in a ‘new’ housing development. We had no trees to speak of, nothing with big, leafy branches stretching high and wide. So my usual landscape looked open, almost flat. I loved the way the shady side of the house nourished calla lilies and small ferns, but there was nothing on my street to match the size and spread of these trees, nothing to create such enchanting shadow play.
My brother and I found a small bench in the curve of a pathway, and behind the bench was a small open space where we could sit on the ground, luxuriating beneath those big, cool trees. We climbed back there and enjoyed ourselves, imagining a tiny world of elves and fairies all around us. My parents decided to keep exploring the park and told us to stay where we were while they continued to walk. We blithely agreed and returned to our imaginative games. I remember watching them turn the bend up ahead, disappearing from our line of vision.
We enjoyed our woodland hideaway for quite a while – until my brother got bored with the whole elf and fairy idea and began to beat the bushes, hunting wild game! I tried to maintain my beautiful tiny world, but found it much harder to do without someone else’s imagination to bolster my own. And I began to feel just the slightest twinge of anxiety about the truth that I did not know where my parents were.
That was a new feeling for me. I ALWAYS knew where they were. Daddy went to work, Mommy stayed at home, with Tom and with me. She took us to the store sometimes, she walked us over to our cousins’ house, she had coffee with a neighbor and we went along. We weren’t left alone very often, that’s for sure.
So as i waited in the woods, I found my heart beating a little bit faster than usual. And my imagination kicking into overdrive. “Where are they?” I wondered. “Maybe they’ve been kidnapped!” “Maybe they’re never coming back!”
After about five minutes of that kind of thinking, I was good and truly scared. Then, just out of the corner of my eye, I saw them, turning on the pathway just up the hill from us! They were coming around a bend and they were deeply engrossed in conversation. Such relief! It flooded over me in waves.
For about one minute.
Then another whole set of questions began tumbling around in my head:
“Well, it looks like Mommy and Daddy, but can I be sure it’s really them?”
“What if someone came from outer space and sucked them out of their bodies and replaced them with someone I don’t know?”
“What if …?”
“What if…?
And you want to know the really weird part? I kept wondering that for years and years. In fact, sometimes I still think it might have happened.
(15 minutes writing time, about 2 minutes editing)
First of all Diana, I love this plan to write to and for your grandchildren. About a year ago, I read a very short memoir by my great uncle. It was fascinating, and quite touching, to see our families history. He died when I was quite young, and his brother, my dad’s father, committed suicide when my dad was a kid. So much of my family’s story died before I was born. Reading this was like a glimpse into my soul, memories contained within my skin but wordless until then.
You’re writing is, as usual, beautiful and natural. It evokes childhood, both the images and the fears.
It always seems like you don’t struggle to write. As if the words come smoothly out of you and onto the page. Is that true?
Interesting you should ask that, Joe. When one of your prompts (or Lisa-Jo’s over at The Gypsy Mama) grabs my heart – and I know there’s a time limit – it does seem to flow pretty easily. Maybe I need to set time limits for myself every time I try to get something out there on my own blog! I wrestle a lot harder with that writing. Kinda weird, right?
And I am sorry to read of your family ‘loneliness.’ I think those connections are deeply important – you’ve described it perfectly: ‘memories contained within my skin but wordless until then…” Thanks for this brief glimpse into you.
I totally understand. When I’m working on really big projects (books) I can’t write without a timer. Otherwise I go and check facebook/email/twitter/linkedin/the weather/my bank account/you get the picture ever three minutes. The timer’s a good focuser.
Don’t mention it. I will say that understanding them is changing my own writing. Speaking of writing for others, I find more and more I’m writing to redeem my family in some mysterious way.
Joe, (and Diana)
Thanks for the idea of writing with a timer. I, too, struggle with ADHD writing distractions.
This is for my granddaughters. Grace just turned six and Lilly is 20 months old, but they’re the primary people I am honing my writing skills for. I’d love to leave them a legacy of words, stories about the bones of their family tree.
We took a trip to the park, my parents, my younger brother and I. It was a big park, one I’d never seen before, filled with tall, tall trees and wide-reaching ferns, with winding pathways and waiting-to-be-explored fairy hollows. I remember being overwhelmed by green, all different shades and textures of green. I think I was about seven or eight years old, so my brother would have been five or six.
The shadows were deep in this place, sunlight flickering down between branches and leaves. I noticed the interesting way those flickers made our faces look different than usual,
creating creases and shadows, shades of color we’d never exhibited at home. It was fascinating and a little bit frightening, too.
We lived in the San Fernando Valley, in a ‘new’ housing development. We had no trees to speak of, nothing with big, leafy branches stretching high and wide. So my usual landscape looked open, almost flat. I loved the way the shady side of the house nourished calla lilies and small ferns, but there was nothing on my street to match the size and spread of these trees, nothing to create such enchanting shadow play.
My brother and I found a small bench in the curve of a pathway, and behind the bench was a small open space where we could sit on the ground, luxuriating beneath those big, cool trees. We climbed back there and enjoyed ourselves, imagining a tiny world of elves and fairies all around us. My parents decided to keep exploring the park and told us to stay where we were while they continued to walk. We blithely agreed and returned to our imaginative games. I remember watching them turn the bend up ahead, disappearing from our line of vision.
We enjoyed our woodland hideaway for quite a while – until my brother got bored with the whole elf and fairy idea and began to beat the bushes, hunting wild game! I tried to maintain my beautiful tiny world, but found it much harder to do without someone else’s imagination to bolster my own. And I began to feel just the slightest twinge of anxiety about the truth that I did not know where my parents were.
That was a new feeling for me. I ALWAYS knew where they were. Daddy went to work, Mommy stayed at home, with Tom and with me. She took us to the store sometimes, she walked us over to our cousins’ house, she had coffee with a neighbor and we went along. We weren’t left alone very often, that’s for sure.
So as i waited in the woods, I found my heart beating a little bit faster than usual. And my imagination kicking into overdrive. “Where are they?” I wondered. “Maybe they’ve been kidnapped!” “Maybe they’re never coming back!”
After about five minutes of that kind of thinking, I was good and truly scared. Then, just out of the corner of my eye, I saw them, turning on the pathway just up the hill from us! They were coming around a bend and they were deeply engrossed in conversation. Such relief! It flooded over me in waves.
For about one minute.
Then another whole set of questions began tumbling around in my head:
“Well, it looks like Mommy and Daddy, but can I be sure it’s really them?”
“What if someone came from outer space and sucked them out of their bodies and replaced them with someone I don’t know?”
“What if …?”
“What if…?
And you want to know the really weird part? I kept wondering that for years and years. In fact, sometimes I still think it might have happened.
(15 minutes writing time, about 2 minutes editing)
First of all Diana, I love this plan to write to and for your grandchildren. About a year ago, I read a very short memoir by my great uncle. It was fascinating, and quite touching, to see our families history. He died when I was quite young, and his brother, my dad’s father, committed suicide when my dad was a kid. So much of my family’s story died before I was born. Reading this was like a glimpse into my soul, memories contained within my skin but wordless until then.
You’re writing is, as usual, beautiful and natural. It evokes childhood, both the images and the fears.
It always seems like you don’t struggle to write. As if the words come smoothly out of you and onto the page. Is that true?
Interesting you should ask that, Joe. When one of your prompts (or Lisa-Jo’s over at The Gypsy Mama) grabs my heart – and I know there’s a time limit – it does seem to flow pretty easily. Maybe I need to set time limits for myself every time I try to get something out there on my own blog! I wrestle a lot harder with that writing. Kinda weird, right?
And I am sorry to read of your family ‘loneliness.’ I think those connections are deeply important – you’ve described it perfectly: ‘memories contained within my skin but wordless until then…” Thanks for this brief glimpse into you.
I totally understand. When I’m working on really big projects (books) I can’t write without a timer. Otherwise I go and check facebook/email/twitter/linkedin/the weather/my bank account/you get the picture ever three minutes. The timer’s a good focuser.
Don’t mention it. I will say that understanding them is changing my own writing. Speaking of writing for others, I find more and more I’m writing to redeem my family in some mysterious way.
Joe, (and Diana)
Thanks for the idea of writing with a timer. I, too, struggle with ADHD writing distractions.
Writing for My Biggest Fan: Sally
I suppose my wife Sally is my biggest fan. Actually, she is my only fan, since it appears she is the only one who reads my blog. Sally doesn’t always get my blogs, but she does enjoy the humorous ones. Here’s her favorite:
http://worshipboy.wordpress.com/2007/11/06/cant-a-guy-ever-get-any-sleep-round-here/
Sally likes funny and sarcastic, but that is difficult to produce on demand. It comes pretty natural for me in conversations or while posting on facebook, but it’s quite another thing to sit down and intentionally write funny sarcasm. (Consider this post for example!)
My greatest joy in life is making my wife laugh. I use it as often as possible as a way of distracting her from being mad at me. It doesn’t always work. Sometimes she’s too far past the point of no return, and the chance of getting her to laugh falls somewhere between her actually murdering me and having sex with me. Murder > Laugh > Sex = Screwed.
Sally has two laughs, which really makes me envious, because I don’t have any. My laugh is totally inaudible. The hearing-impaired are more likely to witness my laughter than the blind. Sally’s laugh track consists of the “guffaw” and the “shakes.” Her guffaw is a female version of her late father’s. It’s a kind of forced, boisterous laugh that can often scare little children. But it’s her “shakes” laughter that is my all time favorite. When I can get her to laugh and vibrate at the same time, I know she thinks I’m funny (and in good standing). And isn’t that what life’s all about?
You say it’s difficult to produce funny on demand, and yet you did it! The last two paragraphs are hilarious (and yes, you should post them to your blog).
“The chance of getting her to laugh falls somewhere between her actually murdering me and having sex with me.” Wow Tom. This is awesome and ridiculous.
And this, “It’s a kind of forced, boisterous laugh that can often scare little children.” Oh my gosh. You’re terrible.
Tomdub… you are hilarious… wonderful, wonderful, wonderful
Writing for My Biggest Fan: Sally
I suppose my wife Sally is my biggest fan. Actually, she is my only fan, since it appears she is the only one who reads my blog. Sally doesn’t always get my blogs, but she does enjoy the humorous ones. Here’s her favorite:
http://worshipboy.wordpress.com/2007/11/06/cant-a-guy-ever-get-any-sleep-round-here/
Sally likes funny and sarcastic, but that is difficult to produce on demand. It comes pretty natural for me in conversations or while posting on facebook, but it’s quite another thing to sit down and intentionally write funny sarcasm. (Consider this post for example!)
My greatest joy in life is making my wife laugh. I use it as often as possible as a way of distracting her from being mad at me. It doesn’t always work. Sometimes she’s too far past the point of no return, and the chance of getting her to laugh falls somewhere between her actually murdering me and having sex with me. Murder > Laugh > Sex = Screwed.
Sally has two laughs, which really makes me envious, because I don’t have any. My laugh is totally inaudible. The hearing-impaired are more likely to witness my laughter than the blind. Sally’s laugh track consists of the “guffaw” and the “shakes.” Her guffaw is a female version of her late father’s. It’s a kind of forced, boisterous laugh that can often scare little children. But it’s her “shakes” laughter that is my all time favorite. When I can get her to laugh and vibrate at the same time, I know she thinks I’m funny (and in good standing). And isn’t that what life’s all about?
You say it’s difficult to produce funny on demand, and yet you did it! The last two paragraphs are hilarious (and yes, you should post them to your blog).
“The chance of getting her to laugh falls somewhere between her actually murdering me and having sex with me.” Wow Tom. This is awesome and ridiculous.
And this, “It’s a kind of forced, boisterous laugh that can often scare little children.” Oh my gosh. You’re terrible.
Tomdub… you are hilarious… wonderful, wonderful, wonderful
Mostly, I write for myself. For the sheer joy of seeing something true crystallize on the page. But you’re right – 30,000 word works just don’t get made that way. The first one I wrote was for the environment, the second for Singapore women, and this one for my children … to give them a sense of what being part of the Vietnamese diaspora means. Here’s fifteen minutes from yesterday’s pages –
In the living room Huong screams, “Trời đát ơi! … Heaven and earth!”
He rushes back out to his wife, banging against Kim as she pushes past him to the kitchen. Kim pounces on the telephone there, bangs out Jake’s number into the keypad on the receiver. But, still she can’t get through. ‘All lines are busy’ the robotic ATT voice tells her. ‘Please try again’ it beeps repeatedly. She doesn’t seem to understand it’s just a machine and screams at it, begging it to please … please … please connect her, it’s a matter of life and death.
Hunched over the phone by an open gas flame and an electric pot coming to boil, Kim doesn’t see the building collapsing. Like a tinker toy experiment gone wrong it folds gently into itself in a cloud of rising dust, taking down the Morgan Stanley offices where Jake usually is at ten o’clock on weekday mornings. Dematerializing in less than five minutes.
“Son-in-law!” Huong suddenly makes the connection, and faints onto the sofa.
She brings Sixth, who’s been holding on to her mesmerized by the events on the screen, down on top of her. As he topples over, he kicks the coffee table into the TV screen.
The pot of soup boils over, scalding Kim on the legs.
“Fuck,” Kim screams over and over, at the pot … the phone … the stove.
She throws the phone at the pot. It clatters once, then falls away to rock helplessly in the open gas flame. The flame licks at the phone, melting the plastic and releasing a heavy sweet odor that stings her nostrils. On the counter, the pot continues to seeth, fiery orange soup surging over the pot’s edge to hiss spits of steam onto the kitchen counter. See …. ssseeee … if you ….can sstoppp … can ssstopp mmmeee … it taunts. Kim wrenches the electric plug from the pot, hurls its its contents at the kitchen sink. She doesn’t feel the boiling mix of crab meat, tomatoes, and pungent fermented shrimp splashing onto her arms and thighs, spattering her with little blisters. The pot seems to smash onto the floor tiles and crack them of its own accord, to spin on its side, clanging like the gong’s at her grandfather’s funeral as if possessed by some grief other than her own.
The clanging surrounds her, the smell of burning fills her nose, her mouth, her throat. She can’t breathe. She doesn’t want to. She falls on her knees, covering the pot with her body, letting it’s heat sear her chest and her stomach. She will let herself be burnt like Jake is burning. Together, they’ll suffocate in the fumes. It’s in their genes. We’re people who die from fumes, in fire, she remembers crying to Jake at Thi’s funeral. His grand parents in the gas ovens of Auschwitz, the flames licking at the guard in her Youngest Uncle’s oil depot, her little sister in the nail salon. She holds her breath. Wills the end to come.
Sixth is by her side, lifting her her up. Wiping crab soup off her face, her neck and her shoulders with the softest of touches. Huong has her mobile in her hand. She hands it to her daughter. ‘Called in sick today’ Jake’s message shines out at Kim from the screen. She sits up straight, begins to scroll down the screen. There are messages from friends, worried notes from Nina and from her brothers, another message from Jake. It says ‘Dad went to work’ and nothing else. She turns to the TV, but the screen is dead, cracked when Sixth kicked the coffee table into it. The disembodied voice of the newscaster coming out of the blackened box says the North Tower has collapsed and with it most of the bond trading firm of Cantor Fitzpatrick, her employers.
Great post.
Full of action, drama, and energy. Let me make sure I got everything right. Kim’s husband is Jake and he worked in the building that was collapsed (is that the WTC?). It’s a little confusing because you say she doesn’t see the building collapse but then she freaks out. She freaks out because she knows what happened or because she got burned by the pot? I wasn’t sure.
This line was a little confusing, mostly from how it’s paced, ““Fuck,” Kim screams over and over, at the pot … the phone … the stove. ” Re-reading it I realized she screamed at each thing individually, but it was the first kind of “summary” action you did in a bit. You might spell out the whole action for us.
I like that second to last paragraph. I love the flashback to the funeral. I think that’s perfectly timed considering the event. You could even add more detail from that.
Well, actually she did watch the TV… and knew the building was burning… which is why she was trying to call him on the phone… but that was about 30 minutes ago, the previous day.
Thanks for the hint though. And the fact you’re dailies are just great encouragement
Ah. I see. That was in the pages before. That makes sense then. It’s the nature of the exercise that excerpts get confusing. Sorry about that. Thanks so much for showing up so often.
Mostly, I write for myself. For the sheer joy of seeing something true crystallize on the page. But you’re right – 30,000 word works just don’t get made that way. The first one I wrote was for the environment, the second for Singapore women, and this one for my children … to give them a sense of what being part of the Vietnamese diaspora means. Here’s fifteen minutes from yesterday’s pages –
In the living room Huong screams, “Trời đát ơi! … Heaven and earth!”
He rushes back out to his wife, banging against Kim as she pushes past him to the kitchen. Kim pounces on the telephone there, bangs out Jake’s number into the keypad on the receiver. But, still she can’t get through. ‘All lines are busy’ the robotic ATT voice tells her. ‘Please try again’ it beeps repeatedly. She doesn’t seem to understand it’s just a machine and screams at it, begging it to please … please … please connect her, it’s a matter of life and death.
Hunched over the phone by an open gas flame and an electric pot coming to boil, Kim doesn’t see the building collapsing. Like a tinker toy experiment gone wrong it folds gently into itself in a cloud of rising dust, taking down the Morgan Stanley offices where Jake usually is at ten o’clock on weekday mornings. Dematerializing in less than five minutes.
“Son-in-law!” Huong suddenly makes the connection, and faints onto the sofa.
She brings Sixth, who’s been holding on to her mesmerized by the events on the screen, down on top of her. As he topples over, he kicks the coffee table into the TV screen.
The pot of soup boils over, scalding Kim on the legs.
“Fuck,” Kim screams over and over, at the pot … the phone … the stove.
She throws the phone at the pot. It clatters once, then falls away to rock helplessly in the open gas flame. The flame licks at the phone, melting the plastic and releasing a heavy sweet odor that stings her nostrils. On the counter, the pot continues to seeth, fiery orange soup surging over the pot’s edge to hiss spits of steam onto the kitchen counter. See …. ssseeee … if you ….can sstoppp … can ssstopp mmmeee … it taunts. Kim wrenches the electric plug from the pot, hurls its its contents at the kitchen sink. She doesn’t feel the boiling mix of crab meat, tomatoes, and pungent fermented shrimp splashing onto her arms and thighs, spattering her with little blisters. The pot seems to smash onto the floor tiles and crack them of its own accord, to spin on its side, clanging like the gong’s at her grandfather’s funeral as if possessed by some grief other than her own.
The clanging surrounds her, the smell of burning fills her nose, her mouth, her throat. She can’t breathe. She doesn’t want to. She falls on her knees, covering the pot with her body, letting it’s heat sear her chest and her stomach. She will let herself be burnt like Jake is burning. Together, they’ll suffocate in the fumes. It’s in their genes. We’re people who die from fumes, in fire, she remembers crying to Jake at Thi’s funeral. His grand parents in the gas ovens of Auschwitz, the flames licking at the guard in her Youngest Uncle’s oil depot, her little sister in the nail salon. She holds her breath. Wills the end to come.
Sixth is by her side, lifting her her up. Wiping crab soup off her face, her neck and her shoulders with the softest of touches. Huong has her mobile in her hand. She hands it to her daughter. ‘Called in sick today’ Jake’s message shines out at Kim from the screen. She sits up straight, begins to scroll down the screen. There are messages from friends, worried notes from Nina and from her brothers, another message from Jake. It says ‘Dad went to work’ and nothing else. She turns to the TV, but the screen is dead, cracked when Sixth kicked the coffee table into it. The disembodied voice of the newscaster coming out of the blackened box says the North Tower has collapsed and with it most of the bond trading firm of Cantor Fitzpatrick, her employers.
Great post.
Full of action, drama, and energy. Let me make sure I got everything right. Kim’s husband is Jake and he worked in the building that was collapsed (is that the WTC?). It’s a little confusing because you say she doesn’t see the building collapse but then she freaks out. She freaks out because she knows what happened or because she got burned by the pot? I wasn’t sure.
This line was a little confusing, mostly from how it’s paced, ““Fuck,” Kim screams over and over, at the pot … the phone … the stove. ” Re-reading it I realized she screamed at each thing individually, but it was the first kind of “summary” action you did in a bit. You might spell out the whole action for us.
I like that second to last paragraph. I love the flashback to the funeral. I think that’s perfectly timed considering the event. You could even add more detail from that.
Well, actually she did watch the TV… and knew the building was burning… which is why she was trying to call him on the phone… but that was about 30 minutes ago, the previous day.
Thanks for the hint though. And the fact you’re dailies are just great encouragement
Ah. I see. That was in the pages before. That makes sense then. It’s the nature of the exercise that excerpts get confusing. Sorry about that. Thanks so much for showing up so often.
Re: “What could be better than writing things for the people who love you?”
Almost nothing. Thanks, Joe. Another inspiring and truth-filled post.
Thanks August 🙂
Re: “What could be better than writing things for the people who love you?”
Almost nothing. Thanks, Joe. Another inspiring and truth-filled post.
Thanks August 🙂
The wheels of the horse-drawn carriage clinked against the concrete pavement as she watched the outside. Her mouth hung open her eyes wide. It was the city with it’s tall concrete buildings and people lots of people going on about their business.
“Dear brother,” she said as she spied a woman haggling with a customer over fish. “You never said the city would be so, so, so…”
“Dirty?” he said. He had a faraway look, watching the creaks and cracks of the carriage. His mouth sniffled a little yawn.
The woman was towering the fish over the buy; he looked scared. She looked away and turned to her brother.
“No,” she said. Her eyes darted outside a little but she came back. “I mean is, brother, the city, there’s a lot of people.”
He yawned, looked at her beaming face, then watched the dirty floor of the carriage. “Yes, I admit, there’s a lot of people.”
She jumped at him and held his hands. “This is wonderful, I never seen so many people before.”
Her hands felt soft on his and he kept his eyes on the floor. She blinked the removed her hands and followed his eyes on the floor.
“It’s not my fault you don’t go outside,” he said.
“Lady Mother never lets me outside,” she said. Her shoulders slumped. The floor was dusty and there were pieces of dried fruit scattered. “It’s not fair, I’m the older one.”
He looked up and frowned at her face. “You don’t even talk to the maids. You should learn how to talk to people.”
“There not maids, they’re helpers.” She shook her head. “And, and, they say bad things about me.”
His eyes got wide. He touched her face and slowly lifted them up and they were eye to eye.
“Tell me dear sister, which of these ‘helpers’ are saying words about you,” he said. “Tell me, and I’ll tell mother.”
He was staring right into her eyes. She looked away and sunk into her seat. He didn’t let go.
“No,” she said. “It’s nothing of importance. I just misheard I believe. They were just being maids.”
He removed his hands but kept his stare. Her face was cold.
“It ain’t all bad,” he said. He smiled. “The city I mean, there are lots of joyous things to do.”
She grinned. “Yes, dear brother, tell me stories.”
He looked outside. “Well there was this one time I had to run an errand for mother, then I saw this woman dancing on the streets…”