This is just terrific, Ros. I loved it! Both because I could relate to so many of your points, and because it is so engagingly, humorously, well written!
Wot Don said. I couldn't say it better. I'm not even a "writer" (apart from the occasional comment like this) but my tendency to say out loud things I maybe shouldn't has landed me in enough hot water to identify with you. No litigation as yet happily
Well, this made me laugh. Who among us hasn't had to resort to imagining (but obviously not hoping) that our loved ones are dead? Maybe we are all bastards, after all.
Hahaha, that's perfect, Karen! For anyone who can't click through for whatever reason it's a meme that says "Don't fuck with writers. We'll describe you."
Thank you for this brutally funny yet uncomfortably real reflection on the delicate tightrope we writers walk. The question of whether we can safely wait until certain people die is equally hilarious and sobering. As you say, the real scoundrels always seem to have the longevity of cockroaches, so that plan’s not foolproof. Meanwhile, a writer’s urgency is always there, pushing us to document our truths while we can. Because, ironically, we might be the ones to go first.
Thank you for voicing the tension that so many of us feel but rarely talk about quite so bluntly. It’s a relief (and a cautionary tale) to be reminded I’m not alone in stewing over who might be hurt or furious at my next piece, and I admire how you manage to wrestle that dread into something honest, witty and, in the end, life-affirming.
OMG. Read all of this with my mouth hanging open, and I probably have nothing meaningful to add beyond ‘yes’.
Of course, this speaks to me, and not just in the area that’s actually being discussed. (I clicked the ‘like’ button as hard as I could, in the misplaced hope it would register x1,000,000, and I’m looking forward to the news reports: Musk Incapacitated, Presidential Inauguration Delayed…)
I’m licking my wounds this weekend following feedback from a literary agent (hereby fictionalised as Phoebe Standers) who indicated that a less catastrophic synopsis for my novel, 'Valentine Klimt and the Revolution of Love', might, err… be helpful. Along the way I broached the subject of, well, the subject: (fictional) granddaughter of (real) artist Gustav Klimt battles art-vandals who turn out to be her (fictional) aunts, against a swinging-sixties backdrop. Likely to annoy the real descendants of Gustav Klimt, much?
I wasn’t quite prepared for the response. “Why don’t you just ask them?” Well, there are a few practical problems (“Dear info@thedescendantsofgustavklimt.com …”), but beyond that, yeah. Why not? I’d rather Do As You Would Be Done By. And then this sails into my inbox … Ros, are you reading my mind?! (neurodivergent-telepath emoji)
Haha, Stuart, but then you went and added a *bunch* of meaningful stuff. I can see how this landed just perfectly in your inbox. I want to assure you that, yes, due to our mutual connection to singular Consciousness, I did indeed read your mind, and you are effectively one of the co-authors of this post. And am very much hoping your extra-heavy like will have the desired effect on Mr Musk.
As a former Human Resources worker, I don't think you should say you were "sacked". Here you seem to be plundering your own life experiences for dramatic content?! Please don't die so you can write about yourself.
You've said before you were made redundant. That is a substantially different thing to being sacked. It implies that reorganisation, changed priorities, funding etc. was the cause of your employer no longer needing you, not any performance issues, productivity or conduct on your part. You worked in the part of the factory which made widgets and the company no longer makes [as many] widgets and therefore no longer needs [as many] widget makers.
The harsh reality may not be quite as cut and dried but still. It's an honourable end to your employment.
You make a perfectly valid point, Noel, as an former HR worker. I understand the various associations with the terms at my disposal, but the problem was, I was writing a humour piece, where comic hyperbole holds sway (I find it very seductive, even in conversation).
Plus as a former poet, I find the single sharp syllable of 'sacked' much less cumbersome and therefore more pleasing, artistically speaking, than the factually correct "made redundant", the euphemistic "let go", or in the preferred verbiage of my erstwhile employers "accepted an enhanced voluntary redundancy package as part of the Transformation Programme".
Added to the fact that there are days, emotionally, where it still feels liked "sacked". But yes, it was mostly the comedic hyperbole and the syllable count that determined the word choice. I considered changing it after your comment but I didn't like the cadence of the revised sentence.
Sometimes art trumps truth... or rather, as I used to say to my students, sometimes the metaphorical truth is more important than the literal truth.
"Sacked" is a very strong single-syllable word indeed. Americans say "canned" and there's also "axed" which has that hard-K consonant. "Let go" has a mournful, trailing-off, terminal-illness feeling and is nicely ambiguous, suggesting that you may have wanted to go?
"Retrenched" is sometimes used which sounds to me like a shovel going into soil, and makes me think of the First World War.
All of these musings are of course displacement activity because what I really have to tell you is, when the company reduces the number of widget makers, they choose the troublemaker to make redundant, and that is always me.
As a poet I understand well what you mean. When I’ve used childhood friends and neighbors as outlines for a few characters in verse I seem to have attracted the attention of others who know them and who tell me I have them pegged wrong.
My replies that the characters are fictional (no actual names or vitals given) seems to go unremarked.
It’s as though I had sculpted a likeness of them only to be told by others that the mole on their left cheek was actually under the lip.
Sometimes I've told friends/family that I'm writing something, and instead of them asking what it is and what it's about, the first question out of their mouths is, "am I it?" And sometimes, people I know have asked me to put them in a book. Nooooo!
Narcissists, every one of them! I had an AirBnB host last year who demanded that I write my next book about him! Bonus, though, they can't complain if you actually accidentally use aspects of them in a character.
That's such a weird thing to do. You've only met them once - why would you do that? Of course, if you wrote crime, a narcissistic AirBnB host might be fun to bump off!
This is just terrific, Ros. I loved it! Both because I could relate to so many of your points, and because it is so engagingly, humorously, well written!
Thank you, Don! And thank you so much for sharing it!
Agree with Don! So glad to have happened across you/your work.
Thank you, JT! I'm happy you found it/me too :-).
Wot Don said. I couldn't say it better. I'm not even a "writer" (apart from the occasional comment like this) but my tendency to say out loud things I maybe shouldn't has landed me in enough hot water to identify with you. No litigation as yet happily
Hilarious! True even! Caused me to choke on my coffee & snuck nefarious thoughts into my general niceness.
Well, this made me laugh. Who among us hasn't had to resort to imagining (but obviously not hoping) that our loved ones are dead? Maybe we are all bastards, after all.
Just a little bit bastardy. You kinda have to be. It's in the job description.
Apologies if I sent this twice, I’m a nanna and a Luddite.
https://substack.com/@thestuffoflife/note/c-53754186?r=2morts&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Hahaha, that's perfect, Karen! For anyone who can't click through for whatever reason it's a meme that says "Don't fuck with writers. We'll describe you."
Thank you for this brutally funny yet uncomfortably real reflection on the delicate tightrope we writers walk. The question of whether we can safely wait until certain people die is equally hilarious and sobering. As you say, the real scoundrels always seem to have the longevity of cockroaches, so that plan’s not foolproof. Meanwhile, a writer’s urgency is always there, pushing us to document our truths while we can. Because, ironically, we might be the ones to go first.
Thank you for voicing the tension that so many of us feel but rarely talk about quite so bluntly. It’s a relief (and a cautionary tale) to be reminded I’m not alone in stewing over who might be hurt or furious at my next piece, and I admire how you manage to wrestle that dread into something honest, witty and, in the end, life-affirming.
Thanks, Matt.
OMG. Read all of this with my mouth hanging open, and I probably have nothing meaningful to add beyond ‘yes’.
Of course, this speaks to me, and not just in the area that’s actually being discussed. (I clicked the ‘like’ button as hard as I could, in the misplaced hope it would register x1,000,000, and I’m looking forward to the news reports: Musk Incapacitated, Presidential Inauguration Delayed…)
I’m licking my wounds this weekend following feedback from a literary agent (hereby fictionalised as Phoebe Standers) who indicated that a less catastrophic synopsis for my novel, 'Valentine Klimt and the Revolution of Love', might, err… be helpful. Along the way I broached the subject of, well, the subject: (fictional) granddaughter of (real) artist Gustav Klimt battles art-vandals who turn out to be her (fictional) aunts, against a swinging-sixties backdrop. Likely to annoy the real descendants of Gustav Klimt, much?
I wasn’t quite prepared for the response. “Why don’t you just ask them?” Well, there are a few practical problems (“Dear info@thedescendantsofgustavklimt.com …”), but beyond that, yeah. Why not? I’d rather Do As You Would Be Done By. And then this sails into my inbox … Ros, are you reading my mind?! (neurodivergent-telepath emoji)
Haha, Stuart, but then you went and added a *bunch* of meaningful stuff. I can see how this landed just perfectly in your inbox. I want to assure you that, yes, due to our mutual connection to singular Consciousness, I did indeed read your mind, and you are effectively one of the co-authors of this post. And am very much hoping your extra-heavy like will have the desired effect on Mr Musk.
Dear Ros,
As a former Human Resources worker, I don't think you should say you were "sacked". Here you seem to be plundering your own life experiences for dramatic content?! Please don't die so you can write about yourself.
You've said before you were made redundant. That is a substantially different thing to being sacked. It implies that reorganisation, changed priorities, funding etc. was the cause of your employer no longer needing you, not any performance issues, productivity or conduct on your part. You worked in the part of the factory which made widgets and the company no longer makes [as many] widgets and therefore no longer needs [as many] widget makers.
The harsh reality may not be quite as cut and dried but still. It's an honourable end to your employment.
You make a perfectly valid point, Noel, as an former HR worker. I understand the various associations with the terms at my disposal, but the problem was, I was writing a humour piece, where comic hyperbole holds sway (I find it very seductive, even in conversation).
Plus as a former poet, I find the single sharp syllable of 'sacked' much less cumbersome and therefore more pleasing, artistically speaking, than the factually correct "made redundant", the euphemistic "let go", or in the preferred verbiage of my erstwhile employers "accepted an enhanced voluntary redundancy package as part of the Transformation Programme".
Added to the fact that there are days, emotionally, where it still feels liked "sacked". But yes, it was mostly the comedic hyperbole and the syllable count that determined the word choice. I considered changing it after your comment but I didn't like the cadence of the revised sentence.
Sometimes art trumps truth... or rather, as I used to say to my students, sometimes the metaphorical truth is more important than the literal truth.
"Sacked" is a very strong single-syllable word indeed. Americans say "canned" and there's also "axed" which has that hard-K consonant. "Let go" has a mournful, trailing-off, terminal-illness feeling and is nicely ambiguous, suggesting that you may have wanted to go?
"Retrenched" is sometimes used which sounds to me like a shovel going into soil, and makes me think of the First World War.
All of these musings are of course displacement activity because what I really have to tell you is, when the company reduces the number of widget makers, they choose the troublemaker to make redundant, and that is always me.
As a poet I understand well what you mean. When I’ve used childhood friends and neighbors as outlines for a few characters in verse I seem to have attracted the attention of others who know them and who tell me I have them pegged wrong.
My replies that the characters are fictional (no actual names or vitals given) seems to go unremarked.
It’s as though I had sculpted a likeness of them only to be told by others that the mole on their left cheek was actually under the lip.
That's so funny, Thomas. Relatable.
Sometimes I've told friends/family that I'm writing something, and instead of them asking what it is and what it's about, the first question out of their mouths is, "am I it?" And sometimes, people I know have asked me to put them in a book. Nooooo!
Narcissists, every one of them! I had an AirBnB host last year who demanded that I write my next book about him! Bonus, though, they can't complain if you actually accidentally use aspects of them in a character.
That's such a weird thing to do. You've only met them once - why would you do that? Of course, if you wrote crime, a narcissistic AirBnB host might be fun to bump off!
"am I in it?" I mean!!
I mean!!!!