Open Letter To The Woman Who Flamed Me:

My Grandmother used to warn me about "dignifying someone with a response", and "lowering myself to someone's level", but honestly? Grandma was a hypocrite. She loved the excitement of a boxing match as much as Smokin' Joe Frasier, and was damn good at it too. She also made a kick-ass quince jam. Unrelated, I know, I just got to thinking about how multi-talented and totally amazing my grandma was.

Anyhow, I would like to respond to your comments about my writing, and I hope this does not burst your bubble as you obviously went to great lengths to try to hurt my feelings, but I have to let you know your criticism was totally correct. I am, in fact, a horrible writer. No contest there, sister.

What I do not understand is where you got the cockamamy notion that I endeavor to be, or consider myself, a writer at all. It's true that I write things, I have ever since I learned how to manipulate these random glyphs into sentences, however there are important differences between myself and a professional. For instance, I don't seek to be published. I don't submit works to literary mags, online or otherwise. I've never pretended to have the training, patience, or proclivity for the craft. I just have to write things down, it's an attempt to understand and better connect with the world around me, and a bit due to the fact that I'm an only child who enjoys hearing herself talk. Whatever the reason, my life-long habit of putting thoughts to paper no more makes me a 'writer' than my life-long love for cooking makes me a chef. I also sing and play the guitar once in awhile, and I have no illusions about 'quitting the day job'. Where I sit these things are called hobbies.

Perhaps you are confused and simply unfamiliar with the medium; this here thingy is called a BLOG. It's an online diary no different than the little lock-and-key, pocket variety you had hidden under your mattress next to your tear-stained pictures of Leif Garrett. And like those ramblings of youth, it is imperfect, it may contain bad tenses, misspellings, poor punctuation. It might ramble, include cliche references, or have a distinct lack of flow. You see, if I were a 'writer' I would submit my work to an 'editor' who would correct such matters before it went off to my 'publisher'. As it stands, I'm just a chick with a dot com and a penchant for babbling. A dot com address quite easily avoided if one chooses to.

This is where Grandma's 'lowering one's self' advice comes in...I am going to squelch the urge to pick apart your letter, which, I might add, was RIDDLED with errors, overly-dramatic, infantile and utterly boring. Nor will I publish it on my website in an effort to embarrass you or draw you out. What I would like to do is suggest you start up a little website of your own. You could use the space to critique the writing of others, include links to the worst offenders, use your (self-proclaimed) superior knowledge of content, execution, and the whole of the English Language to show the rest of us exactly how it should be done. Because I, unlike you, have lived a life in pursuit of the free speech of all people (as my arrest record would attest), and would fight tirelessly for your right to speak your mind however you wish, whether I agree with it or not... even if your 'speech' consisted solely of criticism directed at others.

Best of luck to you Madam! I look forward to your tutelage!

Sincerely,
Anti

Posted by Antigeist at April 1, 2003 01:42 PM