If someone cannot see, everything that happens to them in the course of becoming un-blind, is a vignette. Until they become unblind, the plot is nonexistent, there's no conflict and no resolution - only puzzlement and just a short experience followed by another one, that they have to interpret through other senses that are not used to compensating for sight.
Thank you for this. It is an interesting way of considering the form.
And it is actually quite similar to the start of the vignette I would like to publish, but won't publish. In it the observer is in a dark closed room at night.
First of all, being tomorrow is Thanksgiving day. I would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts. I really enjoy Emeth, and read your post almost everyday. You are very crafty with words - a natural talent. I also started writing during the covid fiasco. Not something I thought I would ever end up doing. I am someone who failed English class a couple times in school, which I never even finished. But what drives me is my passions, that strong emotional intelligence from the heart. So whatever drives you, don't second guess- make your vignette just the way it manifests in your heart.
Thank you for your very kind words Brother. I'm pleased to know that you enjoy my scribblings.
The old adage that 'adversity is the mother of invention' certainly held true with the creation of Emeth, and my space on write.as before that. Finding myself in the middle of the elected Grand Lodge line, I felt, we all felt, that we needed to discover ways of remaining in connection with the Craft as a whole, and I was most comfortable doing that through the written word.
It also gave me an outlet for all those times that I missed sitting in Lodge with my Brothers. I truly find those times necessary, and when we were unable to have them, I needed to find some way of communicating despite the artificial restrictions.
I truly enjoy reading your writings as well, and am looking forward to many more of them in the future!
The best piece of writing advice I ever received was the KISS formula; keep it short and simple. To use another analogy, pretend that the two of us have just met for coffee and you just blurt out what's on your mind. That's a formula for clear and concise writing.
I fear that I might well violate that KISS formula! I often find myself meandering while lost in thought. But, I do hope that it is clear, even when it isn't concise.
This is where I usually step in to recommend Strunk and White or some other stuff, but frankly, you are much more than fine. Your communication is always clear and there are no distracting breaches of spelling or grammar that are so common.
As for vignettes, aren't our Scottish Rite Degrees good examples of such? Maybe there's some parallel there that you could find useful.
Thank you Brother! I truly appreciate your very kind words.
I must admit that throughout my life, spelling has been an extreme challenge for me. If there was one natural gift that the GATU forgot to give me, it was an ability to spell. I was actually never able to learn to spell well until the Word Processor came on the scene. Instead of using spell check to simply correct my errors, I used it to teach myself how to spell better. I still fear errors though, because for me (despite my own struggle with spelling) nothing destroys the flow of a piece of writing more than a misspelled word. How I can so easily spot those misspellings in other people's work, but completely miss them in my own is a mystery for another day!
Grammar is to my view a much different thing. This post itself contains a number of errors in grammar, but I think that is OK. Decades ago, when I was first learning to write for political campaigns, I was taught that the goal of political writing was to persuade, not to be grammatically correct, and that whatever rule it might be should be disregarded if disregarding it made the work more compelling. Secondly, that it was perfectly OK to violate the rules of grammar as long as one knew that those rules were, and why they were being violated. That said, of course there are still grammar rules that give me hiccups. Too or to has driven me mad for decades!
Thank you for the idea of delving into the content of our Scottish Rite Degrees for material!
MW, I'm the son of a newspaper editor. He didn't review my homework, he edited it. Or at least he taught me how to edit my own work. I ignored just about everything they tried to teach me in English class in high school. My reasoning was simple: I'm not going to need this because I'm not going to teach English. But people tell me I'm a good writer. I can only conclude that any skill I have was imparted through osmosis. To be fair, I also have to give a shout out to Mrs. Hamilton, my English Comp. professor in my freshman year at college. She spilled enough red ink on my papers that she certainly filled any gaps my father left. In any case, as the son of a newspaper editor I have to say that you sure fooled me. I though you were highly educated. (I also thought you were older than me since you're so much smarter ... turns out I was wrong about that too.)
As to your vignette, maybe it's Masonic and you just haven't spotted it yet. I wrote a few editorials for the D7 News that were true stories but any Masonic angle wasn't apparent to me. I published them anyway and posed the question to the readers as to whether or not the story related to Masonry. In every case several readers spotted something that I hadn't. This taught me that Masonry is probably everywhere if you look for it, even if it's just something that reminds me of Masonry.
Here's a vignette that might not be Masonic on the surface: A guy walks into a store and smiles as he says hello to a sales clerk. What's Masonic about that? Well, he and the sales clerk are standing on the same floor, does that count as meeting on the level? He smiled when he said hello. Isn't that how we're supposed to at least open an encounter if every human has a claim on our kind offices? There's probably more but I only wrote the first sentence of the vignette.
A newspaper editor, or even a reporter, in the days prior to the widespread adoption of the internet, now those would have been cool and fulfilling occupations I think! Alas, I fear that our current attention economy has largely killed or at least very badly degraded those professions.
In reflection, I suppose that the Church educated me well enough. I like to tell people that the Nuns beat my learning into me, but I think that the Nuns only beat their students in movies and on television. I found all of them to be exceedingly kind and caring. There was this one Priest though, he was a total dick, but the rest were all good men.
Undoubtedly you are correct, a Masonic connection could probably be found in anything I put to paper. Both because of the pervasiveness of Masonry you point out, and also because Freemasonry has sunk so deeply into me. As it tends to do with all who are active within our Gentle Craft.
I appreciate, but cannot accept, your assertion of our relative levels of smartness! In the time I've known you, you have, knowingly or unknowingly taught me much. I truly value the wisdom you've imparted to me these past years, and everything that you have done for Masonry.
Nov 22, 2023·edited Nov 22, 2023Liked by Cameron M. Bailey
You mean the "lapse of time, the ruthless hand of ignorance, and the devastations of war" part? It's a prelude to a more hopeful and optimistic view, if the repositories remain faithful. I think that would be an excellent vignette for MW Cameron to author!
Those lines, from our Fellowcraft Degree, are in my opinion, some of the most evocative lines (when well delivered) ever written in the English language. To ever believe that I could do those passages justice with my own pen is I fear a bad overestimation of my abilities.
But, I thank you both, from the bottom of my heart, for believing that I could somehow do so!
I hope that you both have a most wonderful Thanksgiving!
This made me think of the classic cartoons of Snoopy hunched over a typewriter on top of his doghouse. The joke was he always started his tale with "It was a dark and stormy night".
It was a dark and stormy night when I walked up to the door of the Temple on Market Street in Ballard. I started to reach for the door, but it was opened from inside by a friend. My natural inclination was to smile and make small talk, but he’d have none of that. He was serious, virtually silent.
Within mere moments I found myself blindfolded and felt myself being lowered by the Temple’s elevator. My friend's hand gripping my arm at the elbow. When the elevator stopped he led me on a walk through what I assumed must be the basement. The scent of must and dampness caught my attention.
Without a word I was helped into a chair. The blindfold was removed, and I heard my friend exit a door directly behind me.
As my eyes slowly focused, a human skull on the table directly in front of me caught my attention. Eventually looking around the chamber I had been placed within, I realized that I was surrounded by images of death. The blackness of the room illuminated only with the steady flame of a single candle.
I looked down towards my hands and saw that they were resting on paper. That paper commanding me to contemplate my own mortality.
If someone cannot see, everything that happens to them in the course of becoming un-blind, is a vignette. Until they become unblind, the plot is nonexistent, there's no conflict and no resolution - only puzzlement and just a short experience followed by another one, that they have to interpret through other senses that are not used to compensating for sight.
Does this help?
Thank you for this. It is an interesting way of considering the form.
And it is actually quite similar to the start of the vignette I would like to publish, but won't publish. In it the observer is in a dark closed room at night.
Happy Thanksgiving!
First of all, being tomorrow is Thanksgiving day. I would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts. I really enjoy Emeth, and read your post almost everyday. You are very crafty with words - a natural talent. I also started writing during the covid fiasco. Not something I thought I would ever end up doing. I am someone who failed English class a couple times in school, which I never even finished. But what drives me is my passions, that strong emotional intelligence from the heart. So whatever drives you, don't second guess- make your vignette just the way it manifests in your heart.
Thank you for your very kind words Brother. I'm pleased to know that you enjoy my scribblings.
The old adage that 'adversity is the mother of invention' certainly held true with the creation of Emeth, and my space on write.as before that. Finding myself in the middle of the elected Grand Lodge line, I felt, we all felt, that we needed to discover ways of remaining in connection with the Craft as a whole, and I was most comfortable doing that through the written word.
It also gave me an outlet for all those times that I missed sitting in Lodge with my Brothers. I truly find those times necessary, and when we were unable to have them, I needed to find some way of communicating despite the artificial restrictions.
I truly enjoy reading your writings as well, and am looking forward to many more of them in the future!
The best piece of writing advice I ever received was the KISS formula; keep it short and simple. To use another analogy, pretend that the two of us have just met for coffee and you just blurt out what's on your mind. That's a formula for clear and concise writing.
I fear that I might well violate that KISS formula! I often find myself meandering while lost in thought. But, I do hope that it is clear, even when it isn't concise.
Happy Thanksgiving W. Brother!
This is where I usually step in to recommend Strunk and White or some other stuff, but frankly, you are much more than fine. Your communication is always clear and there are no distracting breaches of spelling or grammar that are so common.
As for vignettes, aren't our Scottish Rite Degrees good examples of such? Maybe there's some parallel there that you could find useful.
Thank you Brother! I truly appreciate your very kind words.
I must admit that throughout my life, spelling has been an extreme challenge for me. If there was one natural gift that the GATU forgot to give me, it was an ability to spell. I was actually never able to learn to spell well until the Word Processor came on the scene. Instead of using spell check to simply correct my errors, I used it to teach myself how to spell better. I still fear errors though, because for me (despite my own struggle with spelling) nothing destroys the flow of a piece of writing more than a misspelled word. How I can so easily spot those misspellings in other people's work, but completely miss them in my own is a mystery for another day!
Grammar is to my view a much different thing. This post itself contains a number of errors in grammar, but I think that is OK. Decades ago, when I was first learning to write for political campaigns, I was taught that the goal of political writing was to persuade, not to be grammatically correct, and that whatever rule it might be should be disregarded if disregarding it made the work more compelling. Secondly, that it was perfectly OK to violate the rules of grammar as long as one knew that those rules were, and why they were being violated. That said, of course there are still grammar rules that give me hiccups. Too or to has driven me mad for decades!
Thank you for the idea of delving into the content of our Scottish Rite Degrees for material!
Happy Thanksgiving Brother!
Iagree ... Grammar rules are often made to be broken, intentionally.
Happy Thanksgiving!
MW, I'm the son of a newspaper editor. He didn't review my homework, he edited it. Or at least he taught me how to edit my own work. I ignored just about everything they tried to teach me in English class in high school. My reasoning was simple: I'm not going to need this because I'm not going to teach English. But people tell me I'm a good writer. I can only conclude that any skill I have was imparted through osmosis. To be fair, I also have to give a shout out to Mrs. Hamilton, my English Comp. professor in my freshman year at college. She spilled enough red ink on my papers that she certainly filled any gaps my father left. In any case, as the son of a newspaper editor I have to say that you sure fooled me. I though you were highly educated. (I also thought you were older than me since you're so much smarter ... turns out I was wrong about that too.)
As to your vignette, maybe it's Masonic and you just haven't spotted it yet. I wrote a few editorials for the D7 News that were true stories but any Masonic angle wasn't apparent to me. I published them anyway and posed the question to the readers as to whether or not the story related to Masonry. In every case several readers spotted something that I hadn't. This taught me that Masonry is probably everywhere if you look for it, even if it's just something that reminds me of Masonry.
Here's a vignette that might not be Masonic on the surface: A guy walks into a store and smiles as he says hello to a sales clerk. What's Masonic about that? Well, he and the sales clerk are standing on the same floor, does that count as meeting on the level? He smiled when he said hello. Isn't that how we're supposed to at least open an encounter if every human has a claim on our kind offices? There's probably more but I only wrote the first sentence of the vignette.
A newspaper editor, or even a reporter, in the days prior to the widespread adoption of the internet, now those would have been cool and fulfilling occupations I think! Alas, I fear that our current attention economy has largely killed or at least very badly degraded those professions.
In reflection, I suppose that the Church educated me well enough. I like to tell people that the Nuns beat my learning into me, but I think that the Nuns only beat their students in movies and on television. I found all of them to be exceedingly kind and caring. There was this one Priest though, he was a total dick, but the rest were all good men.
Undoubtedly you are correct, a Masonic connection could probably be found in anything I put to paper. Both because of the pervasiveness of Masonry you point out, and also because Freemasonry has sunk so deeply into me. As it tends to do with all who are active within our Gentle Craft.
I appreciate, but cannot accept, your assertion of our relative levels of smartness! In the time I've known you, you have, knowingly or unknowingly taught me much. I truly value the wisdom you've imparted to me these past years, and everything that you have done for Masonry.
I hope that you have a splendid Thanksgiving!
MWB ,you might want to visit the G lecture seems like a lot of things written there are happening again.
You mean the "lapse of time, the ruthless hand of ignorance, and the devastations of war" part? It's a prelude to a more hopeful and optimistic view, if the repositories remain faithful. I think that would be an excellent vignette for MW Cameron to author!
VW's Clay & Dean, I love you both, but:
Those lines, from our Fellowcraft Degree, are in my opinion, some of the most evocative lines (when well delivered) ever written in the English language. To ever believe that I could do those passages justice with my own pen is I fear a bad overestimation of my abilities.
But, I thank you both, from the bottom of my heart, for believing that I could somehow do so!
I hope that you both have a most wonderful Thanksgiving!
This made me think of the classic cartoons of Snoopy hunched over a typewriter on top of his doghouse. The joke was he always started his tale with "It was a dark and stormy night".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_was_a_dark_and_stormy_night
There ya go, the beginning of your vignette!
It was a dark and stormy night when I walked up to the door of the Temple on Market Street in Ballard. I started to reach for the door, but it was opened from inside by a friend. My natural inclination was to smile and make small talk, but he’d have none of that. He was serious, virtually silent.
Within mere moments I found myself blindfolded and felt myself being lowered by the Temple’s elevator. My friend's hand gripping my arm at the elbow. When the elevator stopped he led me on a walk through what I assumed must be the basement. The scent of must and dampness caught my attention.
Without a word I was helped into a chair. The blindfold was removed, and I heard my friend exit a door directly behind me.
As my eyes slowly focused, a human skull on the table directly in front of me caught my attention. Eventually looking around the chamber I had been placed within, I realized that I was surrounded by images of death. The blackness of the room illuminated only with the steady flame of a single candle.
I looked down towards my hands and saw that they were resting on paper. That paper commanding me to contemplate my own mortality.
Not quite a vignette I think, but alas, I had to use the opening line!
I hadn't thought about Snoopy and his typewriter for many years. Thank you for the memory!