Virtual Editing Workshop Part One

Here is a paragraph from my Work In Progress. I'm several edits into it and this is my next-to-last pass, so hopefully there won't be a lot to find, but I'm going to use this paragraph as an example for you.

Originally, this paragraph read: A million thoughts raced through Ken’s mind. Flattered by the Colonel’s compliments, he actually considered it for a fraction of a second. He had been feeling a little complacent lately, not bored, but … dull. This would be a change of pace, certainly. But as soon as the thought came, it left, chased out by his conviction that he needed to stay. How could he leave Catherine and Sunny behind, after all he had gone through to reunite his family, and with Sunny’s health still so fragile? He shook his head even while thinking the words.

Reading it over, what leaped out at me was this: A million thoughts raced through Ken’s mind. Flattered by the Colonel’s compliments, he actually considered it for a fraction of a second. He had been feeling a little complacent lately, not bored, but … dull. This would be a change of pace, certainly. But as soon as the thought came, it left, chased out by his conviction that he needed to stay. How could he leave Catherine and Sunny behind, after all he had gone through to reunite his family, and with Sunny’s health still so fragile? He shook his head even while thinking the words.


That's a whole lot of thinking for one paragraph.

So I changed it to:

A million thoughts raced through Ken’s mind. Flattered by the Colonel’s compliments, he actually considered it for a fraction of a second. He had been feeling a little complacent lately, not bored, but … dull. This would be a change of pace, certainly. But as soon as the thought came, it left, chased out by his conviction that he needed to stay. How could he leave Catherine and Sunny behind, after all he had gone through to reunite his family, and with Sunny’s health still so fragile? He shook his head even while considering it.

But then I noticed:

Flattered by the Colonel’s compliments, he actually considered it for a fraction of a second. . . . He shook his head even while considering it.

So now, after looking it over carefully, this is how the paragraph now reads:

A million thoughts raced through Ken’s mind. Flattered by the Colonel’s compliments, he actually considered it for a fraction of a second. He had been feeling a little complacent lately, not bored, but … dull. This would be a change of pace, certainly. But as soon as the thought came, it left, chased out by his conviction that he needed to stay. How could he leave Catherine and Sunny behind, after all he had gone through to reunite his family, and with Sunny’s health still so fragile? He shook his head even while contemplating it.

New Year’s Resolutions – the Write Way

What a fabulous time of year! We’re ready to hit 2007 with a bang, right all we did wrong last year, become everything we were meant to be, lose all that weight, pay off all that debt, strengthen our marriages and uplift our children. Right?

At least, that’s what it seems like. Every time I think of what I want to accomplish in the new year, I remind myself of Superman flying backwards around the world to turn back the clock and change everything I’ve done up until now. That option’s not open to me; all I can do is concentrate on what will come in the future.

But I love it that New Year’s is right after Christmas. During the Christmas season, we are reminded of what life is really about and what our place in it should be. We have a week to really think about it, and then we start afresh with a new calender, empty except for major holidays and birthdays we commemorate every year. 365 days, brand new, given to us as a gift for us to make of what we will.

I admit, some of my resolutions for 2007 sound a lot like the goals listed in the first paragraph. But overall, I’m going to be getting back to basics, making sure my foundations are sure so that in 2008, I can build on them.

One of my major goals for 2007 has to do with writing. I’m a stay-at-home mom, a media reviewer, a homeschooler, and I own my own bath and beauty products company. I am also a Scout leader and a Visiting Teacher. My writing moments are scattered in between everything else I do. It’s impossible for me to say, “I will write from 3 pm to 5 pm today.” Who knows how many fights will erupt in those two hours, how many nosebleeds, bruises, cases of the munchies, blowout diapers, bored children, broken TVs, lost books, and important telephone calls will take place in those two hours, not to mention a baby who won’t take his nap and instead draws on his bedroom walls. Structure is not a luxury I have.

But what I do have is a plan. I know what I want to accomplish, and the actual “when” I accomplish it is not such a biggie. It could be in five minute chunks during "Blue's Clues." It could be the middle of the night. It's the doing, not the when, that's important.

I’m going to share my plans with you here, and you can help me be accountable for them. I find I do much better when I know I have to give a report when I’m done.

Overall Goals: Rewrite book #6, have it edited, get it submitted. Rewrite book #3, have it edited, get it submitted.

Book #6 --

12/27/06 – 1/15/07: Read all research books on my desk, watch documentaries on desk, fill in details on Internet. Interview father-in-law.

1/16/07 – 1/31/07: Make changes in book, edit it.

2/1/07: E-mail to editor #1.

Month of February – while waiting to get book back from editor #1, read a pile of suspense books as research for book #3.

3/07 – 6/07: Rewrite book #3.

**At some point in here, get book #6 back from editor #1, make changes, and send to editor #2.**

7/01/07: Have changes to book #3 finished, and e-mailed to editor A.


That’s all I’ll map out right now. I have to see how life goes. But in July, I’ll be ready to reevaluate and determine what my next step is from there.

What about you? Do you have plans for your writing for the new year? I'll be posting an update at the end of every month, and if you like, you can report your progress as well.

All I Want For Christmas . . .

When my husband and I started to discuss what we wanted for Christmas this year, I really had to think about it for a minute, and you know what I discovered? I already have everything I want.

1. A house. I have been asking for a house for Christmas for years, and this year, I got one. It's not the house yet -- the house will have about six bedrooms, a family room, and an office area for me. But it's a darling house and I love it, and it's mine.

2. Financial freedom. Okay, I don't have that yet, but I do have all my bills outlined. I know how much I owe, and when they're due. I have a chart so I know when each one of them will be paid off. It's a process, for sure, but at the end is financial freedom. If it were to suddenly appear out of thin air, I don't think I'd appreciate it as much as I do going through the process.

3. Health and strength. All my life I've been a tad on the sickly side, and I have longed for better health. For the last few months I've been making some strides in that area, and my energy is up and I have the motivation to do more. Again, it's a process, and I'm delighted to be going through it.

4. An eternal family. This one's the biggie -- what is all of it for if you don't have your family forever? I may not have it yet, but I have the makings. My husband and I were married in the temple, which is the first step, and over eleven years of marriage we've had ups and downs, but we have consistently worked toward solving differences and becoming united. Our children are slowly but surely learning what it means to be a part of an eternal family as we deal with fighting and other things that come up. No, we're not there yet, but we are on the right path as long as we keep trying.

So, thanks, but no thanks, Santa. I have everything I want for Christmas. At least, I have the beginnings, and I wouldn't fast forward to the end for anything. The ride is too much fun.

Editing, Editing, Now We Go . . .

I would like to offer some practical advice along the lines of editing, and I think the best way to do that would be to do a show-and-tell of sorts. I'm asking you to ask you to send me about 400 words, in fiction or nonfiction format, and I'll take you through a step-by-step on how to edit it. Now, don't send me anything that you're vastly emotionally attached to, because if I make a comment that rubs you the wrong way, you'll never want to speak to me again and that would be dreadful.

You can send as many 400 word chunks as you like, although I do draw the line at sending me your whole manuscript in hopes of getting a free edit. I do edit, but not for free.

So send them on over, folks! You can either leave them in the comment trail or send them to tap@tristipinkston.com.

A Christmas Story

Since I can't reach through the computer screen and give each of you a plate of homebaked cookies, I thought I would do the next best thing and give you a Christmas story. Merry Christmas!


Arrows to Heaven
By Tristi Pinkston © 2006


I’ve been the owner of the O Tannenbaum Christmas Tree Lot for over twenty years, the only lot in the valley that doesn’t cut their trees weeks in advance and expect them to last through the holiday season without losing all their needles. No, sir; we take pride in the fact that our trees are cut the week before the lot opens and that we cut fresh as needed. In fact, the majority of our trees come in buckets, so the environmentally conscious can plant the tree after they’re done with it. It strikes me as ironic that people can be so worried about the environment but pay so little attention to why they’re buying the tree in the first place.

A lot of things struck me as ironic a year ago. I was turning into a cynic, barely able to stand the holiday. Don’t get me wrong; I’m a Christian to the core. But I’m getting older, as my wife keeps reminding me, and my tolerance for certain things just isn’t what it used to be. Take, for instance, the woman who came to the lot and stood for over twenty minutes debating whether or not a certain blue spruce was taller than the one Nancy Englebrecht had in her foyer (she pronounced it “foy-yay” – I guess no one ever told her we don’t have those in Utah) as if I should have known who Nancy Englebrecht even was. I was on the verge of telling her that I had been to Nancy’s house personally, with a tape measure, and that the blue spruce in question topped Nancy’s by a whopping six inches, when the lady in question turned, sighed, and told her husband that they had better keep looking. It just wouldn’t do.

It was a tree, for crying out loud, and a right pretty one, too. It held the place of honor in the lot, just in front as you walked in. I had cut that one myself and felt a sense of pride whenever I looked at it. But for some reason, if it couldn’t compete with Nancy What’s-Her-Name’s tree, it wasn’t good enough. After all that, I’m not sure I would have sold it to her anyway.

It was one particularly bright and clear night midway through December that my cynicism vanished, the kind of night where the air is so cold you can feel your nostrils freezing from the inside out. I sat on the stool I always sit on, overseeing the place and listening to Harvey, my eager new assistant, point out the merits of a fir tree to a young married couple, celebrating their first Christmas together. I had been thinking of selling the lot and doing something downright self-indulgent with the money when a little family drove up in a sad brown station wagon and tumbled out like puppies. There were three children and a mother, a blonde with a pony tail. She was too tired to be pretty, but the potential was there. Give her a nap and she would have sparkled.

The children ranged in age from, oh, about five, up to around ten. I’m a terrible judge of age but that’s my best guess. The woman, I estimated to be younger than she looked. Lines of care touched her eyes where they had no right to be, this early in the game. They stood near the entrance, staring up at all the garish lights I strung along the fence for the purpose of attracting passing motorists, their eyes reflecting the oranges and purples in a way the bulbs themselves could only aspire to.

“Let’s walk around,” I heard her say, and the children reached out and took each other’s hands, as if on cue. They went from tree to tree, admiring, standing back to see the tops. I had arranged the trees from largest to smallest, with the different varieties in each size pulled together in groupings so the customers could quickly find whatever they were looking for, but this family didn’t seem to have a target in mind. They looked at every tree on the lot.

Finally they reached the back corner, where I stack the dead branches and other rubbish that I plan to take to the dump. One of the small trees cut way back when the lot first opened had lost some limbs on one side and looked as though the others were in danger too, and I couldn’t have it out on the lot. I take pride in my quality and selection. I heard a squeal as the family rounded the corner and saw the trash heap, and the next thing I knew, the oldest, a boy, was standing in front of me, holding that tree like a trophy, asking how much it was.

“Well, now,” I said, shaking my head. “That tree has seen better days. Are you sure it’s the one you want?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “This one is perfect.”

I nearly fell off my stool when he said “sir.” I haven’t heard that since I was too young to be addressed that way.

“This tree is straight out of Charlie Brown,” I told him. “There are much nicer trees out there.”

“We really like this one,” he insisted.

“Well, I can’t see myself taking any money for that old thing,” I began, but the mother interrupted me.

“Go look at the lights,” she told her children, nodding over to the side, and they walked off. She kept an eye on them as she turned back to me.

“I appreciate what you were about to do,” she said. “But please don’t. The children have been saving their money for months to buy a tree and they want to do this so badly. If you were to give it to them, it would be kind, but it wouldn’t mean quite the same thing, you know?”

I looked at her for a long moment. I did know. I remembered the first thing I ever saved my money to buy. It was a Secret Spy Decoder Ring, a piece of junk that was created for the purpose of luring young innocents like myself into forking over their hard-earned allowance, but I treasured that ring like almost nothing else.

She misunderstood my silence. “It’s not that I’m ungrateful, really, I’m not. But you should have seen them, all summer long, gathering up loose change from the parking lot at the store and taking out trash for the neighbors. They kept the money in a can on Peter’s dresser. This means so much to them.”

“Why a tree?” I found my voice at last. “Why have they been working so hard to get money for a tree? Why not candy, or toys?”

“Peter says a Christmas tree looks just like an arrow, pointing up to Heaven,” she said. “With all we’ve been through this year, we need every reminder of Heaven we can get.” I must have looked as lost as I felt, for she continued, “Oh, I see the rumor mill hasn’t made it this far. I’m Margaret Keith. You know, of the ‘her husband was an alcoholic and left her for another woman and hasn’t been seen in six months’ Keiths.” Her tone was light and I could tell that she wanted to inject some humor into her admission.

“I only know the Albuquerque Keiths,” I told her. “Your bunch must have immigrated later.”

She smiled in acknowledgement as the children returned. The boy I took to be Peter was all business. “We’re ready to buy our tree,” he said, holding up a tin can. “How much is it?”

I looked to the mother for some kind of sign, and bless her heart, she held up five fingers, giving me the answer I needed.

“That tree is four dollars,” I said, wanting to leave them something to rattle in the bottom of their can. “And you are in luck. For the next ten minutes, all trees sold come with a string of lights, free.”

They chose white lights, “like the stars,” the youngest said, and the transaction was completed. I have never in my life seen so much joy on the faces of three young children as I did that night after helping them put the tree in the car. It was so small, it fit in the front seat next to Margaret. They thanked me and drove away, full of excitement.

I stood there for a long time, watching their taillights disappear. People came and went, ably assisted by Harvey, barely noticed by me. At last I turned and went back to my stool, looking at the trees as I did so. Each and every one of them was an arrow, pointing to Heaven, just like Peter said.

About an hour later my wife brought me a thermos of hot chocolate. She set it down on the table and began tidying up the receipts, her back to me. I slid my arms around her waist.

“Merry Christmas,” I said in her ear, and she laughed.

“What happened to you tonight?”

“I’ll have to tell you about it sometime,” I told her, and gave her a little squeeze. I had made a decision. I wasn’t going to sell the lot after all. Those precious moments of joy, as rare and fleeting as they were becoming, were strong enough and powerful enough to overshadow all the commercialism I’d grown to detest so badly. Yes, I was a walking, talking Christmas cliché, and I couldn’t have been more delighted about it.

With a Blog Blog Here, and a Blog Blog There . . .

Here are some fairly decent blogs from the last couple of weeks. Enjoy!

Commercialism and Christmas: You Set the Tone

Inside My Heart -- Robin McGraw

Aunt Pitty Patty's Piggy -- retold by Jim Aylesworth

Is the Book or the Movie Better?

Books for Pearl Harbor Day

Author Review: Jan Karon

Blockbuster vs. Netflix

Author Review: Barbara Park

Author Review: Dick Francis

Rilla of Ingleside

Pearl Harbor Day

This time of year, people around the country are commemorating the bombing of Pearl Harbor, either in their hearts or by attending ceremonies, watching stories on the news, reading historical accounts, or just taking a moment to remember. I’m doing that as well, honoring our slain military personnel by thinking about them and appreciating what they sacrificed for us as a nation.

At this time, I also find it appropriate to share some of my thoughts and feelings concerning Pearl Harbor and some of the other historical events that surrounded it. These thoughts, in part, were shared with the League of Utah Writers last month, but time did not permit me to share everything I would have liked and so I’ll take the opportunity to do so here.

My first novel, “Nothing to Regret,” is the story of the Japanese Americans who were interned after Pearl Harbor. Because I chose to write a book that tells the story from the Japanese American angle, I have been labeled as unpatriotic and some have felt that I’m anti-American. I can assure you, there is nothing further from the truth. I love my country with all my heart. I am proud to live here, to wave the flag, and to say the Pledge of Allegiance with my hand over my heart. And every single time I say it, you'd better believe I say, “Under God.”

It is not anti-American to tell a story from a different viewpoint, and that is what I did with my novel. There are scads of books out there which tell the story of Pearl Harbor, but relatively few that tell the story of the internees, and I found none in LDS fiction which did more than mention the camps. I wanted to tell the story because it needed to be told. There is nothing anti-American about telling about what happened to Americans. That is what the Japanese Americans were and are –Americans.

It frustrates me to no end to discuss my novel with someone and to have them say to me, “You know the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor,” as though they were speaking to a very young child. Someday I just may look at them in shock and say, “Really? I missed that!!” Of course I know the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. I’m a historical fiction author, heavy on the historical. I research countless hours. I ask questions. I learn about my subject matter. And if I get something wrong, I go back and fix it until it’s right. Somewhere along the way, I did pick up on the fact that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. But their doing that does not make it wrong for me to write the book I did.

It wasn’t the JA’s who did the bombing. Many of them had never even set foot in Japan, having been born here after their parents immigrated. Of all the JA’s who were interned, not one of them was ever found to have links to the bombing. Every single person in those camps was an innocent bystander, just as outraged as we were about the attack. They were not a danger to the country.

At the time, with the wartime hysteria passing from one person to the next like a wildfire, the government felt it was the most logical thing to do. There are many people still living who remember when it happened, and some of them have expressed to me that it was the only way to handle it. With the 20/20 vision that hindsight gives us, we can now see that there were other ways to deal with the situation, but those who were there are firm in their stand that the camps were the answer. I disagree, but then, I wasn’t there.

The thing we must keep in mind at all times is that each and every person living on this planet is a child of God, just as we are. They have thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams and aspirations, just as we do. I remember the first time I ever realized that I wasn’t the only one who had thoughts and internal dialogue. I was about eight, and I said to my mom, “Does everyone in the world look out through their own eyes and see things like I do? Do they think inside their heads?” When I got the answer that yes, everyone has their own thoughts and their own feelings, I was floored. It had never occurred to me that the man across the street was living inside his own skin, looking out from it, just as I looked out from mine. It was a changing day for me because I realized that the feelings of others are just as important as mine.

So imagine that you are accused of something you didn’t do, rounded up and thrown into a camp. Imagine that you lose nearly every possession you have, are treated like a criminal, and given a stigma that will last until the end of time. You’d be a little mad, wouldn’t you? You’d want to fight the system, wouldn’t you? Well, guess what – that’s just what happened to the JA’s and they did not fight. They handled it with grace and dignity. They never once rose up against their captors; they simply took everything that was dished out to them because they understood why America was so angry with the Japanese. They took it all on the faith that someday, it would be made right. I am not that tolerant. I am not that patient, that kind, that forebearing.

Okay, so I’ve just indicated that we shouldn’t be mad at the JA’s for what happened at Pearl Harbor. Now I’m going to talk to you about not being mad at the Japanese.

What?

Yeah, you heard me.

There is only a small group of people you really should be mad at for the bombing, and that is the Japanese government of the time. The bulk of the Japanese citizenry did not know anything about the bombing, and when they did hear about it, they were told that it was an absolute necessity.

From the time a Japanese child of that era was born, they were taught that the Emperor was literally a god through the lineage of the sun goddess Amateratsu. They were taught to believe in the Emperor without question, to obey without any hesitation. In every home, in every school, in every workplace, this was repeated. It was a literal brainwashing, with severe consequences for failure to comply. It never occurred to the Japanese people that their Emperor could do anything evil. And so, when they heard that Pearl Harbor had been attacked and that it was for their best good, they believed it.

At the close of the war in the Pacific, when Japan surrendered, the Emperor was made to read a statement on the radio telling the people that he was not divine. It crushed everyone. They had loved and trusted and believed in him for years, and now to be told that he was not who they thought? And then when they began to realize that the things he did were not always for the best good of Japan, they felt lied to and betrayed. They had to rebuild their entire belief systems from scratch. No, do not be angry with the Japanese. They are good and loyal people who were fed a bucket of lies by their leaders and because of their trusting natures, they ate it all up. When they began to hear what really happened at Pearl Harbor, they were devastated.


There are also those who feel I should not have written about the atomic bomb from the Japanese perspective. I have had people say to me, “Do you know what would have happened if we hadn’t dropped the bomb?” Hello – yes, I know. The Japanese were determined to fight until the very end and dropping the bomb brought the war to a swift close, the treaty being signed within weeks. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t write about what happened.

The effect of the bomb on the land of Japan was far-reaching, devastating, and horrific. Radiation seeped into the ground and caused mutations long afterwards. People had their clothing burned into their skin. It was more than just a bomb – it was like being stuck in a microwave and zapped. Why is it wrong for me to say so? I'm glad we won the war, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't feel sorry for how it came about. It doesn’t make me less of an American to feel compassion for those who suffered.

I tell the story of the bomb in “Nothing to Regret” for the purpose of showing what my character had been through, but also so that my readers can understand that it was a terrible thing and we need to recognize that. It’s one thing to win the war and feel glad that we did so, but quite another to feel smug about the suffering inflicted upon another human being, and I have found far many comments made to the latter.

I saw a bumper sticker about two years ago that incensed me. It read: “Without Pearl Harbor, there would have been no Hiroshima.” Let me explain why this bothered me so much.

1. Hiroshima was not in retaliation for Pearl Harbor. In March of 1942, Colonel Dolittle led an air attack over Tokyo in what would be called “The Dolittle Raid.” That attack was in retaliation for Pearl Harbor.

2. The atomic bomb was dropped in August of 1945, after over three years of brutal fighting with Japan in the Pacific. It was that brutal fighting that prompted the American government to use the bomb against the Japanese. From what I understand, it had originally been created to use against the Nazis, but they surrendered before the bomb was ready to use. When the American government saw the zeal with which Japan was pushing forward with the war, they decided to use the bomb in Japan instead. The bomb never was created with the intent of “getting Japan back” for Pearl Harbor.

3. Third, and this may not win me a whole lot of friends. Think about it for a minute – who died at Pearl Harbor? Over a thousand military personnel. When you go into the military, you have come to terms with the fact that you may give your life for your country, and you accept it. Who died at Hiroshima? Children, grandparents, and young women. The Japanese military personnel were not in Hiroshima; they were out fighting. The atomic bomb killed people we weren’t even fighting with. They’d had no chance to work out their willingness to die beforehand, and over one hundred thousand people were killed in the blast and many more died from the aftereffects.

You can’t possibly draw a comparison between one attack and the other and say that one is just recompense for the other. Attack A: killed military personnel who had already devoted their lives to the cause. Attack B: killed women, children, and elderly. Attack A: killed over 1,000. Attack B: killed over 100,000, caused birth defects, irradiated the soil, and many more died in the years following. To say that A justifies B is completely ludicrous. To say that because of Pearl Harbor, anything we want to do is right, is very, very wrong. You must look at the two incidents separately and understand that it was not just Pearl Harbor that led to the bomb.

Does this make me anti-American? Certainly not. This makes me willing to look at the situation from more than just one angle. Our veterans went out there and gave their all so we might have the freedom to explore the other angles. It is because of the freedom they fought for that I am able to share these thoughts in this blog. I honor our veterans. I wear my red plastic poppy proudly.

What I challenge is the tendency I see toward looking at the war in only one way. The more I read and study and listen, the more I have come to the conclusion that in order for us to truly understand, we have to be willing to let go of our rigidity. We have to be willing to listen to what others say. In order to understand why the Nazis did what they did, we must understand how they were trained and raised up. In order to understand the attack on Pearl Harbor, we must understand the way the Japanese were trained and raised up. We can’t simply slap a label, “Oh, they attacked us because they’re evil,” and think we are justified in that. Their leaders were evil and they mounted an evil campaign. That does not make the entire nation evil or make everyone of that heritage evil.

I grew up in the era of “The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!” Russia was a bad, bad place full of evil people. A bomb was going to drop on us any minute and we must be on our guard. Imagine my parents’ horror when I decided that I was fascinated with Russia and wanted to learn to speak the language. Imagine their further horror when I decided I wanted to go there on a mission. What really horrified them was when I won an essay contest and was awarded a trip there when I was fifteen. I begged them to pray about it. I knew I would be fine, and after they spent some time thinking it over, they knew I would be too, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. And do you know what I found? Russians aren’t evil. (Shocker!) They have had evil systems of government that have forced them into the conditions they were in, but the Russian people are good, loving, honest people. So are the Germans, and so are the Japanese. We cannot and must not judge an entire race of people based on their government.

I hate the idea that we as Americans are judged based on the actions of our leaders, but it happens – part of the beef that the terrorists have with us is the fact that Bill Clinton is such an immoral man. He may have thought his actions wouldn't hurt anyone, but they have had longlasting repercussions that will be felt for generations.

Steering back from that departure, may I bring this long ramble to a close by saying this. I will continue to seek out these unusual angles, these hidden events, and bring them to the surface. These are stories of good people and they deserve to be told. America is a proud and strong country. America will not be hurt by my telling the stories I tell. I am not disloyal to America for wanting to share my love for all people and to hopefully help voices long silenced to speak again. Part of what makes America great is freedom of speech, and I will use my freedom of speech to speak the truth as I know it and find it. That is why I write.