Introducing Our Writing Section
Welcome to the War of Wits, Ltd. Writing Blog. We hope that you will join us often and share with us your thoughts, experiences, questions, whatever, on writing. If you have questions, state them as briefly as possible and I will try and answer them. If I can’t, I will find someone who can, and either get the information, or send you on to them.
Whether you are a fledgling writer or an old hand, we are anxious to have your input. Sharing what you’ve learned along the way is what enriches all of life’s experiences. No one person has all the answers and in a creative endeavor such as writing, where personal style is what attracts or repels a reader and where there may not be a definite “right or wrong” way to do a thing, having an opportunity to learn from those who have gone before, may mean the difference between success and failure for a new writer. And, who says even the most experienced of writers can’t glean a new outlook on a project by looking through a pair of fresh eyes.
Writing, whether it is in the form of a book, a poem, a play, an article or a movie script is a wonderful way to share your personal thoughts and feelings with others. Writing is a catharsis. It allows the writer to let his or her imagination run wild. Harry Potter may be one of the best examples of an imagination run wild, and look how successful that was. So, give wings to your thoughts. Share with us your innermost adventures. Take us on a wonderful ride to places only the imagination can go. Be our guide to worlds beyond our dreams.
I look forward to meeting you.
It would seem that Scottish seagulls in particular are becoming domesticated. Not so far from Aberdeen, unjustly renowned for the parsimony of its inhabitants, on the same coast, is the town of St.Andrews, justly renowned for its Golf Course, and for being the home of Heidi the Heroine, the subject of one of Floyd’s Fan Club stories! (If you have not read it just ask and you shall receive!)
Heidi’s human has a Grandmother, who also lives in St. Andrews, is aged 97, and regularly goes to visit her daughter in Dundee. For some time now there has been a relationship developing between Gran and a Seagull.
It started with a seagull helping himself to the porridge put out for Gran’s cat, called Ethel. Naturally Ethel objected to this, and made her feeling known to Gran. It was quite a puzzlement for Gran, since the seagull took not a blind bit of notice of Gran trying to shoo him away from Ethel’s dish. (It has always been assumed that such a character just had to be male!)
Gran, being a somewhat bird wise human, decided that the best approach was to put out two dishes - one on the ground, close to the back door, and the other on top of the inverted lid of a dust-bin near the garden gateway. That way the needs of both creatures could be dealt with at the same time and there would be no need for either to complain.
Then the seagull just stopped dropping by. Several weeks passed and, quite early on, Gran reverted to a single dish system, giving no further though to her presumably migrant visitor.
One morning, after a particularly wind swept night, Gran was going about her housekeeping chores when she heard a tapping noise. Thinking she had a visitor she took off her apron, checked that her hair was just so, and opened the front door. There was no sign of anyone either standing
waiting or, indeed, walking along the street. Somewhat puzzled, and a little cross at being disturbed in the performance of her duties, Gran returned to her work. Again there was a tapping noise. This time Gran listened more carefully, and decided that it seemed to be coming from the kitchen. Sure enough, there she found a seagull, impatiently tapping on the window - demanding to fed!
Gran immediately prepared a dish of Porridge which she placed on the upturned dust-bin lid (garbage can in US-speak), and before she was back in the house the Seagull was happily consuming the traditional Scottish breakfast.
After that, every day that both the Seagull, now rejoicing in the name ‘Mr. Knocky’, and Gran were ‘in residence’ the tap of a beak on the kitchen window resulted in the Pavlovian response of Porridge on the Dust-bin! I cannot, for the life of me, determine which was the conditioned and which was the conditioner - Gran or Mr.Knocky!
Gran was, as I said, frequently away in Dundee, and Mr. Knocky would absent himself for a few days or weeks now and then, but, apart from the interruptions cause by the absence of either party, for several years now it has been an established routine. Knock leads to Porridge.
To cap it all Mr. Knocky now brings a smaller and much younger looking companion with him, presumably either wife or offspring!
Story by FLOYD THE DOG
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