Chet’s Chatter

Two years on

Posted on 15 April 2007 @ 08:39 in Family

It’s two years today since father left us. I think of him often, as I’m sure mother does, too.

Her memories may be locked inside her head and more often than not, she is unable to say what’s on her mind. But sometimes, they leak out. Like last Saturday, she suddenly sat up on the sofa and mumbled “let’s go see your father.”

“Go see who?” I asked, just to be sure.

“Your father.”

“We can’t go where he is. We can only go when it’s time for us to join him. He’ll be waiting for us. Okay?”

She nodded her head, sat back on the sofa and nothing more was mentioned of father.

Vonnegut’s 8 rules for writing a short story

Posted on 14 April 2007 @ 08:26 in People, Writing

From Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, 1999:

Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
Start as close to the end as possible.
Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Vonnegut’s farewell to the world

Posted on 13 April 2007 @ 06:02 in People

“When Kurt Vonnegut died Wednesday night in Manhattan, he had a drawing ready, a simple doodle really, of a bird cage standing empty, its door flung open.

Underneath the image is a simple “Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 1922-2007,” the only post Thursday on the writer’s official Web site. His quick sketch amounted to the perfect exit line — accessible, playful, a hint of giving death the slip.”

Full story here:
Kurt Vonnegut: Provocative, harrowing and funny to the end

Farewell, Mr Vonnegut

Posted on 12 April 2007 @ 17:14 in People

And thank you for all the seemingly funny, but thought provoking, reads you’ve given us all these years.

News excerpt from cnn.com:

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84

POSTED: 0546 GMT (1346 HKT), April 12, 2007

NEW YORK (AP) — Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as “Slaughterhouse-Five” and “Cat’s Cradle,” died Wednesday. He was 84.

Vonnegut, who often marveled that he had lived so long despite his lifelong smoking habit, had suffered brain injuries after a fall at his Manhattan home weeks ago, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.

Full story:

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84