Two days ago, I managed to talk my father into reading Rooster the rooster. A short story previously published in its designated place here at the Box, and submitted to a Creative Writing professor. Rooster the rooster was read by many people. I read it aloud to my sister when I finished it, we were in the car heading home and I was thrilled that the tale was finished. So thrilled was I, that I could not wait to get home for her to know about it. So I started reading.

I did not use the voice I imagined I would use if I read the story. The narrative voice I used was quite different, and very unexpected. It was pretty casual though, I thought such a step would rob the story of its satire, but it didn’t.

So my father agreed to read the two papers I put in his lap as he watched TV. He asked what the papers were about, and I said “Oh, just read!”. Much to my content, he complied.

I sat on a couch close at hand, and I waited for the comments. My father, you see, has his own architecture of thought. He doesn’t always quite get the jest of what I say or write, and that makes the process all the more pleasant. I sometimes have his temper and when he fails to understand what I mean by something, I normally use this temper if my conduct is not checked.

Not to speak too long of details that contribute nothing to this entry’s core, I will proceed with the logical sequence of events. So there I was, sitting on a couch looking at my father as he put on his glasses and started reading the passages I composed.

Now he smiled, then he laughed. He threw a stylistic remark my way but I talked it away, explaining the reason behind the deliberate glitch. “But that belongs here, because…It’s all deliberate, you know what I’m saying” -”Ahhh. So you meant to say such and such eh? That’s smart” - “Why of course!”.

So went our brief conversation. The way my father reacted to the piece was amazing. It made me see, first hand, what a reader with a completely different line of thought would juice out of it. He smiled, and that was proof enough for me to feel that he was able to relate to it. That is my writer’s ecstasy.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 27th, 2005 at 10:56 am and is filed under Bits & pieces. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.