It seems odd to say something like this, because he was such a big part of your life, and I mean no offense... but I'm so blown away by the way you say what you need to. You're one of the few people I've ever come in contact with that has the ability to not only say exactly what they want, and what they need, but to say it so well. Your stories about him always hit me right in the heart.

Thanks.

The truth is, I'm good at bleeding - and since the language is all I have left, I'm damned grateful I can bleed for what I feel, and do it in a way that says what my heart wants to say.

Your talent just blows me away; and since you were expressing something so fundamental I was afraid that complimenting your writing would beside the point. Also, would it be out of line to offer you a cyberhug? Sometimes that seems such at empty gesture, but at this distance it's all I've got.

Dude, cyberhugs are pretty much the only ones I'll take; there's been a really funny discussion of hug vresus non-hug, over in F2F.

But thanks - and I'm totally in agreement about fundamental stuff being the keystone in this kind of work, no matter who's doing it.

I asked an open question in my livejournal a few months back, a rare public post, asking the writers out there - all writers, published or unpublished, that doesn't define a writer - what one line advice they would give a newbie sitting at their feet.

My advice was "Tell me a story", meaning, basically, paint me the world and the people and make me care, because that's what "once upon a time" is all about. A majority of the professional writers - this amused me - offered up some variant of "butt. in. chair."

But my friend Laura Anne Gilman said, very simply, "Be true."

Basically, I think the point in these, the ones that deal with the one particular man, are less about the polish or the talent or the whatever, and more about the true. As in, true to me, so let it bleed.

Not just true, Deb, but fearless with it. I see you jump so often, without a net, that I nearly have heart attacks waiting for you to fall. But it never seems like you do. Or, if you do, you're like the Bionic Man: better, faster, stronger for it. It's amazing to watch and I thank you for sharing so much of that with us.

That said, I'ma bleed a little myself.

The Winner

We’d been meeting there for almost a week, now. The first time it was just as a lark. Something to while away a few hours with others rather than home, alone. As usual.

By the fourth night it was starting to feel like a regular “thing.” The bartender even ran our tabs together; it was taken for granted.

We watched the screen together and the scores started diverging. The excuses fell from my lips. “It was just luck, process of elimination, it’s what being stationed in Spain did for me.” It wasn’t bragging.

“Will you, for God’s sake, SHUT UP?”

My advice was "Tell me a story", meaning, basically, paint me the world and the people and make me care, because that's what "once upon a time" is all about. A majority of the professional writers - this amused me - offered up some variant of "butt. in. chair."

But my friend Laura Anne Gilman said, very simply, "Be true."

Yup. More broadly, if you have something in you that wants to be let out, then let it out, in whatever form it takes. Writing, painting, acting, dancing -- whatever. I guess that combines both "tell me a story" and "be true."

ION, Deb -- did you know that Tad Williams is writing a 6-issue comic series for DC? It's called "The Next," and is due out in July.

Damn, Sail. Just - damn.

Tep, I honestly didn't. Completely out of the loop, these days.

Y'all are amazing. Here is an attempt at what Deb said - truth and a good story rather than just a good story.

============

Doris

Newark, New Jersey: Shay is five. He is in trouble again. “Nothing they teach in that Synagogue makes sense!” he shouts. “I don’t want to go, and if you make me I’ll tell the Rabbi nothing he says is true again”.

Doris draws herself up to her full five feet of height. “No son of mine is going to skip schul, or – G-d forbid – get a reputation as an atheist.”

Willie clears his throat. “If the boy doesn’t want to go, why should he go?” Everyone stares. For Shay’s father, this is an extraordinarily long speech. He is a long drink of a man, mostly silent by necessity. He speaks little English, and to tell you the truth, even his Yiddish is not that good.

Shay no longer has to go to synagogue. He thinks that Doris gives in mostly out of surprise, and out of the fear that if she presses the point, Willie would also stop going.

Phoenix, Arizona: Shay is seven. The clean desert air does not seem to help Willie’s lungs, probably because he can’t afford to quit the only work he knows, tanning leather. Since Willie does not have the strength to put in a full day, Doris raises chicken and ducks, and (thanks to the WPA built irrigation system) watermelons.

It is hard work, and Doris never quite grows accustomed to the differences between Arizona and New Jersey. She screams when a rattlesnake gets into the fenced off yard; but the one legged duck Shay and his older brother Gerson have made into a pet kills it before it can do any harm. Shay and Gerson are relieved, and not just that their mother is safe. The duck is a hero now; he is also safe.

That night, Doris serves duck for dinner, duck with only one drumstick. “ G-d gave man dominion over all other creatures. Life is too hard for sentimentality. The sooner you learn that the better.”

Shay, Gerson and Willie all skip dinner that night. Doris eats heartily and sleeps soundly, replete with duck and righteousness.

City Terrace, California: Shay is 13, standing with Doris in the small graveyard behind the synagogue. They both adored Gerson. Everyone knew the hairline skull fracture he earned as a fighter pilot would kill him.

Doris turns to Shay. “You should have been the one to fight the Nazis. You should be the one who is dead.”

The next day Shay quits the high school football team and goes to work on the loading docks. He knows the shop Doris opened after Willie’s lungs gave out does not make enough to keep them, and they no longer have Gerson’s sick pay from the Air Force.

City Terrace, California: Shay is 16 when he catches Doris telling the girl he brought home, that she deserves better, that Shay does not really care for her, and won’t ever treat her right.

Shay has never had problems getting girls. Working on the loading docks has taught him to curse more fiercely, hold his liquor better, and smoke more elegantly than any other boy in the school. Lifting 70 pound crates eight hours a day has given him bigger shoulders than he had as a fullback. And though he is always in too much trouble to get good grades, it is only his behavior that brings them down; he always get an A on assignments and tests; his teachers never give him higher than a C for his classes though, because it is obvious to them that this is the grade he deserves. Two years from now he won’t be class valedictorian, but he will write both the male and female valedictorian speeches for them.

Shay has never had problems getting girls. But after he stops bringing them home, he no longer has problems getting second dates.

City Terrace, California: Shay is 20. The room is full for Doris’s memorial, but of Shay’s friends, not hers. The Rabbi delivers the eulogy, not Shay. Nobody wonders about this departure from the usual custom of the neighborhood. The Rabbi describes her as a “good person at heart, a diamond in the rough”. Everyone nods politely. After all, maybe (continued...)

( continues...) she really was a good person deep inside where nobody could see.

Wow, Gar, that's damn good. The last line's a killer.