The Ten Second Rule

Katie – As always thanks for taking the time and your feedback. It is always most appreciated.

I appreciate your suggestion and first I have to confess – I found it very hard myself – to relate a personal story and not to fall into the act of telling. It’s really difficult because you get caught up in remembering the moment so vividly and you want to share everything you can remember. When I sent it to my friends the response was almost immediate. It was funny how there were little details that I had forgotten. My goal was to get people to be right there with you and it’s HAARRRDD!! not to get to telly in situations like that.

I think after I have finished our next writing assignment – I may go back and try to clean this up a bit and add some of the things I had forgotten. It is obviously something very important to myself and my friends – and we should preserve it somehow.

Thanks again for everything.

James Schmidt (J.L.S.)

Hey Brian – Thanks for the feedback.

You know I find the present/past tense business is a hard thing to get hold of. I fought that all through writing this. I’m still not quite sure I got it correct. That’s why it’s important to get different eyes on things. Stories always sound so much better in my head than when they arrive on the page.

Where the dialogue was concerned – this was easier for me than usual, because it really happened and I remembered (well mostly) who was talking and when. I have a writing dialogue e-book on my Kindle – but I need to read it some more because I find dialogue very daunting.

As I commented to Katie earlier – My friends all got a big kick out of hearing this again and remembering how much fun that trip to Memphis was. Those things always tend to happen when we are together and I wanted to get some of this stuff down for posterity.

Thanks for reading this and for the support. I really appreciate you taking the time.

James Schmidt (J.L.S.)

Mirel – Thank you for taking the time to read The Ten Second Rule. When writing this story there were two aspects that I struggled with quite a bit. Whether to tell the story from a past or present tense perspective, and secondly to try and keep the dialogue of five separate people distinctive enough without having the story decay into indiscernible noise. Honestly this story will probably always sound better told out loud then it does written down.

I don’t know if you read my recent post in the Cantina about my efforts to work with a professional editor. The experience has been enlightening to say the least. I am finding that I have a way to go yet with sharpening my writing style.

You are correct when you site the areas where I probably ran off the keyboard a bit ( I have a tendency to do that.) It does read better “I’m not sure why though.”

The second example sounded way better in my head then it came out in print. Perhaps something like “He will not allow any of us to forget that he is playing at a disadvantage.” That does read more smoothly.

I personally am the type of writer where often I require different eyes to read over what I have written. Too many times I will read and re-read something and yet fail to disconnect myself enough to hear how it might sound to other readers.

Again I really appreciate the help and advice. I really enjoy the interactions and the insights, so thank you.

James Schmidt (J.L.S.)

Amanda thank you for taking the time to read my story. There isn’t a golfer alive who hasn’t hit that shot. Yet almost none that I know of that would choose to invoke the 10 second rule. A mulligan is not fitting serves no punishment and I myself would rather take the terrible shot, play it and move on, than try to chase after it with the hope of a redo. Plus I’d probably pull, strain, or injure something in the attempt.

All of my friends are Very unique individuals. If I am every lucky enough to become a best selling writer whose sold thousands of books, I would never manage to properly describe them. I am glad people seem to be getting a glimpse into the type of people the are/were. You see, Waugh was killed in a plane crash outside of Chicago in 2006. Now I’m not trying to bring people down or elicit sympathy because that’s not who Waugh was at all. He was an very fun loving guy with great spirit. Waugh left us with a lifetime of great stories and great times. My friends and I really never get tired of telling Waugh stories.

As to your point about the first paragraph or two, I agree, they do wobble. I was trying to show readers – MAN I REALLY WANT TO BEAT THESE GUYS – but it didn’t come off quite so well. I wanted people to understand the competitive nature involved when we get together and that I am not immune to it’s allure. I agree – it could have been done better. I will endeavor to to better in the future.

Thanks again for sharing and for taking the time. I appreciate the feedback immensely.

James Schmidt (J.L.S.)

Thanks Amanda for the positive feedback and insights. As I told Dawn in my reply to her, my friends are all a different breed of individual. Most of them I have known longer than I have known my sisters – and honestly I like them better than I like my sisters (kidding, sort of). Blumberg is the instigator, Laughlin is the smart one, Dominic is the protector, and Waugh was the fun one. I don’t know how many times I got talked into doing things I would never consider doing by Waugh. He was so relentless in his efforts to get us to go along with one scheme or another that after a while I’d find myself saying “Ok, Ok, I’ll go. Just shut up already,” knowing that at some point bail may have to be posted (kidding, sort of).

You’re right about Waugh’s little golf mantra. I should have used dialogue. I completely missed that. About the action thing, you know the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words?” Well I could have probably written over a thousand just to describe what took place in only 15 or 20 seconds (Let’s face it, there is no way Waugh ran that in a clean ten seconds). However I agree adding a bit more description of the run wouldn’t have really taken much more extra effort.

I will work on bringing you right into the action in future stories. Thanks again for taking the time. I really appreciate the insights and feedback.

James Schmidt (J.L.S.)