The Snowflake Chronicles

Screwing Up Royally

15 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 15, 2006 A.D.

It's strange what words you overhear, when sitting and waiting in a public place. What phrases that people say in public places when talking to other people are interesting and sometimes revealing. They say these words and don't except strangers to over hear and take notes. One writer's exercise is to go to a public place a mall's food court or restaurant, take your pen and paper journal and write overheard phrases or snatches of conversations.

I don't care for the entire conversations myself, because there is only one or two phrases, or sentences that get my attention. Besides I don't write fast enough in longhand to get the whole conversation or even short snatches of it, the phrase that catches my attention distracts me from other miscellaneous words. So when I do this exercise I don't write the whole conversation, only bits of sentences or phrases that I can rewrite in character conversations or as the theme or subject of a story or poem.

Today (August 15) I overhear an interesting sentence. "Nobody can screw up that bad without planning." Now I'm not sure what the entire conversation was about, probably something political (I think, but it could just as easily been revering to something else.). Anyway the sentence would make a good plot start for a story. (I wonder if screw up should be spelled screw-up.)

It doesn't matter whether the words are true or not. They probably are, of course. Another thing necessary for screwing up royally is talent. There is an old saying that it "takes talent to really screw things up." So here we have the two prerequisites for screwing up the world planning and talent. Which probably explains a lot of the situation in the present stage of human history. Just think how many talented planners we have across the planet today.

This is not going to be posted until August 16, but I'm not going to change the date on it when its posted.