A Little Forget-Me-Not Fell into My Life

My brother Tom, or rather his wife Ellen, sent me some old letters they found while moving; one of them was from my sister Winnie and it touched me because I could almost hear her voice:


August 17, 1959


Dear Philip,

Sorry I didn't write sooner, but I hurt my finger while playing baseball and this is the first I've been able to type in a long while.   However, I do have my notes all ready and I'll sit down, Probably tomorrow, and type them up. 

How's everyone up there?  Why don't you ever write? I suppose you spend most of your time driving the tractor for Don and swimming, Huh?  I bet you and Pat can't wait to get back to school.

I haven't been doing much down here.  I ran out of boyfriends shortly after you left and I'm too poor to take myself anyplace, so I've just been sitting here, mostly.

I was thinking of taking a jaunt up there on my vacation but I probably won't be able to afford it. If you come back within the next week or two I thought I'd take you and Pat downtown to see Darby O'Gill and the Little People at the Riverside.  Unless you're too grown up now to be seen with your mouldy sister.

Tell Pat to write and you better too.  I'll try to get those stories typed up and in the mail by the end of the week.

So long for now,

Winnie

P.S.   Hi Ma 

Of course Winnie has been gone since December 1966 so a letter like this was a precious little gift that brings back so many memories.  My brother Patrick calculated that she was only 19 when she wrote this - and I would have been 10. 

Winnie was the youngest of the girls in the family, and I was the youngest of the boys, so we had something in common.  She was my favorite sister. 

A Bit about Quotes

So I'm planning to write a Science Fiction Novel.  Yes, me.  I'm going to do that.  Shocking.

I've spent most of my life programming computers, and when I started it was cards and more cards.  Color coded cards. Key punch work. Sorts and lists.  Tedium ad nauseam.

How do I get from that to where I want to be; which is writing fiction.  Science fiction.

I was reading about the "snowflake method", or should that be "Snowflake Method" which is a top down approach which was something that was all the rage for Systems Design back in the 1980's.

I never wanted to do things that way.  I was always a bottom up kind of guy.

But let's talk technique.  I'd been wondering about quotes and how to quote the characters in stories. 

We must never call them people.

I came across web page about quotes and it's concise enough that it deserves favorable mention.  It's from the Writer's Digest University and here is the LINK.

PJ