reflections | M Thomas Apple Author Page

September to April

August 28, 2023
MThomas

September

I want to do a creative graduate thesis, he said.

In that case, you should keep a diary, his advisor suggested. Write every day.

OK, he said.

And bring me a story or two to look at.

OK.

October

These aren’t stories, his advisor informed. These are more like diary entries.

How should I write a story, then? he asked.

Write what you know. Base your stories on people and things around you.

OK.

And bring me another story or two.

OK.

November

The narration isn’t believable, his advisor imparted.

Why? he asked.

It’s too difficult for the reader to identify with the characters. Nobody has a family with nine children.

What should I do?

Go read Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio.

OK.

And bring me a couple more stories.

OK.

December

I don’t get any sense of through-story, his advisor complained.

What do you mean? he asked.

The stories aren’t connected. They’re all different.

Well, what should I do?

Try an internal perspective. Go read James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

OK.

And bring me another story.

OK.

January

This is too abstract, his advisor mused.

What do you mean? he asked.

This isn’t a true plot. The symbolism is too obscure.

It’s a translation of something I wrote for a German class.

You don’t want to be Kafka.

I don’t?

You need real life stories, with real people and real problems.

What should I do?

Go read Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral.”

OK.

And…

Bring you another story?

Two.

February

I think I see the problem, his advisor intuited.

What is it? he asked.

I think you need to experience more life before you can be an effective writer.

What do you mean?

You need to go out into the world and work different jobs, meet different people, move around a bit.

My thesis is due in two months.

So it is. Make sure you give your draft to me next month.

OK.

And…

Another story?

No. Just read my comments and rewrite what you have.

OK.

March

I don’t see the point of adding poetry between the stories, his advisor grumped.

Why? he pondered.

The poems interfere with the prose.

I thought you didn’t like the prose.

I would say you need to add a poetic sense to your prose.

How do I do that?

Try writing poetry. For practice.

…

And finish the rewrite of the draft by next week.

OK.

And print three copies on a laser printer. And buy three of those thesis black cover binders.

OK.

April

Well, the three of us have examined your thesis, and we decided on a grade of B+, his advisor beamed.

…

I know it’s not as high as you wanted, but I argued that the interplay of letters, poetry, and stories woven together formed an interesting kind of metadiscourse narrative depth to the thesis structure.

…

Congratulations.

Thanks.

If you like this, you might enjoy Notes from the Nineties, a book with short stories and poems (the above is the first one, and may or may not be partially based on personal experiences my senior year in college).

And today’s random writing prompt is…

May 22, 2023
MThomas

Have you ever broken a bone?

Depends on how you define “broken.”

I got two bone spurs, separated by two years, thanks to playing baseball in junior high school. Both were fingers on my left hand.

The first time was my left thumb first joint. The second time was my left hand ring finger second joint.

Both times, our local health clinic doctor put a metal splint on the finger, wrapped it in flexible bandage and sealed it off with a tiny metal clip.

And of course I stupidly went on playing baseball, because at age 15 guys think they are completely indestructible.

My ring finger stuck out when I batted. I’m lucky I didn’t get hit by a pitch in the hand (I did get hit on the knee, but that’s a whole ‘nother story).

Also, it inspired my baseball novel. So there was a silver lining!

Shooting star over the English Channel

February 15, 2023
MThomas

Courtesy of @dlxinorbit – via @Marco_Langbroek

The agency earlier said the object was expected to “safely strike” the earth’s atmosphere near to the French city of Rouen.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64621721

“Near to”? OK.

Anyway, “SAR2667” provided some cross-cultural entertainment for people living in England, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Lots of photos and videos online.

Interesting note from ESA: they were able to detect it and notify everyone exactly where and when it would disintegrate.

Since there are more than 30,000 of these things that orbit the Sun relatively close to Earth’s orbit, it’s a good thing we’re getting better at detecting them. Maybe we’d better up the ante on deflecting them…

ChatGPT: Is this really the “death of the essay”?

December 17, 2022
MThomas

I’ve been testing ChatGPT over the last couple of days. (If you don’t know what this chatbot is, here’s a good NYT article about ChatGPT and others currently in development.)

The avowed purpose of ChatGPT is to create an AI that can create believable dialogues. It does this by scouring the web for data it uses to respond to simple prompts.

By “simple,” I mean sometimes “horribly complicated,” of course. And sometimes a little ridiculous.

*Somehow, I doubt that people in the US said “livin’ the dream” in the ’50s…*

As has been pointed out, chatbots only generate texts based on what they have been fed, i.e., “garbage in / garbage out.” So if you push the programs hard enough, they will generate racist, sexist, homophobic etc awful stuff — because unfortunately that kind of sick and twisted garbage is still out there, somewhere online in a troll’s paradise.

So far, I have asked the program to:

Write a haiku about winter without using the word “winter”
Write a limerick about an Irish baseball player
Write a dialogue between God and Nietzsche (I just had to…)
Imagine what Jean-Paul Sartre and Immanuel Kant would say to each other (see above) but using US ’50 slang
Have Thomas Aquinas and John Locke argue about the existence of God (that one was fun)
Write a 300 word cause-effect essay about climate change
Write a 300 word compare and contrast essay about the US and Japan
Write a 1000 word short science fiction story based on Mars
Write a 1500 word short science fiction about robots in the style of Philip K Dick

OK, and the verdict is:

Think small

December 3, 2022
MThomas

On Tuesday as I was walking back from work, much later than usual, my shoes were bothering me.

They felt stretched, loose, especially irritating on a rainy day.

I had spent too much time polishing them, I thought.

Too much effort making them “waterproof.”

Too much money on these damn useless things.

I resolved to throw them away and get a new pair.

But of course it would take time, and money, and effort to go get them.

Damn shoes. I would have to rearrange my entire week because of you.

The next morning, as I put my shoes on, I realized that the laces were loose.

So I re-tied them, and instantly they felt better.

Sometimes, when a small, insignificant problem arises, there is a simple fix.

Think small.

Another lost month…

November 8, 2022
MThomas

Sigh.

A whole month of no posts. Sorry, everyone.

Last weekend was partly fun (Halloween party with our kids, pre-teen and teen) and partly melancholic (4th year anniversary of my mother’s untimely death from cancer).

But even before then, I just wasn’t feeling all that great. Not sick. Just sort of…not with it. On autopilot, kind of.

Now that fall is well and truly here, the pollen is going away and the skies are clearing.

Hoping I’ll find my muse again.

And, no, I’m not going to write anything about Twitter, elections, or crazy beliefs in satanic rituals making a comeback among the bonkers-crazy folk of my home country. Way too easy.

Carl Sagan at the Illinois ACLU: A lost 1987 lecture on civil liberties

July 1, 2022
MThomas

…there has been a serious erosion of the tradition of skeptical inquiry, of vigorous challenging of government leaders, of public exposure of what the government is actually doing, rather than mere pomp and rhetoric. And it is in this area—skeptical scrutiny, public exposure—where the largest strides, in my opinion, are needed.
https://quillette.com/2022/07/01/science-and-civil-liberties-the-lost-lecture-of-carl-sagan/

Thank you, Stephen Pinker and Harvey Silverglate, for transcribing this. And Ann Druyan, for permitting it.

Getting Yourself to Write

December 14, 2021
MThomas

Writing can be a struggle for writers of all levels, from beginning to professional. The struggle has a dreaded name: writer’s block. Writer’s block …
Getting Yourself to Write

I’ve never really experienced the so-called “writer’s block.” Not that I’m bragging…but I often just don’t find I have enough time to write.

By which I mean, writing seriously. It’s easy, however, to find time here and there just to jot down some random thoughts.

(Aside note: if you type really quickly on the WordPress smartphone app, it autocorrect “random” to “radon,” which would put you in an entirely different frame of mind.)

Just to keep things in perspective…

November 5, 2021
MThomas

There. Feel better already?

🖖

Sigh.Way behind. Again.

September 18, 2021
MThomas

OK, I readily admit that I am once again waaaay behind on my scifi blogging.

At some point last week, I looked up from the mass amounts of work I had left to do and went, “Uh. August 21st? Was that really the last time I posted?”

Uh. Yup.

😣

I’ll do my best to get the rest of Riss’s story online on a biweekly basis, like I promised I would.

But promises…

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