I Received a Number of Lucrative Offers For This Writing Gig — By Fluke

Who knew emotional writers would be in demand?

Intros matter — big time

Wham!

Thunk!

Slam!

This was the intro to a college essay a close friend’s son had written which she begged me to review.

It made me laugh out loud!

I thought such intros belonged to the 4th and 5th grades so was confused that they did this type of writing at a high school level.

On the other hand, why should I be surprised considering I have reviewed submissions at the pubs I’m an editor for with similar-sounding cringe intros?

Though I am no writing expert and neither am I inclined to be cruel, it’s safe to say the essay I was tasked with reviewing was a disaster from the get-go.

While I got the idea behind it and even the dark sentiments, there was no other choice but to suggest rewriting the whole thing in a way that was clear, concise, and organized.

Otherwise, I, for one, wouldn’t bother to read past the first Wham!

But I would not do his work for him. I could offer suggestions and nothing more than that.

Also, it didn’t help that they waited till the last minute before the deadline to ask for my help.

Isn’t it interesting how people on the outside tend to have no clue what writing in general and social media blogging in particular really entails with regard to effort and time investment?

I hope he gets into the college of his choice but if that essay was the main criteria for acceptance then, sorry to say, it’s a bomb.

Come to the point — at once!

I come from a culture where creative writing in schools is virtually non-existent.

You are expected to be to the point, preferably ad verbatim as in the textbook. You actually got points off and even a scolding from the teacher if you dared to be creative in your writing. For example, if you were asked to describe the sky then the best way to go about it was to say “The sky is blue.”

Nothing more was expected or required. And what’s more — you get full credit for your answer.

Another unfortunate fact is that only a handful of my classmates were interested in reading for fun. It is reflective of the culture where reading books is considered an activity for the lazy, the rich, or those with their heads in the clouds.

I don’t exaggerate when I say that if you gave any of my friends from the home country a choice between reading a book, by say Hemingway, or bungee jumping, guess which one they’d pick hands down?

Sexually repressed culture

One of the aforementioned friends who happens to have high school-aged kids once asked me what I blogged about. So I shared one of my posts with her.

Little did I know she’d share it with her husband and by the end of the evening, everyone else who had come to her house party.

Over the course of the week, I was contacted by a number of moms who wanted to hire me to review their kids' college essays. A couple of them were keen on booking my services 5 years out as their kids are currently only in middle school.

I wonder if the results would have been the same if my friend had shared one of my sensual posts with them instead.

Very unlikely.

I’d mostly likely be shunned but only after the aunties (and uncles) secretly read them a bunch of times before condemning me as shameless just because I embrace my sexuality.

Yet another example of the double standards in the sexually repressed culture I’m originally from.