Month: March 2017 | the Wakefield Doctrine

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘a slightly binary approach.’

March 11, 2017 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

( lol No, I have no idea what prompted me to use this image… kinda the random impulse thing, ya know?)

A bunch of things this week. (It’s been an established goal* here at the Doctrine to try to develop a writing style that permits me to write a direct, organized and straightforward List of Ten Things of Thankosity**)

Being Saturday, this is my TToT (The TToT, hosted by Josie, is, as most good things, simplicity itself; write a post with whatever may have occurred or been encountered in the previous week, (or when you were in the second grade) that sparked a feeling of gratitude. It’s not a bad use of words and sentences and grammar and such.)

For this week (I am grateful for):

Anonymous mugs

1) black with white dots
2) white with black dots

Weather:

3) sports coats
4) snow shovels

Work:

5) stress*** (‘Fear’s attractively dressed half-sister, who everyone wonders why you two can’t settle down with and make a go of it)
6) satisfaction with occasionally over-coming my natural disinclination to live in the here and now and act genuinely.

Home:

7) Una
8) Phyllis

Misc:

9) Friends and correspondents here in the ‘sphere. It’s a remarkable place.
10) Hey! New ‘OT-teers! Totally grateful for reminding me of the essential spirit of this exercise.
Jo over at ‘Fallen Angel‘ last week did an Item that illustrates best what I think I mean. She mentioned someone dying, which is usually a not-so-good thing but at the same time, found within that event something that engenders gratitude. And the cool thing about this blog is that by reading her post, I could, to a small and minor degree, identify with her.
Monster Martha, another of the newer voices here shares that directness and economy of expression that shows itself so very strong when writing Posts focusing on gratitude. This influx of new people and blogs is, imo, one of the reasons that this bloghop is still as lively and satisfying as it was when it first started.

* if not goal, then surely sub-text would designate the status of the ….ambition there! that’s the word I should’ve gone for, ambition

** yeah, if’n I only managed to leave the duct tape and finger-painted vocabulary back at the Doctrine, I might get a simple ‘One through Ten’ list written.

*** technically, stress would be an item of hypogratitude, which is a valid, if not somewhat weird approach to compiling items for our list each week. It’s referenced in the BoSR/SBoR, I’ll try to get a more comprehensive definition of the term and the SR that covers it’s application in a list.

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Friday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “and then there were three”

March 10, 2017 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Why is a coffee mug like a writing desk?

no, I’m serious… Readers of the Wakefield Doctrine can easily imagine how good/pleased/(I’d say delighted but fear that would sound… I don’t know, a little X-Chromish) I felt when, upon Phyllis’ arrival home the other night and said, “Did you know there were packages on the porch. I think one is the clothes I ordered…”*

Well. I came up the stairs, a rectangle box that was littered with slogans and icons of LL Bean in one hand, and in the other, a cube of styrofoam. Not exactly a cube, more of a decahedron of styrofoam. I looked for a return address and finding none, walked out (through the French doors in the dining area) to the deck and scanned the trees surrounding the house.

There was a cup inside the ~~cube~~ decahedron. And the cup is, well you can see it above. It is a lot like the first mug and undeniably quite different. Let me show you:

…that’s how a mug is like a story.

Thank you, mug-fairy(s)**

(Best be careful in them trees, hear tell there’s some snow in the future for them of us in New England)

* note: I always come into the house through the garage, which is sorta under the main living area and so will hardly ever notice parcels or packages on the front porch. I put a photo in the ‘cover photo’ for this post. You can kinda see the design in the photo

** no, I totally agree, not a major risk of that term gaining traction in the world of fun surprise anonymous gifts of coffee mugs that contain a secret story.

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Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine-

March 9, 2017 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

I love this painting. And, this being the Six Sentence Story, I thought, hey zoe will provide the word, let the photo provide me with ‘an atmosphere’.

Probably should provide a little backstory. I just finished writing ‘Almira’ and I’ve been giving thought to what to write next. Surely less that a full-novel, maybe a novella, you know, smaller, (with less than a year in time commitment). In any event, my second thought was, ‘damn, clark, you’d better hurry and learn more about writing’.

And so the Edward Hopper painting.

or something

This is zoe’s Six Sentence Story. A bloghop which invites all to take the week’s prompt word and write a story of six (and only and exactly) sentences. It really is fun and satisfying. Join us! This week the word is ‘Will’

Starr let the night-dark shadows of the alley drape over her shoulders just enough to mute the natural extroversion of her long blonde hair, while still keeping the man and woman across the street in view, where they sat in a 2 am diorama, ‘Diner under yellow fluorescent lights’. She struggled with the necktie, over-coming her natural tendency to tie a playful bow instead of a small, hard, ‘none of your business, it’s been a long day’ knot. Cinching the belt into a newly punched hole, the extra length of leather stinking out like the tongue of an impudent child, she completed her change of clothes by forcing the last rebellious wave of gold up and into the sweat-stained fedora.

Hearing a sound behind her, the girl crouched down, “Ok, boy, you wait here, I’ve got a little business across the street to take care of and then I promise we will get something to eat.” In the canine tradition of cheerfully ignoring the ways and conventions of the humans they’d long ago adopted, his tail wagged side to side, which unlike a human, indicated wholehearted agreement and, without taking his eyes off the girl, backed into the shadows.

Starr touched the brim of her hat and smiled at the bare leg protruding from the row of once shiny garbage cans, like the lower half of a semi-colon and said, “Thank you Mr. McLarty, I’d promise to return your clothes, but our stories will be more convincing if I don’t,” and she tucked a stiff parchment rectangle into the inside pocket of the suit coat, “Last Will and Testament’ protruding above the Brooks Brothers label and crossed the street on lily pads of street light and litter.

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Whosday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

March 7, 2017 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

How cool is this?

There was a note:

The answer: very cool.

(updated photons):

There is a person who not only is kind and generous, but also has that rare sense of the fun of giving gifts without attribution. This seems to be a quality, inherent in all of us (imo), that is enhanced by the virtuality of this place where we all meet and interact and do fun things (trying to avoid ending in a preposition, ya know). Surely this is an aspect about the virtual world that is an improvement on the ‘real’ world. I mean, think about it, to accomplish what our secret gift giver has accomplished, would require: all of us, (everyone reading this), to have binoculars and a secure position in one of the many pine trees that surround Phyllis and Una and my house, …maybe night vision, no, definitely night vision, ’cause I opened the ‘un-return address(ed)’ package last night… and might as well throw in some listening devices. And…and! enough solid upper branches in enough trees for everyone to watch the gift hit, because then everyone could look around, (at tree top level), at everyone else and try to figure out who set the fun train careening down the track.

Thank you.

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Ten Things of Thankful -the Wakefield Doctrine- late edition!

March 5, 2017 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Slow start this weekend, it being Saturday night at 9:43 already!

As the new Mistress of the Thankfuls*, Wendy/Josie has re-affirmed what, (imo), has, in part, accounted for the success of this here bloghop here, and that is, ‘good intent always trumps rules and requirements’. Sure, there is the implied rule of 10 Items as a baseline number, but there are few among us who have not encountered a week where we are hard-pressed to hit that number.

(She and I had a Commentvation about certain artifacts from TToT.1 such as the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules). The consensus was that traditions and in-blog jokes are wonderful and enjoyable as long as they don’t appear, to a new Reader or participant, to be an ‘inside joke’. She (Josie) has a talent for presenting ideas in such a way as to make alternative perspectives not only possible, but attractive. I quite got the perspective she was suggesting and not only agree with her, I also perceive a challenge that can only result in my own self-improvement of myself in terms of my writing skills and such.

So, on with the TToT for this week.

1) I would start with the easy ones** (hey! I really am grateful for having: a) things and people and dogs in my life that constantly stimulate a gratitudinous response and 2) participating in a gratitude blog that not only allows for…. liberal interpretation of acceptable forms of expression, but actually kinda encourages it. (So put me down for #1)

2) In the category of lifeforms (human and non-human) Phyllis and Una have total tenure in these pages.

3) holy smoke! It’s Sunday afternoon! (I am not going to claim smoke, Sunday or (the) afternoon as a Grat item. (Although I can see one L Rogers, somewhere (hopefully in a excessively english-looking library, or, weather permitting, in an english garden (on an uncomfortable looking, but period necessary, wrought-iron chair around a circular table, Delft Blue tea pot in the center, english looking cookies (macaroons or macadoons or some form of overly dense, hyper-desiccant pastry), her eyebrow, slowly rising, dragging one corner of her smile upwards, “Good ahead, clark! Lets see you try to make these three things, Things of Thankful, I dare, you, I double dare you!”) I will not.

4) I typed, ‘The End’ to ‘Almira‘. The final Chapter is written and our tale has ended. I’m still processing the feelings. It’s always been a good feeling to finish a Chapter as I have each week for nearly a year. But this is different. The story is complete. That there is as much work yet to do to find an agent and a publisher does not impinge on the good feeling.

5) the un-alloyed gratitude I have, here mid-way through my list for a small group of readers who have been with me every chapter of the way: Phyllis, Denise, Val, Kerry and Lise. I am totally in debt to you guys for your encouragement and feedback. Thank you.

6) The Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)… my favorite Latin phrase still totally says it all, ‘sine qua non’ (‘without which, not‘)

7) The Graviteers over at the Gravity Challenge ( val, joy, lisa, sarah, kristi and may)

8) zoe and her Six Sentence Story bloghop every Thursday a new prompt word and reality gets a little more permeable and you’ll see (and read) some of the strangest things… very fun, you are invited.

9) the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules)… we’ll be coming back to this wonderful portal-allegorical over the weeks. I might describe it as ‘the opportunity to enjoy the creative writing implied in the TToT, while remaining true to the spirit of the blog, which is encourage people to share those parts of their lifes and times that might engender the experience of gratitude.’ I will demonstrate it with the next item. the ever useful and popular, Secret Rule 1.3

10) SR 1.3 (so, as all good stories should begin, once upon a time, when I was totally at wit’s end coming up with a list of Ten Things of T, I despaired of reaching what I considered the end of my week’s list, the Tenth Thankful. Although it is clear that 10 is a good number, a list of three or fifty-five or eighteen Things of Thankful is what the TToT is all about, I did not know that. I tend to have to struggle with every list, (yeah, I know, ‘knock you over with a feather’ lol), in any event, I was almost there, but, as zoe would say, when it came to Item 10, ‘I had nothin’. It then occurred to me that the very near completion of my list was something I could legitimately be thankful for! cha ching! the Tenth Item! (Many have commented that the effort to explain the rule is probably more than the effort to complete the 10th item. I would say, ‘yes and no’ Yes it’s true but no, the effort (in this case, to explain SR 1.3) is a part of my contribution to the common effort represented in the TToT bloghop every week. It is to say, ‘hey, I might be from Y Chromia and have trouble with emotions and such, but here! look! I found a really neat book!’

lol

* yeah, does sound odd when you say it out loud, and silently when you read it, for that matter.

** for the record, I am not one inclined to readily recognize those things that I should feel grateful for, not solely due to my hailing from the land of Y Chromosomes

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