Cold Calling and Warm Writing

Caught another one today.

 Ring, ring...

‘Hello, is that Mrs G?’

‘It depends, who is calling?’

‘Good evening Ma’am, this is Roger from Insurance X, I’m not here to sell you...’

‘I’m afraid Mrs G is not at home’.

‘Who am I talking to then?’

‘I’m the cleaner’.

‘You don’t sound like a cleaner’.

‘I’m a very well educated cleaner, with lots of dusting still to be done, goodbye.’

‘Ha ha ha, have a nice evening Mrs G.’

Well, at least I gave him a laugh.

I have a repertoire of personas for this type of cold call. There’s the ‘You have a problem with your computer ‘call.

‘Let me put you through to Granny, she deals with Microsoft problems, but you’ll have to speak up’.

I then, childishly, leave the phone off the hook and giggle as I hear their voice speaking louder, to no one.
I once had a heavy breather. Boy, was he unlucky to choose the loudest alto in the local choral society. Breathing in deeply to my vast pair of lungs (confirmed in X-ray by a German doctor once) I screamed my top note, fortissimo. The reverberations shook me to the core; God knows what it did to his eardrums.

Now, where was I going with this?

Oh, yes. It’s easy to speak or twitter on the phone. Writing things and thoughts down is altogether another matter.

If you say something daft and other people remind you of it, you can always plead ‘I don’t remember saying that exactly. I must have been pissed?’

But if you write it down, it’s there for eternity.

Sometimes, what might seem witty, pertinent and deep after a few glasses of wine turns out to be clichéd and shallow in the cold light of morning. I was astounded to learn that Phillip Pullman, amongst others, rewrote his entire trilogy, having changed his mind overnight.

It’s not easy to express and expose yourself, to other people, in your writing. You sit there, tense, waiting for ‘The Verdict’ .Lapses of grammar or spelling are OK because they can easily be corrected, but if your work fails to connect, then the criticism can cut to the quick. Words need to elicit warmth from the reader; warmth of meaning, warmth of expression.

Comedy/memoirs/stories, all kinds of writing,need to connect with and engage the reader.

If not, like strangers calling with falsehoods and a clichéd script that oozes insincerity, they just leave you cold.