Matthew Dicks

An homage to great storytellers everywhere

Brandi Terry is a big fat idiot

I’m a huge supporter of writing, regardless of the type, author or genre.  Just yesterday I told my mother-in-law that I wish that everyone was writing a book. So many good stories and talented writers go undiscovered when people fail to pick up the pen.

But there’s also a time to stop writing and drive the damn car.

I was listening to a story on NPR yesterday about texting while driving entitled High-Tech Solutions To Help Deter Driver Texting. Here is an excerpt from the story, which you can listen to here:

Two years ago, Brandi Terry was a 17-year-old high school junior. She was driving one day to visit her grandfather in northern Utah.

"I woke up to a bright light — I could barely open my eyes — and paramedics. This man was saying 'Brandi, Brandi,' and I just started crying. I didn't know what had happened," she says.

Terry had run a red light. Police checked her phone and discovered she had sent a text within seconds of the accident. Terry shattered her right ankle and broke her upper right arm in half. She couldn't walk for six months and had an agonizing recovery. She got better, got another car and tried to stop texting.

"I tried really, really hard not to," Terry says. "Then it got to the point where I would do it only once every 5 minutes. I would rarely do it — it got to the point where when I was alone in the car, I would do it," she says. "I don't know — it's just so addicting, I just can't put it down."

Within a year of her first accident, Terry did it again — she slammed into the back of semi while she was texting. This time, she escaped injury.

The story goes on to ask if people are ready to stop texting while driving, and it describes a device that will disable a cell phone while a person is in a car in an effort to help people like Brandi stay safe on the roads.

Regardless of whether or not this is a valuable piece of technology (doesn’t the power button on the phone serve the same purpose without the added expense?), it would seem to me that the heart of this story is not the newfangled technology that disables cell phones but the simple fact that Brandi Terry is a complete and utter moron and dangerously stupid.

After a recovery that snapped her arm in two and prevented her from walking for six months, she said (I know I’m being repetitious, but it’s so astoundingly stupid that it’s worth reading again):

“I tried really, really hard not to. Then it got to the point where I would do it only once every 5 minutes. I would rarely do it — it got to the point where when I was alone in the car, I would do it. I don’t know — it’s just so addicting, I just can’t put it down.”

In the words of my wife:

Really?

This girl is driving and texting every five minutes?

This is not alcohol that we are talking about. This is not nicotine or gambling or OxyContin or any other legitimately addictive drug.

This is texting to friends about boys and clothes and homework and the mall from the same device that is capable of making a phone call. And even though speaking on the phone while driving is also distracting and dangerous, it is exponentially safer than texting. Yet after nearly perishing in an accident as a result of her texting, she is doing it again less than a year later and is still wrecking her vehicle in the process.

Even if texting were addictive (WHICH IT IS NOT), one need not text while driving. Many alcoholics and drug addicts manage to refrain from using their substance of choice while driving, and I have yet to hear about a compulsive gambler playing blackjack or roulette while driving.

Besides, If you must text, Brandi, pull over.

Upon reflection, I would like to propose a change in the title of this story to:

Brandi Terry, despite any amount of intelligence that she may possess, is an idiot who must be removed from the roads immediately and forever.

It’s a little wordy, I know, but at least it’s a more accurate representation of the story.

Am I being harsh? I don’t think so.  Frankly, I think that NPR’s Jenny Brundin let Brandi and the other idiot teenagers who she interviewed off the hook, failing to challenge statements like:

"I love texting and driving; it's the in thing. Everyone does it — who doesn't?"

Brundin couldn’t come up with one decent follow-up question to a statement like that?  Not one?

Apparently not.  If she did, it did not make an appearance in the story.  

Harsh?  I would contend that calling a 19-year old girl a dangerous idiot only seems harsh until she plows into your own car while texting and driving for a third time, killing a loved one and maiming you for life.

Then words like dangerous and idiot may seem trite and a tad inconsequential.

Must listen

I have always recommended the RadioLab podcast to all of my friends, but I cannot recommend this week’s episode on Parasites (yes, parasites) highly enough. Turn off the television tonight (unless you’re watching the Patriots on Monday Night Football) and give it a listen.  It’s better than anything you’ll find of the tube.

Except for football, of course. 

Instant communication

USA Today did a piece on authors using Twitter to communicate with their readers, something I have been doing for quite some time, and while the 140-character limit can be frustrating for someone who normally tells a story in about 100,000 words, Twitter has clearly done an effective job of bringing me into contact with readers and booksellers. 

I dare say that I have even made friends through Twitter. 

This got me thinking about what a different world it must be for someone like me, who is just getting started on his writing career, and a more established author like Richard Russo.  Based upon Russo’s comments at a reading I recently attended, I am certain that he does not use Twitter, nor does he read  or write a blog.  He probably receives letters from readers and fans through the mail, and perhaps there is an email address for him somewhere, though my search for one proved to be fruitless, but otherwise he has no immediate or direct pipeline to his readers, except through his appearances. 

In contrast, I receive about two emails a day from readers who have accessed my blog and found my email address and am often contacted through Twitter or Facebook by readers who have questions about me or the book.  Thanks to my participation on the internet, readers can contact me immediately and directly, and they often do.

Yesterday, for example, I received three emails from readers who I have never met, an email from a magazine looking to do an interview, and two messages via Twitter (one from a reader and one from a bookseller).  All had questions about the novel and words of congratulation for me in relation to the book and its review in the Times, and all were hoping for relatively immediate responses. 

And as I was responding to these readers, answering their questions and thanking them for their kind words, I wondered what an author like Russo might think of all this.  How much email or tweets might someone as popular and well known as he receive if he had a stronger presence on the internet?  Would he enjoy the immediate feedback that the internet can provide, or would he lament the days when he could focus solely on his books, absent the online chatter, while occasionally sorting through a stack of fan mail?

Would he consider all this proliferation  of author-reader communication a waste of his time, or would he see it as a means of reaching out to the people who allow him to make a living by writing stories?

I often wonder about this myself.

Would my time be better served working on my book, or is the hour or so a day that I spend communicating with readers worth it?  Does it make a difference in terms of book sales?  Do readers really appreciate the time spent writing back to them?  Am I establishing a precedent that I might someday regret? 

I’m not sure.  But I’m no Richard Russo, either, so I think I’ll keep answering my readers questions, tweeting my thoughts and blogging my opinions on topics like this.  It takes some time to do so, but it’s not like it’s not fun. 

A good way to waste time

Have you seen the literal video versions making their way around the Internet?

Take a video, usually from the 1980s, and re-craft the song to match the actual footage.

Hilarious and brilliant. And completely consuming my morning when I should be writing.  Here are two of my favorites:

Abbreviated

Another amusing Twitter application:

Converting classic novels into 140 character tweets. From the Guardian comes an article about this new medium and this treatment of Pride and Prejudice, one of my wife’s favorite books:

Woman meets man called Darcy who seems horrible. He turns out to be nice really. They get together.

Or how about this Tweet of Ulysses:

Man walks around Dublin. We follow every minute detail of his day. He's probably overtweeting.

I thought I’d take a crack at a couple as well. Feel free to try this yourself, perhaps with one of your favorite novels. 

You can follow me at twitter.com/matthewdicks.

Lord of the Flies:

Boys survive plane crash on island and separate into warring tribes. Simon is mistakenly killed. Piggy is murdered as the navy arrives.

Julius Caesar:

Caesar is killed by friends who fear that he will be made King. If conspirators would listen to Cassius, all would be well. They do not.

The Road

Man and boy should have remained in the nuclear fallout bunker full of supplies. They don’t. It ends badly for the man and for the boy, too. Probably.

Storytelling on Twitter

For those of you on Twitter, you may be aware of the recent explosion of Twitter stories or novels, sometimes called Twisters, that people are now writing. They are essentially 140-character, self-contained stories, usually amounting to about three or four sentences. They remind me a great deal of haikus, particularly in terms of the turn that these stories usually take in their final sentence. The format seems to lend itself to a two or three sentence set-up with a final sentence of resolution, typically leaning toward humor or tragedy.

A bit Shakespearean, now that I think of it.

Requiring about 120,000 words to complete my own stories, this might not be the ideal form for me, nor does it seem very profitable, but they are oftentimes amusing to read, and I frequently find myself detecting the seed of a longer, more traditional novel within many of them.

If you’re interested in reading some, you can follow Arjun Basu on Twitter. He writes them almost exclusively, and I tend to like a lot of his work.

Here’s my own attempt at a Twister, which I will also post on my own Twitter feed:

May. Christmas lights still blinking. Cheerios in her bowl turned to mush. The milk had spoiled. Mom had been dead for at least five months.

Something Missing on Facebook

My buddy, Tom, started a Fans of Something Missing group on Facebook last week. It’s already got about forty members, even though most of them have yet to read the book. Yesterday he assigned me a title: President of Writing and Publishing Department.

He is President of the Shameless Promotion Department.

It’s good to have friends.

Actually, it’s been surprising to experience the excitement and investment that my friends have had with the book. Because I had about a dozen or more people reading Something Missing while I was writing it, many of their suggestions, ideas, and thoughts were eventually embedded within the text. Whether it was a specific idea for revision or just a comment or thought that altered my way of thinking about the book, each one of my readers left an indelible mark on the story and its characters. Some of them even began to speak of the main character, Martin, as a real person, and even to this day, outsiders and strangers are sometimes confused when listening to one of my friends speak about Martin as if he were included in our circle of friends.

So as I went through the process of finding an agent and selling the book, my readers came along with me, celebrating my achievements, but in a way, also celebrating their own, since they each had a hand in shaping the story to what it has now become.

Including Tom.

If you have a Facebook account, check out the group. Once the book is actually available for purchase, perhaps these much appreciated fans will actually have something to chat about!