To Read or Not to Read

This is a letter following a request to see the rest of my novel after the first 48 pages had gone unread for some time. I would think my caution in sending larger bits of it is self explanatory.

At some point every author living in a world of defective support networks has to deal with people offering to read their work and failing to do so. Not that these are malicious doings, but rather like the nature of most folks who aim to read a book.

I would have to say that eighty percent of the books I own are presently unread. It is part of the human condition to want to read the collections of our great works of literature. So many of us want rather than do, and, for the most part, the thorny weeds of our lives snag us away from such things.

Life is full of barbs I guess. They are unavoidable, and we should be mindful of those who are as afflicted with them as ourselves.

15 October 2011

Dear Cassi,

Here we go with chapter five of my novel. A standards stamp can carry as much as six pages. With one letter and double sided sheets that’s about ten pages of text. Two stamps will carry sixteen pages or one letter and about thirty pages of text. That would dictate that the whole novel could be sent in about twelve envelopes.

   

I still only intend to send the next chapter if you read this one. I know how easy it is to forget about a novel. I’ve read half way through lots of them myself. In any case I’m still editing and such, so sending along something I know I’m going to change is simply counterproductive.

   

Another point to make is that if you have any gut reactions to this you should just say them. Kind words are nice, but getting published is the goal. If it makes you sad, causes you to put the pages away for a spell, or makes you hate the character I need to know.

   

I can tell you that there is no better way to stick it to your ex-husband than to get this book into print. If there is one thing he always fought with me about it was story ideas, and the reason was that he couldn’t deal with the possibility of my success.

   

Sometimes, ‘I’m going to stick it to that sack of crap’ is what gets me through the hard parts.

Stay safe, Cassi,

Richard Leland Neal

The Same Amount of Bull

I sent this letter to a fellow who thought that trade schools were a rip-off and intended to make a documentary on the subject. Little does he know, all the schools are just as screwed up.

Education in America has become a joke, and I can only hope that this person looks at my letter and comes to understand.

Most schools are full of the same crap.

Hay Folks,

Sorry I didn’t go to a film school, but I do have an experience at a state school to talk about. I started my time as a theater arts student. I had dealings with the film department that you may find interesting.

At school the professors demanded I accept failure, and I even had a teacher start screaming when I asked what electives would most likely get me a job.

I left theater arts when I had to ask a teacher to leave me alone and they refused. I took a total of 12 units of film classes, the most interesting one being screen writing.

I took the class because the professor told us that he would find a production company for our work. It bumped me from part to full time so it cost me a thousand dollars. Not much for a class at a private school, yeah, but 5% of a $20,000 education.

I pulled an A+, but he never kept his promise. That would be breach of a $100,000 contract. He lied and took his student’s money. If it had been a student with a lower grade I would have understood, but I exceeded is expectations.

To add insult to injury, he told the whole class they should intentionally fail their classes in order to gain access to the facilities to make their own film.

I mentioned that if five students got together the tuition for one semester would be well over ten grand enough to buy almost all the equipment one needs to make a film. He agreed that I was right but never retracted his statement.

I think his goal was to get students to take more classes and put more money in the schools coffers.

The film department at CSU Fullerton wasn’t just screwing the students out of their money. They were screwing the taxpayers, because the taxpayers pay for that school.

It’s not just the film schools, but all the schools that have a problem. We can get the knowledge we need out of books and experience. Students pay for school in order to make the needed connections to work in the industry. If you don’t get that you’re just throwing your money away.

I guess this doesn’t help much, but it’s the truth,

Richard Leland Neal  

Cinnamon and Mustered

Finally an actual letter to Cassi! Not that anyone is going to read it.

17^th of May 2011

Dear Cassi,

It’s been a bit since my last letter. Life has been … well, I can’t put it to words. Over the last few weeks I’ve been getting my affairs in order like a man on his death bed and no matter how hard I work at it I don’t make much headway.

The pieces of my life are scattered about like jigsaw puzzle bits. Some are lost and some are broken, but I can tell there was once a whole. If only I could stalk the furnace of my being with the bits that will burn, and through so doing find the locomotion to get myself to some peace.

Something has been buzzing about in my brain for some time that feels relevant. I think it happen when I was three. I was making cinnamon toast, but I couldn’t read the spice boxes and couldn’t tell which was cinnamon.

I asked (Pickle) and that had to be a bad idea because he gave me mustered.

“No, I don’t think that’s it,” I said and put the tin back. I couldn’t read but the stuff was the wrong color.

He waved his hand around in the cabinet and pulled the mustered out again. When I refused to put it on my toast this time he explained to me that he had made the mistake of putting mustered on his toast.

He felt that because he had a bad experience that I had to have that problem as well. I think that’s one of the things that I had to go through for a good amount of my life. People dump on others because they got dumped on. It comes to me that for some I should feel sorry and for some I should feel hate.

The truth is I think even I have taken my pain out on other people once or twice, normally by trolling on the internet, and I know I should never do that again.

I’m just rambling,


Richard Leland Neal

The Words of a Man on the Edge

I had honestly hoped my first “Letters to Cassi” post would be a letter to Cassi, but I was poking through my old files and trying to get things organized when I found this old email. 

This was a case of the world and I being very stupid, and I had thought that reason would hold out over madness but the addressee, whose name has been removed, saw me as no more than a uniform.

This was a letter that cost me a job with a company I didn’t want to work for to begin with. It was written after a period of extreme sleep deprivation from overworking. I have to say that sleep deprivation made me do a good number of stupid things, and this isn’t the worst.

Here are the words of a man on the edge.

The date is when it was mailed four years ago.

24th of April 2007

Dear (Security director),

I noted in the post orders of (Unnamed Terminal) procedures
contrary to the safety protocols of the older post orders.
We are having problems with security officers having been
assigned to the post who are unwilling or incapable of
performing the post duties. The orders we had did not
contribute to the problem.

Your belief that security personnel not having at least a high school education are capable of doing my job merely compounds the problem. Many of the security procedures stated in the old post orders had never been properly enforced. There are two reasons for this happening.

The first is an inability to establish a long-term relationship with officers willing and capable of doing the job. This is a result of poor pay and bad conditions. Note that in the five years that (Security Company) serviced your terminal they received a pay raise of fifty cents. I learned from other officers that you had a seniority raise program but that it had been canceled. The two senior security officers assigned to the post had both given two weeks notice by the time I had arrived. My supervisor after two years of working for (your company) made less than a starting dockworker. When I brought this pay issue up with (Local Security Director) he told me to talk with (My Company).

Sir, honestly, every security company gave you what you paid for, no more, no less. Why would they give you a level of service that the contract fails to warrant? As it stands, you will pay more for security as a result of changes in California law. It is only a question of do you want to end the problems you have now or let them get more out of hand? Right now the difference may be as little as a dollar an hour. Paying this will save (the terminal) thousands in the upcoming months in driver and dock worker over time. Yes, that’s right, what you are doing is costing (your company) money.

The second component to the overall breakdown of security at (this terminal) is a failure by management in supporting security officers. I had employees threaten to have me terminated when I asked them to sign in. When I reported this the employees were not reprimanded. Other officers noted this and refused to ask employees to sign in sighting that if it were an issue a reprimand would have been in order.

To resolve the security issues that you have I would need to sit down with the post orders and update your outdated procedures. Then write a proposal to enact your grossly derelict policies. Frankly, that’s not what you pay me for, and my English skills are that of a man educated in the state of California at the end of the twentieth century, rather bad.

The problems I have described are not localized to (This terminal), the state or the region. They are the problems of (your company) as reported by Line Hall drivers.

Let me put this another way: like a detective, I have question suspects and witnesses, compiled evidence, and consulted with experts. My opinion is that security within (your company) is in need of major changes.

With nearly ten years of security experience, I can tell you what those changes should be, but I have to look after myself. (My company) has made me another offer, no better than yours, but I can’t just give up my seniority in the company.

I put my life on hold in the belief that people like (Local Security Director) and yourself would listen to reason. Then you smacked me in the face by contracting a security company that doesn’t even require a high school education. Had we  retained those guards that refused to work than (the old company) might still have this contract and you would get no better or worse service.     

Time is short,

Richard Leland Neal