How a writer thinks—elementary my dear
by DON WILLIAMS
During a holiday sometime back, the Williams clan, including in-laws, outlaws and assorted friends, gathered to play Trivial Pursuit.
A competitive lot, we turn such games into raucous entertainment. Lots of praise, derision and laughter pertain, not necessarily in that order.
The games were close and the questions difficult, prompting snorts and catcalls, and three of the teams had flamed out by the time my friend the writer’s turn came to answer a question.
My sister Rebecca drew a card and read:
Sherlock Holmes turned into the gate at 221 Baker St, stepped inside the door and climbed ___ steps to his second story flat. How many steps did he climb?
There was a collective groan.
“Bury that one,” a brother-in-law said, even as Rebecca was discarding the question. “He’ll never get that.”
“Hold on!” My friend held up his right hand. “I’ve only read one Arthur Conan Doyle book, and it wasn’t Sherlock Holmes, but I’ll take a shot at that.”
“No way. How are you going to guess that one?”
“Elementary my dear Watson,” my friend replied. “In the time-honored Holmes-ian way. Deductive Reasoning.”
“That’ll be the day,” my brother Tim said.
“Listen up,” said my friend. “It has to be at least 10 steps to Sherlock’s apartment, even if the risers are relatively high, say, 10 inches, because they have to clear that first-floor apartment’s ceiling. And the answer likely won’t be more than, say, 20 steps, even if the risers are short, because that would put the esteemed detective’s pad more than ten or twelve feet above street level. See? Already I’ve reduced the universe of possible answers to 10.”
“Yeah, yeah,” my brother Rodney said.
“So,” my friend continued, “the answer lies somewhere between 10 and 20. Let’s take them one by one.”
“Better hurry,” said my sister Kathleen, eyeing the sandglass.
“OK. Ten is a lazy number that would make the author appear lazy too, so a writer like Doyle would never use it. Not here. Nor can it be 11, because that’s a lucky number, mildly distracting and therefore intrusive. More importantly, Sherlock’s a deductive thinker, so the author wouldn’t suggest, even subliminally, that his detective’s success owes anything to a lucky number. Number 12? Again, distracting. Sir Doyle wouldn’t want his readers to be thinking, even subconsciously, about Twelve Apostles or even 12 months. Unlucky thirteen? Similary distracting.”
“Time’s almost up,” said Kathleen.
Step by step deduction led to the right conclusion.
I could see my friend faintly flush, but he continued in a calm if faster voice. “Fourteen? Now there’s a Plain Jane. No writer worth his salt would dull down a book with such tasteless seasoning, even if it is red.”
“Red?”
“See? That could be a subjective thing. And 15? Again, like 10, it’s too pat and pregnant. Makes the author appear lazy.”
“Sixteen?” a brother-in-law asked, eyeing the fleeting sands.
“Like 14, another Plain Jane, even if it is black,” my friend added.
“Seventeen?”
My friend smiled. You could almost hear bells going off. “Seventeen seems random,” he said, savoring the moment, “but it’s actually quite sexy. That unobtrusive 7, peeking from behind the place-holding 1, is subtly mystical, alluring even, hardly rising even to the level of the subliminal, yet there it is.”
Rebecca rolled her eyes. “So, is that your final answer?” she asked in a bored voice, as she glanced at the card, but we knew her attitude was all bluff.
“Yesssss,” my friend whispered aloud, calmly assured. “Seventeen it is. By far the most interesting number between 10 and 20.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re right. How did you do that?” she asked as she flashed the card, answer-side up, on the table.
“Elementary, my dear. I’m a writer.”
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Don Williams is a prize-winning columnist, short story writer, sometime TV commentator and the founding editor and publisher of New Millennium Writings, an annual anthology of stories, essays and poems. His awards include a National Endowment for the Humanities Journalism Fellowship at the University of Michigan, a Golden Presscard Award, the Malcolm Law Journalism Prize and many others. He was recently inducted into the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame. He is at work on a novel and a book of journalism..
Need a speaker, panelist, tv commentator or teacher for your group or to lead a writing workshop in your town? E-mail donwilliams7@charter.net, or visit www.NewMillenniumWritings.com. New Millennium Writings is holding a writing contest for fiction, non-fiction, and poetry that you can still enter. Deadline is July 31, 2012.
Booker's Blog 
Freeform Friday: “The Kindest Cut”
Nude man armed with chain saw arrested in East Knox County
Source: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/jul/12/nude-man-armed-with-chain-saw-arrested-in-east/
Below is a rewritten summation of the story.
KNOXVILLE, TN — On Wednesday, July 11, 2012, 46-year-old man, L.M.S. of Knox County was arrested because he was nude while using a chain saw to cut up a large tree that had toppled in his yard. Apparently, though appearances can be deceiving, this was not the first time he had subjected his neighbors to an au natural display of himself, though it may have been the first time he had done so with a chain saw.
He had occasionally been appearing in the nude for over a decade in this neighborhood in Knox County, but this time a neighbor complained about a public display of nudity by a nearly bald man obviously weighing more than the 210 lbs. listed on his driver’s license.
When Knox County Sheriff’s Deputy S.R. arrived at the scene, he later wrote in his report: “I saw arrestee standing behind the tree in his yard. When arrestee saw me, he ran inside his residence. Arrestee had no clothes on and was clearly visible from the complainant’s residence and the surrounding homes.”
L.M.S. was arrested, charged with indecent exposure, and was freed from the Knox County Sheriff’s Detention Facility after posting a $750 bond.
The neighbor who called in the complaint was reported to have said L.M.S.’s display of himself in the buff was “so common,” it had become a neighborhood joke.
A few editorial thoughts about this incident:
Maybe he was sleep chain sawing and didn’t realize it. You know, sawing some logs, so to say.
Or maybe he was caught up in the fervor of the upcoming Summer Olympics in London, possibly even wanting nude chain saw tree cutting to be a trial sport. Of course, it would be a little more difficult to identify which country he (or other participants) might be representing. He would be, however, competing in the style of the original Greek Olympics in which the participants did conduct their events in the nude. (I guess that was to make sure nobody was hiding any secret elixirs from the nearby temple at Delphi. Had to worry about doping even then.)
I say relocate him to Alaska, have him and others like him (After all, I’m sure he’s not alone.) chain saw trees in winter in the nude, and call the show, “Nude Loggers of the North: the chain, the pain, the complain.” Maybe ESPN and the Weather Channel could co-sponsor it.
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