A light rain is falling on Pittsburgh right now. That’s okay. As long as it stays a light rain I can still take my daily walk to the Carnegie Library to exchange my movie tapes for new ones. One of the tapes I watched over the Memorial Day weekend was the movie Wall Street. It sent chills up my back because it was about the insane greed on Wall Street that doesn’t create but destroys.
This is the little review that was on the back of the tape box: “In this riveting behind-the-scenes look at big business in the 1980s, an ambitious young broker (Charlie Sheen) is lured into the illegal, lucrative world of corporate espionage when he is seduced by the power, status and financial wizardry of Wall Street legend Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). But he soon discovers that the pursuit of overnight riches comes at a price that’s too high to pay. Daryl Hannah and Martin Sheen co-star in Oliver Stone’s gripping morality tale about the American dream gone wrong.” Man, did it ever. And this film made in the 80s explains perfectly how the fat cats in banking and on Wall Street care about nothing (not the nation-not their stockholders-nothing) but money. Michael Douglas won the Best Actor Oscar for his role and he deserved it. Good films are great entertainment and provide public education.
The movie predicted how Wall Street recently nearly destroyed the economy of the world. And we’re not out of this recession yet…
Money is a wonderful thing. We all need money. We make life decisions based on money. We have to. In Money and the American Writer a young woman must make a decision about her life.
Filed under: Commentaries | Tagged: American, banking, Best Actor Oscar, broker, business, Carnegie Library, Charlie Sheen, corporate espionage, create, Daryl Hannah, dream, Economy, education, entertainment, fat cats, financial, life, Martin Sheen, Michael Douglas, money, morality, movie, nation, Oliver Stone, Pittsburgh, power, public, rain, recession, review, riches, status, stockholders, tape, wall street, woman, writer | Leave a Comment »
The Educational Value Of Writing Flash Fiction
Do you want to write concisely? Do you want to convey complex ideas in an easily digestible context? Do you want to be a good writer?
I do freelance writing. I write news summaries. I take 500-word to 1,000-word news stories and rewrite them into bite-size 200-word summaries. Writing flash fiction for years has prepared me well for this occupation. Yes, I make money doing it.
Few of the posts on this blog are over 300 words. Most are around 150 words. But because of my education in writing the very short story I know these blog posts must have a setup, a buildup and a payoff.
Learning to write flash fiction is the best education a creative writer can have.
********************
Good morning, my brother and sister bloggers and writers. It’s going to be a beautiful day in Pittsburgh. The Old Soldier is keeping a close eye on the Goldman Sachs mess. The hearings sure make Goldman Sachs look bad. I’m no financial expert but Goldman was squeezing its own investors. There’s no other way to put it. Yes there is. They were swindling their own investors. And you can’t tell me that Goldman is the only firm on Wall Street that does this. Now the American people have a better idea of how Wall Street really works.
Short Story Ideas That Work
How Good Writers Stay Inspired
Rate this:
Filed under: Commentaries | Tagged: American people, blog, bloggers, creative writer, education in writing, educational, financial, flash fiction, freelance writing, Goldman Sachs, good writers, how Wall Street really works, ideas, inspired, investors, money, news stories, news summaries, Pittsburgh, rewrite, short story ideas, very short story, wall street, writer, Writers, Writing Flash Fiction | 1 Comment »