A Pan of Tomato Soup and a Blog about People’s Opinions.

A Pan of Tomato Soup and a Blog about People's Opinions.

Human's are some of the most complex creatures on the planet. Ask yourself how they can all be so different from each other yet share consistent basic needs?

Some can be the cruelest, most violent, evil, inconsiderate, power hungry and selfish of the animal kingdom. Yet some have the other extreme of being the kindest, thoughtful, most selfless, good intentioned consideration and are the nicest of the animal kingdom.

I get that most humans fall somewhere in between the extremes and life circumstances contribute towards their personalities, by the choices they make over them.

For example although two people could be given the exact same circumstances. One of them would use the circumstance as an excuse and reason to be evil, mean, blame others for how they turned out. Stating that its what they had learned in life by their own circumstances. Using this reasoning to take it out on the rest of the world, and hold it against everyone. Even complete strangers they had never met, to the point of truly believing its completely ok to treat others the same way they were treated, or even find a way to be crueler.

Meanwhile the second person would take the same circumstances and choose to try and make it up to others. Ensuring 100% that they never treated others in such a terrible way. Do their best to find ways to help others, who may have also suffered too and never dream of putting someone else through those circumstances. They would instead find a way to make the world a better place for all.

Logically both of these humans should have had the same reaction to their circumstances. Because they are both human and have both been through exactly the same thing, leaving the same kind of psychological input, surely they should have the same reactions as each other? But humans like all other animals are in fact individuals, with a pack nature requiring social acceptance. They are also ruled by their emotions and don't tend to make logical decisions from an experience, though they would bring logic into this for an explanation. As in the above, justifying their circumstances for their reactions. In fact they both actually responded emotionally to the circumstances.

Emotionally, I don't understand how two authors could write almost the same or a similar story. And one would be liked while the other would not? What was the magical mystery of the one that was liked?

I have figured out that mathematically, a third of what I personally write is liked. Leaving the other two thirds either unliked or just somehow not quite good enough.

What I cannot logically figure out is why, what I view as some of my best work, falls into the latter category? While what I have achieved in the top third is some work that others have liked more. Yet some of those are what I considered to be less than my best?

It's all down to opinions! From my perspective one of the best things I ever wrote, struggled to get even one like. At the same time something I wrote that I personally felt was Meh, was absolutely loved. I am completely baffled. I'm fully aware, It's certainly nothing to do with how long I spend on my writing, or how many critical read throughs I do. For I spend the same strict amounts of time on both of these things, constantly looking for my mistakes to correct them.

I'd question if it was whether I had used interesting word replacements. But I see its not likely so much the words I use. Which brought me to a thought of, It must be the way I use them? Again I came up with a blank and further questions.

Was it the particular Idea that wasn't liked? Was it a miscommunication? Were people insulted by what I tried? Was it too similar to someone else's who just wrote it better? Was it my own lack of understanding? Did I put in too much detail or not enough? Plus a million more questions.

I of course came to the conclusion, that it had to simply be a difference of opinion mixed with a difference of interpretation.

I could have written

'The silver on the pan shone so brightly it was almost blinding'.

The responses of the readers to that line could simply have been any of the following or more. A beautiful description. I can see the pan myself. My eyes hurt at the thought of being blinded. I love this, it explains the beauty of the pan. This felt so painful. Or even what the hell has a shiny pan got to do with this story? Is she the pan? Is the pan holding all the possible descriptions? Does it matter if there is a shiny pan around? Why has a shiny pan suddenly appeared here, I honestly don't understand the relevance?

I'm sure there would probably be a thousand more interpretations of that one line. When as a writer all I was trying to do was express how shiny

the pan itself was.

I could have taken the pan further and described it with more of my senses involved, maybe even all of my senses involved:

'As I placed the cold, silky soft, silver pan on the stove. I could almost taste the soup, with its strong tomato fragrance drifting up my nose warming the back of my throat with its tangy flavour. It began to bubble softly at first getting louder as the air bubbles on its surface grew from tiny holes, to a wave of ripples spreading outwards and inwards all at the same time'.

As the writer in that description, I am hoping you can not only see and feel the pan but also hear, smell and taste it's contents.

Again some people would love this description and compliment it. Some may feel hungry. Some may actually go make themselves some tomato soup. Others would most likely be thinking why are you talking about a pan of tomato soup, it doesn't even go with the prompt? Maybe they would think 'I don't understand the point of this', we were talking about humans and now we are talking about a pan of soup?

My point is simply as a writer you are only human. You pour your own heart and soul into your work. You listen to your own critical inner voice, it may tell you what you wrote was brilliant and people will love it or that what your wrote is terrible and shouldn't be shared. If you're brave enough you will share it anyway.

Why? Because in the end, whatever you personally think of your own work, others will equally have their own opinions. They may agree and love or hate your work. They may be sticklers for the editing mistakes or grammar police and mark you down for any mistakes they find. Some may not notice the editing or grammar mistakes and love the story itself.

You could read and reread your own work hundreds of times. Thinking you've perfected it ready to put it out into the world. Going all the way to the publishes and when it comes out in print, where even the editor missed a mistake you made. Your reader could be confused as to how that mistake got through the process, and may feel disappointed about it in comparison to your previous work. At the same time hundreds of others could also miss the mistake.

Some people will look forward to your next story, book, poem, serious writing. Others will hate that, you are still writing that crap and somehow people still like it?

No matter what you write, there will never be a perfect, novel, book, fantasy world, fictional or real life story. People are complex and individual. Authors are unique yet similar. Writers and authors are also people. Some use inspiration from others who have been successful. Rewriting things by pigeonholing their idea's, trying to copy their style or both. A mix of others work, put into their own stories. Thats why a lot of things have similarities. The author admired the work but wanted to make it their own story.

I myself love Disney, poetry, fictional, sci fi, alternative and fantasy worlds. I've been inspired by other writers, films, series and some of the ways others have written on here.

An example of a story I admire is red riding hood. I took the inspiration of this story idea, mixed it with a fantasy world, with fictional characters and made it my own when I wrote 'Laryngitis'. Thank-you Charles Perrault for your original idea and the brothers Grimm for making his idea so famous. So many authors have admired your idea over the years and made it their own story too.

We all have our hero's, those we look up to and who inspire us. We all have our dreams, (not everyone follows them). I've only just started to follow mine, I spent the first 40 years of my life dreaming of writing and writing poems for pleasure. I took a brave leap trying to start a poetry business, which I failed at. This was not necessarily due to my writing, or maybe it was? But, I'm not the most technically minded and found trying to promote, build a website, getting things noticed for myself practically impossible. All that side of things was difficult to achieve. And without the finances to pay someone else to help it was easier to give up.

Since then, I went back to a regular job, which had no thrill involved but paid the bills. It give me an apprenticeship qualification, but again it was not who I am as a person. And the stress level of all the work involved to achieve the apprenticeship, English and Maths functional skills added to life in general. An alien on the planet, not fitting in, constantly finding the social world hard work, feeling like nobody understood me. Mixed with that last work attempt forcing myself through, feeling bored and unfulfilled, suffering depression, anxiety and other constant mental health struggles (even with help), made me burnout for a world I wasn't made to be a part of.

After that experience, over the last five years, my physical and mental health is still up and down. Along the way I was diagnosed ASD and ADHD combined (Known as AuDHD) and made the decision to try and live my dream of becoming an author again at 49.

It’s all I ever wanted as a teenager and growing up beyond those years. Back then I knew its who I was. Life and trying to fit in, trying to be someone I wasn't. Stole that inner knowledge from me, though I still wrote poems here and there. Trying to live life like everyone else, also stole my passions away, Vampires, Fairies/Angels/Mythical creatures in general, stones and rocks and the natural beauty within them. (Plus other interests). Lost me my childhood memories, made me a stranger to myself and loose my identity completely.

Its taken me 5 years to remember who I was as a child, who I actually am, forgive and embrace myself. While accepting my struggles, I am still finding things out about myself, hereafter.

So what does that silver pan of tomato soup have to do with all this?

Absolutely nothing, they are two completely separate things. It was simply a prop to demonstrate how writers use description and the prompt 'write a story using the words I don't understand' was used to explain the differences and uniqueness of each individual person.

We all have something to give to the world. Whether or not we are writers, people, animals, even a pan with tomato soup in or just an empty pan waiting for its next job role.

Be who you are and the best version of yourself you can be. You won't be here forever but what you achieved or inspired in others will be.