Introducing John Trimble

5 May 2013

When I was at the bus a while ago and Sam was heading for home, I was immensely enjoying Jackie Chan’s Chinese Zodiac. I was entertained. He makes what he’s doing look so easy that I am convinced I could do it as well. I know I can’t. For a person who gets easily titillated, I am surprised that I have a liking for action movies. Remember James Bond and Jackie Chan? I love watching them.

Also, I have John Trimble with me.

..if we thus imagine he will approve of us only in our starched-collar manner, we will usually wear that manner, however much we secretly abhor it. It’s the same thing in writing as in life. Each is always imitating the other..

With this text from his book, Writing with style, he brought me to the path of thought that made me realize how I prefer to be natural. Let everyone see the imperfections. I do not have to impress anybody. I do not have to match anybody’s standards but my own.

TOTELarian views as versed by John Trimble:

This rule assumes that the best expository prose is the most scrupulously impersonal. In theory, the best prose would come from a machine, which is precisely what many TOTELarians attempt to imitate. Little wonder that their prose is invariably bloodless and boring: all the life has been drained out of it.

And that one above just made me laugh aloud. John provides me with justification that I have a right to feel stifled that I was given a new voice, as if I was forced to wear a muzzle and speak through it. Of course the voice wouldn’t come out and sound right.