We’ve got crazy stuff going on at work that is hurting people and has gotten worse thanks to the water cooler group. I have opinions all right, but I stay out of it.
I got to thinking that I don’t get involved in the gossip because I normally watch, listen, absorb, and change it all around into fictional situations.
Ah, ha! So, I am a gossip!
Writers basically are gossips. If we write romance, we get into character’s heads and solve their relationship problems. If we write literature and don’t feel restricted by the HEA, we get into our character’s heads and let them not solve their relationship problems.
Sensational gossip show up in my stories. It is a natural fit.
In one WIP called Blindsided, the heroine rams into the hero’s squad car. This showed up after my father told me how he’d watched a woman ram a police car. I bet that is still conversation at the police station.
I find "gossip" in other stories all the time. Actually, when I read, it’s fun to find those things that add that little something extra to stories. It quite often involves ideas that would make news at the water cooler in real life. If anything fiction has to be even more sensational than real life. Even in non-fiction the technique grabs readers. It’s why Paris Hilton’s dog has “written” a book.
Well... getting late.
I got to thinking that I don’t get involved in the gossip because I normally watch, listen, absorb, and change it all around into fictional situations.
Ah, ha! So, I am a gossip!
Writers basically are gossips. If we write romance, we get into character’s heads and solve their relationship problems. If we write literature and don’t feel restricted by the HEA, we get into our character’s heads and let them not solve their relationship problems.
Sensational gossip show up in my stories. It is a natural fit.
In one WIP called Blindsided, the heroine rams into the hero’s squad car. This showed up after my father told me how he’d watched a woman ram a police car. I bet that is still conversation at the police station.
I find "gossip" in other stories all the time. Actually, when I read, it’s fun to find those things that add that little something extra to stories. It quite often involves ideas that would make news at the water cooler in real life. If anything fiction has to be even more sensational than real life. Even in non-fiction the technique grabs readers. It’s why Paris Hilton’s dog has “written” a book.
Well... getting late.
I just left a cube farm a few weeks ago. It wasn't that I objected to the gossip so much as that I was oblivious. I always wore headphones at my desk and usually ran errands, wrote or read during lunch.
ReplyDeleteEvery now and then I would come out of my trance in the cafeteria or break room and realize I was surrounded by gossiping people. They seemed so passionate about the private doings of their co-workers, supervisors and managers. Noticing my (rare) attentiveness, someone would ask me, "So, what do you think about what happened to Bob?"
Invariably, I had no idea that ANYTHING had happened to Bob. Imagine the raconteur's delight at being able to relate the entire story to someone still completely ignorant. And their disappointment when I failed to gasp at the appropriate moments and join in the speculation about the implications of Bob’s situation.
I also disappointed my boss, who sometimes asked me for the scoop on what some of the people who answered to her were saying about their work assignments, her, etc. I never had any good dirt. She thought I was being evasive. I actually had no clue.
Cube farm... LOL. I like that term.
ReplyDeleteA month ago when something else was going on, one of the supervisors asked me... "did you hear X". I hadn't. She said, "thank goodness, it should be private". I like that about her. Well, I'm sure she is thinking employee retention. They lose employees over some of the drama.
Yikes where I used to work, it was soooo scandalous. Gossip abounded. My hubby still works there, so I keep up on the gossip.
ReplyDeleteI could write a book about everything that happened but no one would believe it. Truth is stranger than fiction.
I like cube farm too. :)
I can't stand gossip. It serves no purpose. Wasted energy.
ReplyDeleteNow...to write and do my gossiping there...ya o.k...I can buy into that..LOL
Man, my old work was bad - almost lost my job on gossip! it was a lie though. Office politics suck
ReplyDeleteJodie - Office politics. And they don't go away! Over a year after I moved to another state someone called me up and told me another lady I used to supervise was complaining about something. I told her, my thoughts truly are 4000 miles away. I remember working with a lot of the people, but the work itself is definitely out-of-sight and out-of-mind. If she's still unhappy with a supervisory decision I made years ago, that's her problem. Feel free not to tell me her problems.
ReplyDeleteKaren,
ReplyDeleteIn this instance, the stuff at work is sad, so it isn't "research". I was just thinking about how I observe human nature and make mental note more often than butt in.
That is also because at least once in the past I let myself get involved in gossip, and learned my lessons the hard way.
Leann... Today, the opening line in the romance novel I picked up starts off with the word "gossip", and revolves around whispering at a tea party (historical romance set in England in early 1800's). It is A Most Dangerous Affair by Christy Gissendaner. I haven't finished it yet, but putting up with gossip seems to be one of the problems this heroine will have to conquer before end of the story. It made me smile because it fit this topic.
ReplyDelete