Letter 10 Background

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Hello from Shandra.
            After telling Shanti how much he is enjoying the correspondence, this letter from Joseph opens with the usual comments concerning photos being swapped etc.
            Joseph is asking if the Red Sari Series is, in fact, a strip tease where he hopes Shanti will remove all her clothes and end up naked. The next point tells us about some pics he sent, of both himself and Lizamoa in brief underwear so Shanti and Mike can view their bodies as well. Finally, we see another instalment of the ongoing debate about the Indian Sari compared with Western dress.

            A few comments on topless and nude bathing in New Zealand lead smoothly into the story, “Lizamoa in the Court-Yard.” This story was another way we were exploring the exhibitionist idea of appearing naked in front of a stranger.

            When I finished writing the first version of this story I was very happy with it. I still think it was up there among the best stories I have written but when I showed it to my friends I soon discovered there was still room for improvement.
            I showed it to Anne and she thought it was good but the English was too correct so I then reworked the whole story fitting in some bad grammar. This made the story appear to have been written by someone whose English is not quite as good because, for Joseph, English is supposed to be his second language.
            Allan Jr. then suggested that I should work some speech into the story. With his help, I added that short conversation where Lizamoa tells Joseph what she has been doing. This is the first time we had used speech in any of our stories and I believe it works well as a build-up to the point where Lizamoa bares everything for the neighbour. Conversation has since become an important part of our storytelling.
            Finally, Susan had some suggestions too. She said she thought it would be interesting to include some of Liz’s feelings while she was doing this. We finally settled on what she was thinking in the shower just after her first reveal. Susan’s second suggestion was that Joseph and Lizamoa were so turned on by her appearing naked in front of the neighbour, that as soon as she returned to the house they went straight into some bedroom fun. Well, all loved this idea, a good idea and so I quickly added this too.

            This is how the group editing machine has worked on most of the letters we have written. It works well as many great ideas have come from reading each other’s work. These comments and suggestions had the effect of making what I thought was a good story even better. The only problem with this is that over time our writing styles progressively have moved closer and closer together until now it is often hard to tell who wrote which parts in many stories.

            Kia Kaka - Kia Kaha.
                  Be safe - Be strong.
                        Shandra.

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