I never said that. You must have heard wrong. I would never criticize you like that. After all, you're my reader. Why would I insinuate that you are not sincere? I assume you are sincere. If you weren't, you wouldn't be reading this. You would read someone else, someone less serious. You know me. I'm always dead serious. I never kid around. It just isn't in me. What? Oh, sure. I suppose I might have a beau jest every once in a blue moon, but I try to be as somber as a tombstone most of the time. Somber? I don't know. It's a word I see in books when the author is trying to create a melancholy mood. Have I succeeded in creating a melancholy mood by using that word? I haven't? Dear me, dear me. My writing instructor told me that the right words can create any mood a writer chooses to create. She always favored the phrase, "It was a dark and stormy night." She said that phrase is sure to put a chill down your back. What? It doesn't put a chill down your back? What is that you say? All nights are dark? I guess you're right about that. I guess you could say, "It was a stormy night" and get the same effect. Dark is already embedded in the word "night." I agree with you. That makes good sense. What? Oh, you don't like starting a sentence with the word "it?" Neither do I really. It always bothers me when people do that. Okay, let me try this out on you. "The stormy night was punctuated with thunder and lightening and a sudden blood curdling scream!" Ah, you like the blood curdling scream, but you don't like the word "punctuated?" I get that. It really doesn't work, does it? It is back to the drawing board for me. Tomorrow I will create exactly the mood I want. Prepare yourself.
