Writing advice from October 1941

Picked up a stack of Writer's Digest journals from the 1940s at the Fishtrap Good Book Sale and discovered I much prefer the publishing market in the age of fedoras over modernday.

 Twenty bucks on me to place fourth.

If editors won't reply to my submissions in 2012, I might as well send manuscripts back in time. Save on postage. And this here cartoon resonates, having just done my taxes and licked the flap this morning on a story to send in at the PO today.

And you post offices have got to quit raising the price of a stamp by a penny every time I go mail something. 

My desk is awash in one cent upgrade stamps.

A letter from J. A. Kugelmass :

To Mr. J. A. Kugelmass:

Sir:

Your letter from 1941 has made it to the future. The word 'interlards,' however, did not. I've never seen that before and it sounds like a baking term for mixing the batter of something fattening.

I'm not sure what those 'complimentary manifestations' you mention are either, Kugelmass. They sound like something you win in a raffle at a psychic's convention.

Good for you, for barring the macabre, the gruesome and the amoral. Especially rape scenes. You and I and everyone on earth except rapists agree there should be no rape evermore.

Your vision of cleaner true detective material, you'll be pleased to know, has caught on and spread to all facets of writing and story telling. Especially movies. The stronger swear words are largely avoided and, all in all, shit's pretty wholesome these days.

Your paragraph at the end there, starting with, "cognizant of the desirability of being a spearpoint . . ." has had 71 years to start making sense and it's still working on it. I'm not sure if I do want you to elaborate if you're going to go about it like that.

Cordially yours,

Jonathan Rombach
The Future

. . . . and, hey, there's a hell of a deal on noiseless ipad prototypes on the back page.