A Question For The Assembled

[mangosteen]

I have a couple of questions for all of you:

Posit: You have a hidden talent. Some skill that you have developed in total secrecy for years. You practice this skill with the expertise of a master.

a) What is the skill?

b) If you would at all, how would you showcase this skill to an unknowing public?

The only request is that you keep it at least somewhat rooted in reality.

Comments

[thespian.livejournal.com]

I have a hidden talent. In the early 90s, I was getting noticed in slush piles, and notes from editors telling me my stories weren't quite right, or that they had recently accepted something similar, but that I was a good writer and I should send them more.

I didn't.

And I stopped writing. Not in a 'oh, I will never write again, ennui!' way, I just drifted away from it. I never stopped writing, per se, but I stopped writing for magazines or story collections. Now I just write for me, and occasionally for friends and such.

Until the last year, when I started writing seriously again. If I haven't fucked up, and I keep working, and my talent wasn't a lie (and I believe it wasn't, that I got really encouraging letters based on the slush pile, instead of 'does not meet needs at this time' that my friends got from the same editors), it will be showcased to the world soon enough.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

(before anyone says 'oh, well, yeah, stephanie, but that's not hidden you've written 1500 livejournal entries in a year', and you majored in journalism, I do actually believe that yes, the fact that I write real, honest, plotted, fiction stories is in fact a hidden talent. while I don't hide it myself, I also don't go around pushing it at people, and when I do show people a story or two of mine, the reaction tends to be a '_you_ *wrote* this?' which I can never tell is that they're surprised it came from me or if they're surprised someone they know personally wrote something that they consider that good (others may of course think my writing is crap ;-).)

Questions are a burden to others, Answers are a burden to oneself.

[marmota.livejournal.com]

If I answered that, especially here, it wouldn't be hidden anymore, now would it?