I Put My Heart Into This One...I Really Did

Well, I was going to write some heartwarming story about Beach Haven in New Jersey and Hurricane Sandy and how I used to go there...and how much destruction they have suffered. It was going to be sad...and with me lamenting my youth and it was going to have some inspirational tie-in somehow...but I haven't felt well all day and just a little while ago (when I finally got up at 6:00 p.m.), I thought I was having some heart attack or something.

I have a wonky heart and it's scary...coupled with the fact it was beating about 5000 miles per hour and I was sweaty...plus I also had a wicked headache - I just sorta imploded. I darted in out of extremely messy rooms trying to find my blood pressure machine to calm me down a bit -- it always seems worse than it is, at least that's how I've had it so far. Absolutely no safe haven in the storm that is my mind when I'm going into panic mode.

Then I took a heart pill, which I think is a blood pressure kind of pill, and it slows my heart down...and I drank one of those "old people" Ensure shakes - and I feel a lot better. Perhaps it was a blood sugar issue - I keep telling them I have blood sugar issues, but they tell me I don't. Well, THEY don't ever take my blood sugar when I wake up after lying there for hours trying to sleep, but failing miserably.

I was also going to make a wickedly naughty post about something being "clean s-haven"...but, I didn't. But you can bet your ass it was going to be rollickingly hilarious and you would have spat milk out of your nose...even if you hadn't drank milk in ages. Seriously, it was going to be THAT friggen brilliantly done.

But I didn't.

I decided to calm down, breathe, sing old movie songs, and load the dishwasher instead.

"H aven, I'm in h aven...and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak..."

...damn, my wonky "e" on the keyboard must be sticking again.

At least my heart seems to be beating right and I can speak again...

...whew.

(This is Day 6 of Nicky and Mike's "30 Minus 2 Days of Writing" non-contest contest over at "We Work For Cheese".  Today's prompt was "Haven".  Please check out the other blogs over there...but ignore all the ones on the list which were posted before mine.  Yes...do that.  ;)  That would be a good thing to do.)

 

 

NaNoWriMo aka "No, it's not Orkan"

It's no big surprise that I'd love to be a "real live writer"...you know, one that gets paid and can count up the words and divide them to see just how much money each one of them made -- kinda like the really rich sports people and how much they get paid per game...or hit...depending on which sport you're calculating.

Anyway, I am not a quilter...I'm not a cookie-baking mom...and I'm not a coffee-klatch type of person, partly because I detest the smell and taste of coffee...but mainly because I'm not going to go and hang out with perky early-risers and shoot the breeze about things like quilting or Girl Scouts.

I have no family really and certainly none around here...being that I'm a Jersey chick doesn't help in the grand scheme of things as, if you're not aware, the Montgomery area seems very cliquey...the women much more so than the men...and my seventh circle of Hell was drawn in the sand by someone with a cheerleader mom mentality. (If you are a nice cheerleader mom...disregard that previous comment...if you aren't, you know exactly what I mean and you do it all the time...and it's not nice.)

So, here I sit. I sit here. I sit here and type...hoping one day the words will miraculously string together in some sort of profitable fashion like they have done for J.K. Rowling and Stephen King...and all the others who rank in their...well, ranks.

I sit, sit, sit (like Dr. Suess might have said)...and I get discouraged for lots of reasons -- but one main one is I don't have a lot of encouragement to write. Having a loving relationship with a spouse or significant other probably helps many of these unknown writers get known...but I have neither.

While my two children prod me once in a while, saying things like "Uh, why don't you write that book already" and "Um, why don't you write that book already"...it's clearly not the motivating factor that's working for me.

Consequently, about six or so months ago I joined some Alabama Writer's Guild or Group or Gathering or some type of what I undoubtedly initially perceived as a "Mutual Admiration Society"-type of thing. Well, it turned out to be a dud. Neither are they admiring anything nor are they being very mutual. I've gotten one monthly email from them - and unless I travel to Birmingham or Fairhope to go munch on a sandwich with them at the nearly ungodly hour of noon (factor in drive time)...well, I'm back to where I've always been...

...sit, sit, sit.

Then, the other day, flipping through the virtual pages of the Montgomery Advertiser's website, I happened upon something called the "National Novel Writing Month" - and lo and behold they're having a meeting in MY town and it's not at 8:00 a.m. It's not even noon. It's going to be at 6:30 - and that's p.m. That's "Post Meridiam"...or, as I refer to it: "Prime Morning".

I'm hoping I will find an "in town writing buddy" - and we can encourage each other to write. And I'm hoping it will last more than a month.

The reason I say that is because this event challenges you to write a novel in a month...hence that "November" in the title.

While I'm sure many novels were written in a month's time...I'm sure most weren't...and that's where MY encouragement and challenge goes out to my online writer friends who have much more potential than I think they imagine. And you know who you are -- Mark, Chris, Sully, Mike, etc., etc.

I'm asking if they will consider joining in with me...or at least checking out the website at www.nanowrimo.org -- to see what it's all about. Plus one day I really, really want to read your books. I want you to sign them and send them to me...and I want you to introduce me to your editor -- but...only after I introduce you to MINE. ;)

So, with notebook and pen in hand and no laptop in sight, I will venture this Tuesday to "Books-A-Million" where this kick-off meeting will be held...and...

...even though there's going to be coffee involved...no one's going to force me to drink it.

And with that, I just brought it back full "circle". ;)

Candy is dandy...but sicker is quicker

I've been in a writing slump lately - I think it's a combined "health issues, have no job, and I'm sick of reading more heinous ways people can kill each other" type of thing. So, if I'm not up to my usual "fun self" - well that is why.

Back when I was a child, my mother would always remind me not to take candy from strangers.

This, to a child in my era, seemed a bit strange in itself.

In my day (which was pretty much the 60s) you didn't hear of kids getting abducted - I knew of only one and it was quite a few years before my time: Charles Lindbergh's baby. And while it took place in New Jersey, it was supposedly for money and our family had none...so I was pretty much off the hook.

In Jersey where I lived, we got the Philadelphia news; and if things didn't happen in the generalized area of their broadcasting antenna, well, we never really knew about it. There were other things taking precedence anyway...mainly the Vietnam war, hippies, drugs, free love and rock and roll. There was also all this racial tension in some place called "Birmingham". But I was a kid and kids aren't too keen on watching the news religiously...so much of it was a blur to me...and so far away.

Closer to home, i.e., the Philadelphia area, we'd hear about fires engulfing homes once a week and killing a couple people and the obligatory "jack-knifed truck on the Schuylkill Expressway". I swear there was always some 18-wheeler lying on its side on that road every single day of the year. But pretty much this was the routine I was brought up with. And, if you didn't take candy from strangers, play with matches...and didn't play in traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway, you were pretty much guaranteed to lead a fairly long and uneventful life.

During my childhood years it was also typical for parents NOT to discuss such things as child molestation, sexual predators and pedophiles...and the resulting consequences of these. Heck, a couple of these terms weren't even coined yet.

I'm not stupid, I know these things went on since the dawn of mankind...and certainly were taking place in the 1960s and 1970s, but it seems so much more commonplace nowadays and it's probably due to instant information via the Information Highway. Face it, someone "goes missing" in Burlington, Vermont and people in New York City and Seattle, Washington (and all points between) hear about it roughly the same exact time. This didn't happen back in my day.

But I remember once when I was around 12 or 13, my friend and I were walking to "the beach" in my town in Jersey. It wasn't really so much a beach as it was a murky cedar lake with a set expanse of sandy shoreline...but we were walking along a dirt road shortcut as we always had every other time we went there.

Halfway through our walk, which was 3/4 of a mile at the most, a guy in some car pulled up next to us and asked if we'd like a lift. My friend and I, totally oblivious as to what type of pervert he probably was, said "No" and kept on walking.

There was no obvious overt sense of danger we felt we were in - plus he didn't offer us any candy...just a ride.

Despite these facts, he kept following at a snail's pace directly behind us as we continued walking and talking down this relatively isolated dirt road...the beach literally within our sights...and surely within walking distance. It was also within running distance, and for reasons I'll never quite understand, we both got an extreme case of the "heebee jeebies" at exactly the same time and broke out into a full on sprint to put as much distance between his car and us.

As you might have guessed, nothing happened, and we lived to go to "the beach" (and marvel at our instant cedar water tans) another day...and another...and another...

...some children don't.

And it's not just strangers - most times it's someone they know. And I think it's high time to start a much more aggressive approach for the sake of all our children.

That "candy" line we were all fed when we were kids - was plain silly - especially when Halloween rolled around.

I tell...and have told...both my children that there are people out there who torture and kill kids, dump their naked bodied in ditches on the side of the road and...very often...horrible heinous things happen before and after.

I don't Google photos to show them nor yank out a Hieronymus Bosch painting to get my point across, but a good scary dose of Stephen King-type terror isn't necessarily a bad thing in my opinion.

And, let me just address something which has been stuck in my craw for years - and I basically think this has a high basis in fact:

Not meaning to sound flip...but if you are going to get abducted - let's just hope you are a pretty blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white girl - as those are the only ones it seems get any full-out media attention.

Think about it, when was the last time a national manhunt was called for a missing homely Haitian girl? A Native American girl with a wonky eye? Someone Hispanic with an overbite? Any black girl??

Nope.

And it's so incredibly sad. I'm sure caring parents of ANY child is just as concerned about their child...and that child deserves the same treatment as that given a flaxen-haired beauty -- a missing media darling who becomes the press's eye candy.

I find that strangely disturbing.

(Orinally written, but not published, a couple years ago.)

Shakespeare, Dickens and Me?

I hit a milestone of sorts the other day: I posted my 250th blog.

Now, that might not seem that monumental in the grander schemes of accomplishments mankind has made, but my blogs aren't all about my cat, or what I made for dinner last night, and none of them ever just had the "I feel :( today" comment.

Oh, trust me on that last one, there are people out there who do only that as a blog. What's worse -- there are people out there who "FOLLOW" those people's blogs.

Since I've written about so many different things...I wonder if there's a point where I have done -- or at least touched on, everything that's out there.

This recurring thought of mine has crept into my mind many times. And it's got to have come into the minds of people who are songwriters or writers of books.

Stay with me here on this one...

Beethoven had it easy.

So did Shakespeare.

The writers for "I Love Lucy"? Sheesh...all those episodes were a walk in the park compared to what today's writers have to deal with.

Back in the "olden days" - there were like, what? Five people writing songs? ANY tune you came up with was new. NOTHING sounded like anything else because 30 songs, tops, were written. How easy did those music "geniuses" have it? ANYTHING they wrote was new and innovative.

Seriously, is there any tune left that doesn't sound remotely like something else someone came out with? You might not even know the sound sounds the same - and you might not have even heard of it...totally innocent and all...but it sounds like some obscure polka ska band from Lichtenstein - and all of a sudden someone points it out via YouTube. You are now "BUSTED". Katy Perry move over.

And writers back then. Sure, there were people writing back then - but there were only like seven famous ones. Coming up with any book idea must have been - well, a writer's dream. I know for a fact, if I would have been an author in 1884, I would have been on several dreaded Victorian "summer reading lists" in schools.

"Please, sir, can I read some more?"

While I can bask in the heady thought that I probably would have been famous back then...I'd also certainly be dead by now...so it's pretty much a moot point and does me absolutely no good pondering the prodigiousness of my proposed pious past.

Alas.

So while people like Stephen King gobble up the last remaining 17 ideas which haven't been done yet...and you are on page 221 of some 93rd remake of some re-vamped vampire book from some 24-year-old author who undoubtedly has a relative working at HarperCollins, remember that I'm continually slaving away trying to think of original blogs to entertain you people.

And all for free...dammit.

:)

(Okay, I hit my 250th blog about 16 blogs ago...I'm just late getting around to writing this. I also never claimed I was good at alliteration.)

Okay, I've Had It!

I have had it with "staycations".

I also refuse to say the word "staycation".

I will, however, as you can plainly see, type the word "staycation" over and over again throughout the body of this blog.

I have nothing against people making up words...I love to make up words and have made up my fair share of them, many times by accident, but mostly on purpose. I saw Snoop Dogg on television once and he said he loved to make words up...hence all the "fo' shizzle" talk. Hey, I'm for it. But when you have a whole society who is saying words like "fo' shizzle" and mistakenly say "pizzle" (yeah, look that one up) trying to be cool, it's time to step aside -- as you aren't.

It's like people who say "bling". "Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon? And by the way, nice bling there on your Rolls."

See? It just doesn't work...so stop it already!

Now we have a whole nation who can't get through ANY holiday without saying the word "staycation" at least twice in any one news broadcast...or online newspaper. The airwaves are replete with "staycations". I'm sure any minute now the Go-Go's are thinking of getting back together in the studio to take this opportunity to cash in on changing up the lyrics to their "Vacation" song. In fact, if I remain very quiet, I swear I can hear it in some commercial right now.

Do I?

No.

Will I?

Probably.

I'm not even going over to YouTube as I'm sure it's been parodied there at least 20 gazillion times already by all too eager people willing to do anything to get featured on tomorrow's "Good Morning America" show.

So, I'm calling for a world-wide media ban of the word "staycation". I'm sure there are other words which can get the same point across just as "cutely".

Let me think...

The British probably go on "holistay" instead of "holiday". Or do they do that already? No...I will not Google...will not Google...will not Goo...

...but I will Google "vacation" to see what other words I can begrudgingly massacre in the name of journalism and colloquial catchetudeness.

Break: Hmmm...I guess no one probably wants to go "spring steak"...or "spring stayk". Oh, that one doesn't work at all...forget it.

Trip: Well, people used to take acid trips back in the 60's without ever leaving their houses...but I don't think we should bring that up here, although I guess, technically, it would apply.

Rest: "Rest" sounds more like something you do after you die than during vacation...being "laid to rest" and all. "Oh, look at Bob in this beautiful antique vase all cremated and stuff...well he certainly "urned" this well-deserved rest." Okay, scrap this one, too.

Retreat: I never heard of anyone going on a retreat refer to it as a vacation. I believe msn's thesaurus is wack...but I could possibly use it this way: "Our house was being retreated for fleas and we had to vacate the premises when Terminix tented it."

Leave: I think this is more of the military variety - "shore leave" and "LWOP" and all...Leave Without Pay...ing Anything on a Hotel "LWOPAOAH"...aka day-trip. Nope. That sucks even more than the other ones.

Escape: I never heard of a vacation referred to as an "escape"...and had it been synonymous with it, Steve McQueen's film, "The Great Escape" would have come off looking more like a Chevy Chase film than what it was. "National Lampoon's Great Escape" -- "National Lampoon's Christmas Escape" - eh...has some promise...especially with that methane gas escaping scene and all. But it really is far fetched. Oh, wait...if it's "far fetched" then it IS perfect...for a National Lampoon movie but not for a catchy new wordism.

Holiday: See above.

Well, there you have it. I've completely exhausted my online thesaurus' word bank and nothing has the same ring (not of the bling kind) or appeal as "staycation" - but at least I'm trendy nowadays. And when people ask me where I'm going for vacation I can appear green and hip...and no one has to know that I'm really not going anywhere because I have no money...

...and that's fo' shizzle.

Write On

A few of you might know that I passionately entertain the thought of one day being a "real" writer. That being said, I like to extol the virtues of writing...or at least using your imagination once in a while and writing something with it. I also believe there should be a lot more writing in school, especially in the elementary grade levels.

A few years back I talked my daughter's (name withheld because I'm like that) English teacher (also name withheld because I'm like that) into allowing me into her classroom to talk about my limited (but still very special to me) writing experiences. Some of the things I touched on were my methods of undertaking various aspects of writing...and how I hoped they'd embrace writing instead of being scared of the whole entire process.

This is that talk I gave to my daughter's 6th grade class...and, as such, you have to remember I tried to appeal to a year 2007 6th grade English class. Also, I ad-libbed a LOT as I tend to talk a LOT...and that's not in this basic outline of this "speech".

By the way, last year I was invited to speak at AUM (Auburn University at Montgomery) to a group of English students regarding my 2003 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest win...and if you're interested, I'd be more than happy to share my limited "life-long" writing experiences in other settings (classrooms, auditoriums, etc.) as well. All you have to do is ask me.


Allow me to introduce myself - I am Mariann Simms...Mrs. Simms...but most of you know me as my daughter's mom.

The reason I'm here today is because I talked your teacher into letting me come here and tell you that you should all WRITE some more. LOTS more!

A little about me...when I was young, about your age, I wanted to be a writer...then I grew up not knowing what I wanted to be until I realized, not too long ago, that I still wanted to be a writer. Imagine my disappointment knowing how much further I might have actually gotten had I just listened to myself years ago.

I have an online interactive humour website that I've been doing since 2001 that you shouldn't go to and I've also won tons of prizes, including a TiVo, by entering "funny" and or "writing-type" contests online. But my biggest claim to fame to date was winning the prestigious Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest in 2003. For doing this, I was interviewed by CNN...American, Australian and Canadian radio and television programs, and had a front page write-up at the Montgomery Advertiser. I was on the front page of USA Today...and was literally (and I Googled myself, so I know for sure) mentioned in newspapers from Algeria to Zimbabwe. Yes, my name was mentioned in the Zimbabwe Times...or whatever they call their paper.

How many of you have ever heard of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest? (Excluding my daughter.) How many of you are now somewhat impressed by the fact I won it? Professor Scott Rice, the man who came up with this contest back in 1982 and still judges it, asked all the previous winners the other month (for his upcoming Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest book) what, if anything, did we notice that changed or happened to us since our winning it.

I told him I found that people whom I've told about my winning this contest seem to look upon me with an amount of admiration and respect...ESPECIALLY those who hadn't a clue what it was. Who here ever heard of the saying "The pen is mightier than the sword?" Well, the man who wrote that saying was Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who lived back in 1803-1873. He also wrote a novel entitled "Paul Clifford" which has the distinction of having, possibly in all of history, the worst opening sentence ever written and printed. How many of you have seen those "Peanuts" cartoons where Snoopy is typing and starts off..."It was a dark and stormy night..."? Well that was how Bulwer-Lytton started his novel...but then it went on and on and on and on...and really ended up getting worse by the word...only I'm sure he wasn't trying to do that intentionally. What I did was intentional. In 2003, I was judged to have come up with the "worst opening line to a fictional novel"...but keep in mind...I was the BEST at writing the WORST. It's not easy to write badly well...or is that badly good? Anyway, here's my winning entry:

They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar and the white . . . Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or just plain American, as it really doesn't taste distinctly dissimilar from the orange, yet they would
have you believe it does by coloring it differently.

Seventy-one words...yep, 71 words...in one opening sentence; many different forms of punctuation, but only one period allowed. And I did this all on my first attempt ever at sending in an entry...and I only sent in the one entry. Yes, I had to throw that in for posterity.

This brings us to one of a writer's most annoying, perplexing, head-banging, paper-crumbling, pencil point breaking event: Coming up with that "stupid" first sentence to anything you write. Face it, after you get that part written, the rest usually comes a lot easier, right?

My advice to you...is to write the way you speak. How would you say it if you were just telling your friend? Just write the way you'd say it. Try it...it works.

Most of my favourite authors don't write to baffle and impress - sure, some do - but I find it most annoying to stop every 8th word to go look it up. Ray Bradbury, a science fiction writer who wrote such classics as "The Martian Chronicles", "Farenheit 451", "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit", and countless other stories...writes extremely simplistic...but since it's told WELL, it captures you and draws you in. You WANT to keep reading to find out what's going to happen next and he hardly ever gets all "super intelligent" with you. Not that writing with big words and expanding your vocabulary isn't a good thing...I just don't think most people talk like a scientific journal reads...so, especially when you have characters in a story having a conversation...it's best they talk the way they would if they were real people.

My second piece of advice...get a good dictionary and thesaurus - a REAL one, not one of those online ones...and just keep it handy when reading or writing. How many times do you just skip a word that you read but you don't know its meaning? LOOK IT UP! When I was a kid or when I worked, during lunchbreaks, I would read the dictionary. No, seriously, I would. Sounds kinda spooky, huh? One of the most fun things to do with a dictionary is to just open it up on a random page and look at a word you don't know. You really can't do that kind of thing with an online one...so invest in a real one.

Now on to the "flow" of words...how they are strung together...how they sound. Are you redundant...using the same word over and over again? At the risk of sounding redundant here...get a thesaurus! Altho, sometimes redundancy is called for...as one of my favourite movie lines of all times from "The Shawshank Redemption" (which was a short story written by Stephen King...you know that scary guy?) shows. Bear in mind the word "hope" itself is used throughout the movie in many scenes...and it's used again toward the end of the film by the character Morgan Freeman plays, a man who's just been released from prison after serving about 40 years. As he's sitting on a bus that will ultimately take him to see his former-inmate friend, he thinks to himself:

I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

Anyone know a quote from a film or book? What would have happened if it were strung together differently...think about that when you write...does it flow...does it sound nice when you say it? Does it have the impact you want it to have? How about if you change it around? Would it lose or gain something?

Coming back to myself here...I also write a blog at the Montgomery Advertiser's online site...only if any of you have seen blogs, they are all like "Oh my cat jumped on my car today and I think I have to get it washed...bummer." In other words, I don't think they're very interesting. Well, I write a blog there, but I like to think of them as "blogumns", or better yet, very short stories. But I'm not talking about newspaper-type stories...let me explain...

When you read a news story in a paper, there's a format journalists are supposed to follow. How many of you read the paper or have ever read an article in the paper? How far down in that article do you usually get? Do you read the whole thing...or stop after the first couple paragraphs?

Now, how many of you read books...like the Harry Potter ones? Did you read the whole thing or stop after a few pages? You read the whole thing, right? Did you ever stop to wonder...WHY?

You see, in the paper they have this thing called the 5 W's. Who, What, Where, When, and Why? They typically put all the most interesting and important bits in the first two paragraphs. The rest is just incidental stuff, filler, and probably some back history, quotes, and biography work-ups.

What would happen, say, if JK Rowling would have said ALL her interesting ideas in the first couple pages...or even the first couple chapters and then just dwindled off into "filler" the rest of the story? Wouldn't be much of a story, would it?

And don't get discouraged if it doesn't come out right the first time...JK Rowling took six years to write her first book...and she was turned down nine times before someone signed her. And guess how many times Daniel Handler aka Lemony Snicket was turned down for his first book? Thirty-seven times!

My last piece of advice to you would be the next time you sit down to write a STORY, keep in mind you need to capture AND HOLD the reader's curiosity to get him to turn that next page. Remember not to cram ALL your good stuff in the first sentence...or else it just might end up being a worse sentence than even MINE was...but probably not intentionally.



"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness." --Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

What CAN I do?

The following was written by me as a silly comedy snippet (you know...if I ever tried to do a stand-up comedy routine...and if Montgomery, Alabama ever had a comedy venue to try my hand at it)...apparently serving no real purpose until now (and even now I question its purpose)...

So, anybody here have trouble sleeping?

I seriously have problems sleeping...that I've had since I can remember. Tried relaxing, warm milk, cold vodka...nothing works. So I figure I'll go and read a book...you know, you read some...you get tired...you fall asleep.

So, I go on down to the library because you can pick up used books there for like a quarter...and I picked up a few, including one big-ass one by Stephen King called "Insomnia".

Well, I'm no genius, but I figure the reason these books are for sale for less than a buck is because no one wants to read them...and who the HELL's going to want to read some horror book about not sleeping when they're trying to sleep?? Just what was he thinking??

But I've got to hand it to him...he thinks of an everyday happening and then makes a scary as hell story out of it. I just figure he's sitting there at home at the typewriter...going..."Dogs...yeah...really mean dog..."Cujo". Corn...people like corn...how about "Children of the Corn"? Ooh, what else do people like to do? Drive...yeah..."Christine"...okay...talk on their cell phones. I got it: "Cell"!"

Okay, so I can't have a dog, can't bury it behind my house if it would ever die...can't eat corn or talk on my cell phone...forget about talking on it IN my car...and I'll never sleep again. What's going to be next? A horror story about a toilet?

Oh gee, thanks, Mr. King.


Originally written 28 Jan 06.

The Write Stuff

I am writing a book.

Yeah, yeah...I know what you're thinking, "What??? She can READ??" Hey, Leno could really use you...talents like that are a "rarity" in the comedic realm...

...but, yes...yes, I can read...to answer your above question...and if Sarah Palin can write *cough cough* a book, well, darmit, so can I.

What I originally thought you were going to think was "but it says in her profile that she's been writing a book...you'd figure she woulda had it done by now"...but, little things like...oh, depression...and my pathetic health issues...and lack of a job...and a marriage that didn't turn out like I envisioned, and no money...and...no real friends (other than online ones)...and the fact that no one beat down my door after I won the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest back in 2003 -- altho they do a reality show now about anything and everything...so I totally missed the boat on that one...and okay, what was my point again?

My book.

I started a book once...when I was about 13. Then I put it down and never really picked it back up again. Then I graduated, got a job, got married, had a couple kids, and one day while on a trip to a Science Olympiad competition my daughter was attending about four years ago - I ended up talking to a fellow parent's child regarding what they might want to do after they graduate (like any kid of 12 or 13-year-old really knows what they want to do with the rest of their life). They just did what I expected...shrugged and said, "Uhhh...I dunno". And I said, "Yep...I know what you mean...when I was your age I had no clue what I wanted to do...in fact, there were only two people I went to school with who did. One wanted to be a dentist...and he went on to be a dentist...and the other was Eddie Gillespie, who wanted to be a political speech writer."

Odd, huh? I mean, c'mon...who the heck's ambition in life in 8th and 9th grade centers around writing speeches for politicians...especially in Browns Mills, New Jersey? Well, for those of you who are curious...here's what he ended up doing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gillespie

Anyway...as I was having this conversation I relayed how I always "wanted to be a writer"...and then it dawned on me, not unlike a ton of bricks, that geez...I just wasted like 30 years wondering what I wanted to do with my life (other than the role of being a mother...which I always wanted to be)...only to find out I KNEW when I was just a kid.

Imagine my initial shock and subsequent "Eureka moment" after the realization of time wasted consisting primarily of sitting on my butt lamenting my great law career...(I always figured I could find a loophole in anything and thus would be an extreme asset to any corporate entity) only to find out that, like Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz"...I didn't need to go searching anywhere...my "no place like home" was my childhood dream of writing.

What tipped the scales, not of justice...but of determination that I possibly COULD do this, was after I watched a program on A&E's "Biography" - quite some time ago...you know, when A&E actually showed "quality programming". They profiled well-known horror author, Stephen King...whom I never did hold in any high esteem...until after I watched the show...and what he said "literally" changed my mind. He stated that he was determined to write and that he had a game plan: to sit at his typewriter every single night and peck away...for three hours, regardless of what came out. What came out ended up being a "stupid teen angst story" (his words...or something to the effect of) later to be known as "Carrie"...and if it weren't for his wife salvaging it from the trash bin and encouraging him to finish it...well, no one really knows now, do they?

So, I've gotten back in the saddle again...and instead of relying on someone to "co-author" with me (like I did once before), I'm going to sit back and try to go this one alone. I figure if I peck away each night and churn out three pages, I'd have something to edit and re-edit...and further re-edit in about four months.

And, as King had his wife...I have my kids. I told my son the other day of my idea - consisting of the general outline of the book...and...he thought it was GOOD! That might not mean anything to you, but...my son never thinks anything I write is good. It's always "lame", "it's emo", "it's pathetic"...and a few other choice words and phrases I won't go into detail about here. I don't think I've ever written a blog to elicit any other response out of him...so when I told him of the plot I wasn't expecting anything other than the usual. But, he said it was good! He even read what I'd written so far - and praised it...he even went so far as to give me some ideas.

My daughter is helping as well - playing my conscience...always trying to light the fire under my butt..."You REALLY need to start writing your book again before someone else comes up with your idea." And she's right. I've got to hunker down and "Stephen King" it. Well, not "It" it...but just plain "it"...oh, you know what I mean.

Dying To Get To Sleep?

This is something somewhat silly (and hopefully somewhat entertaining) I wrote back in January 2006. What jogged my memory of this long-forgotten piece you may ask? Well, I was reading blogs here (yeah...I sometimes do indeed read other people's blogs...and sometimes I comment on them, too - hint hint) and I came across chernandez's blog about the Stephen King novel, "Insomnia"...and that got me thinking about the little comedy snippet I wrote about his book after I had picked it up at the librar... well, you can read it for yourselves below. As for Ms. Hernandez...and anyone else I don't coerce into reading my blogs: Thanks for reading...AND commenting on them...thank you very, very much.


So, anybody here have trouble sleeping?

I seriously have problems sleeping...which I've had since as far back as I can remember. Tried relaxing, warm milk, cold vodka...NOTHING works. So, I figure I'll go and read a book...you know, you read some...you get tired...you fall asleep. That old wives' tale.

I drive on over to the Wetumpka library because, one...it's close; two...I have a card, and, three (mainly, three)...you can pick up used books there for like a quarter...and I picked up a few, including one massive one by Stephen King called "Insomnia". Well, I'm no genius, but I figure the reason most of these books are for sale for less than a buck is because no one wants to read books with more pages than the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Warren Commission's report on the JFK assassination - COMBINED. But, first and foremost, who's going to want to read some horror book about not sleeping when they're trying to sleep?? Just what the hell was he thinking?? Oh wait...I said "hell". Can I say that here? Well, regardless...that's a whole OTHER story he wrote.

But I've got to hand it to Mr. King...he thinks of an everyday happening and then makes a scary as anything story out of it. The way I see it, he's sitting there in his home at the typewriter...yellowing-at-the-edges disturbingly gruesome crayon drawings his kids drew long ago tacked up behind him on a cork memoboard, going..."Dogs...YES! Really...mean...dog. Really...mean...RABID dog...Cujo! Corn. People like corn, right? How about kids AND corn? Kids IN corn? Hmmm...children OF the corn? Oooh...what else do people like to do? Drive...yeah...Christine...okay...how about talk on their cell phones...I got it! "Cell"!

Okay, so let me get this all straight. I can't want things, can't get on an airplane, can't lose weight, can't have a dog, can't ever bury anything behind my house if anything were to die, can't eat corn or talk on my cell phone...forget about talking on my phone IN the car...and I'll never sleep again IN a hotel...especially IF I read "Insomnia".

What's next? A horror story about a toilet?

Oh, gee...thank you, Mr. King.