Writing with the kids

So I'm writing a story with my kids. It's not just any story, it's THE story.

It's magical.

It's whimsical.

It's outer-space and out-of-this-world. It's no-limits and no-holds-barred.

It is a ninja monkey who is NOT a monkey, he is a primate by God, and he kicks your ass if you call him a goddamned monkey.

It is the Ultimate Banana. It is zombies and space ships and everything we want it to be plus an extra heaping of upside-down spray-it-right-in-your-mouth nitrogen pressurized bottle of whipped cream.

It is a leather-bound notebook and a stack of pictures drawn on wide-rule notebook paper, a conversation in the car, a deep study in the boy's room beneath the ceiling fan click-clicking.

It is wonderful.

It doesn't say ass or goddamned, though. It's a kid's book. Keep it clean.

The point is I'm sharing my writing experience with my children. I share it with my family. I share it with my relatives and my co-workers. I believe that if not now, then maybe later, when people describe me, they won't say, Eric was a Chemical Engineer from UT Austin, a quality engineer, a process/product/device/test engineer, or a programmer, or a mathematical samurai, or a short white guy with a big nose.

They'll say, Eric was a writer and a story-teller and was incredibly good-looking.

It was his blue eyes, the women will say, and they'll wish I wasn't dead and secretly hope I will come back and seduce them into an army of undead concubines.

My kids will remember the stories we wrote and told and tell the ones we never wrote.

My son said about the story we're writing, Daddy, do you think we'll be millionaires?

Probably not, I said. I made $85 bucks on my last story. That's the sum total of my career in writing.

Sweet! my son said. We can be hundredaires.

Do you share with your family? How will they describe you? Will you be a hundredaire author?


- Eric