Yes, you read that right. Pink and Purple Polka-Dotted Panties of Passion.
The panties were a relic in my days of D&D (Dungeons and Dragons), and we quested for them periodically and never managed to find them.
Lord, if we had found them, if ~I~ had found them, I wouldn't have known what the hell to do with em. Sniff them would have been my first reaction. I'm a dog that way, wuff wuff.
My second reaction would have been to beg women to put them on, because ain't that the ruse. You can lead a girl to the Pink and Purple Polka-Dotted Panties of Passion, but you can't make her put them on!
Did you ever role play? Did you make fun of the Halfling thief's penis and use him as a club during a barroom brawl, or as a distraction send your buddy streaking naked through a gaggle of goblins, or sneak into brothels using a ring of invisibility?
And if you ever find those panties, send them my way. I might be able to slip them onto my wife while she's sleeping.
- Eric
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
MNO is for Motivation
Motivation!
I abandon today and perhaps indefinitely my attempt to relate A is for Anecdotes for the Alex J. Cavanaugh et al A to Z Challenge.
N is for nuffsenuff, and I'm not building readers, I'm alienating them with a deluge of pointless posts.
So I return to the topic of WRITING.
I learn something every time I write, every day. Let me tell you what I am learning on my latest novel:
MOTIVATION!
To motivate the reader, you must stimulate them. This translates to entertainment. I like to KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid), so I lump all reader motivations into TWO categories:
o Imagination
o Intellect
You stimulate the reader by tickling either their imagination, or their intellect, or sometimes both, and this provides the MOTIVATION, the thrust, the push the umph the force that drives the reader from page to page to chapter to book to series to movie to the coup de gras, your own action figure.
So I'm working on MOTIVATION in my latest long piece. I am writing forward -- not backward, onward ho to the end! -- but keeping in mind that later, I will need to implant stronger motivations to keep the reader surging through the pages of that novel.
For me, I use a combination of Imagination and Intellect, because that's who I am. I'm an engineer-writer. I use scenery to stimulate the senses, and implant what I hope are intellectually stimulating subtle points throughout, with an undertow of questions that nag at the reader who drops my piece mid-chapter.
How about you? How do you motivate your reader? What beside Intellect and Imagination do you use to urge your reader through to the ending?
- Eric
Thursday, April 14, 2011
L is for LAUGHTER
Do you have humor in your writings?
Let me tell you about one of my favorite blogs: Res ipsa loquitur.
The name means, according to Google, It speaks for itself.
Phoenix, she's a poet, an introspectologist, and one of the most heartfelt, honest bloggers around. Her writing is tremendous, and if I've mentioned anecdotes are my favorite form of storytelling, you'll find insightful, meaningful, entertaining anecdotes on her site.
And she's DAMNED funny.
Why is she so funny? Because she's honest, and because honesty is pretty darn funny. I told her once that I read her site so I don't feel so stupid. I can look at what she did and say, At least I didn't do ~that~.
I find humor pops up in my writings even against my will, and I believe it's for the same reason I like humor in Phoenix's site: it's honest.
It's life.
We are born knowing how to cry, but we have to LEARN TO LAUGH!
Think about it. I know I have these past five months, after my second son was born.
He's in a good place, nice and warm, doesn't know hunger or pain or discomfort, doesn't know what it's like to be cold, or tired, or grumpy, or have the lights in his eyes, or get woke up by the damned dog barking when someone knocks on the door selling candybars or lawn services.
Suddenly the little guy is yanked out of the womb!
BAM! Into the light. Cut the cord. What the fuck, lunchbox, you mean now I gotta BREATHE on my own! And what's this feeling in my tummy? Why am I shivering?
Waah waah waah! Cry baby cry.
Oh, and while we're at it, let's cut off part of his pecker. HA! No anesthesia. Babies can't feel anything, don't you know.
Yeah, fuck that. He felt it. I felt it. We all felt it. I'm still feeling it now and hold on, I need to beer myself after that little flashback...
Anyway, point is the little guy knew how to cry right off the bat, right out of the chute, out of the womb. First thing he learned is that hot women with gloves are bad news, and some things never change.
But he had to learn how to laugh! We all need to learn how to laugh. You're not born into it. You see the absurdity of the world, the backwardness, the awkwardness, the chaos, and your mind, too much horsepower for such a little skull, can't suck it all in and make sense of it.
So you laugh. It's the ultimate fuckit response. You don't get it. It doesn't make sense. Ha ha ha.
That's all you can do.
One of my stories is what I consider a ~serious~ piece. I used my Cormac McCarthy voice, the one from The Road and Child of God. If those aren't serious books, ain't no such thing.
And my character, a young boy whose dad hanged himself, burns his house down trying to cook a squirrel.
I have hookers, and they have a pistol named Chavez.
At my grandfather's funeral, I put a tic-tac between his cold dead forefinger and his cold dead thumb, because he always had tic-tacs. Didn't take long for others to catch on, and he had a dollar bill (he gave the kids dollar bills), and a Nutter Butter, and so forth.
When someone says they got or are getting a divorce, I say, CONGRATULATIONS! and make as big a deal as if they had said they were getting married (seriously, you should see the reactions, especially at bars).
I tell people, Don't think of it as getting laid off, think of it as being given the chance to chase your dreams.
I try to be serious, I really do, but the humor, the awkwardness, it pokes through and makes everything a little bit tilted.
I call it being unhinged, and it's the only way I can write. I am unhinged.
I am unhinged. The worms are free, wiggling out of their holes, and I am unhinged.
I quote in my unhingedness the kings of unhinging:
o Steven Wright: Ok, so what's the speed of DARK?
o George Carlin: Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
o Preacher Man Sam Kennison: AAAAAH! AAA AAA AAAAAA!
It's the honesty that's funny.
How about you? Are you unhinged? Do you include humor in your writing out of necessity? Are you honest, or do you lie? Are you a liar? Be honest.
- Eric
Let me tell you about one of my favorite blogs: Res ipsa loquitur.
The name means, according to Google, It speaks for itself.
Phoenix, she's a poet, an introspectologist, and one of the most heartfelt, honest bloggers around. Her writing is tremendous, and if I've mentioned anecdotes are my favorite form of storytelling, you'll find insightful, meaningful, entertaining anecdotes on her site.
And she's DAMNED funny.
Why is she so funny? Because she's honest, and because honesty is pretty darn funny. I told her once that I read her site so I don't feel so stupid. I can look at what she did and say, At least I didn't do ~that~.
I find humor pops up in my writings even against my will, and I believe it's for the same reason I like humor in Phoenix's site: it's honest.
It's life.
We are born knowing how to cry, but we have to LEARN TO LAUGH!
Think about it. I know I have these past five months, after my second son was born.
He's in a good place, nice and warm, doesn't know hunger or pain or discomfort, doesn't know what it's like to be cold, or tired, or grumpy, or have the lights in his eyes, or get woke up by the damned dog barking when someone knocks on the door selling candybars or lawn services.
Suddenly the little guy is yanked out of the womb!
BAM! Into the light. Cut the cord. What the fuck, lunchbox, you mean now I gotta BREATHE on my own! And what's this feeling in my tummy? Why am I shivering?
Waah waah waah! Cry baby cry.
Oh, and while we're at it, let's cut off part of his pecker. HA! No anesthesia. Babies can't feel anything, don't you know.
Yeah, fuck that. He felt it. I felt it. We all felt it. I'm still feeling it now and hold on, I need to beer myself after that little flashback...
Anyway, point is the little guy knew how to cry right off the bat, right out of the chute, out of the womb. First thing he learned is that hot women with gloves are bad news, and some things never change.
But he had to learn how to laugh! We all need to learn how to laugh. You're not born into it. You see the absurdity of the world, the backwardness, the awkwardness, the chaos, and your mind, too much horsepower for such a little skull, can't suck it all in and make sense of it.
So you laugh. It's the ultimate fuckit response. You don't get it. It doesn't make sense. Ha ha ha.
That's all you can do.
One of my stories is what I consider a ~serious~ piece. I used my Cormac McCarthy voice, the one from The Road and Child of God. If those aren't serious books, ain't no such thing.
And my character, a young boy whose dad hanged himself, burns his house down trying to cook a squirrel.
I have hookers, and they have a pistol named Chavez.
At my grandfather's funeral, I put a tic-tac between his cold dead forefinger and his cold dead thumb, because he always had tic-tacs. Didn't take long for others to catch on, and he had a dollar bill (he gave the kids dollar bills), and a Nutter Butter, and so forth.
When someone says they got or are getting a divorce, I say, CONGRATULATIONS! and make as big a deal as if they had said they were getting married (seriously, you should see the reactions, especially at bars).
I tell people, Don't think of it as getting laid off, think of it as being given the chance to chase your dreams.
I try to be serious, I really do, but the humor, the awkwardness, it pokes through and makes everything a little bit tilted.
I call it being unhinged, and it's the only way I can write. I am unhinged.
I am unhinged. The worms are free, wiggling out of their holes, and I am unhinged.
I quote in my unhingedness the kings of unhinging:
o Steven Wright: Ok, so what's the speed of DARK?
o George Carlin: Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
o Preacher Man Sam Kennison: AAAAAH! AAA AAA AAAAAA!
It's the honesty that's funny.
How about you? Are you unhinged? Do you include humor in your writing out of necessity? Are you honest, or do you lie? Are you a liar? Be honest.
- Eric
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
K is for Kegs (and Monkey Loving)
Circa 2000, written under the pseudonym of Saul (for anyone who still remembers Saul...), in response to a chain email from my cousin.
To Lone Wolf, in answer to your question: "What one thing would you want if you were stranded on a desert island?"
One hundred and thirty-three kegs of beer. Brand wouldn't matter, but it'd better be dark, by God. And we'd need Bro there, too.
You, me, and Bro with one hundred and thirty-three kegs to knock back. We'd be fucking the local monkeys by the end of number thirteen! Around fifty, we'd discover our inner beauty. We'd fuck that inner beauty around the sixtieth keg.
That's because we'd have gotten tired of the island monkeys always telling us no, not tonight, I'm tired, my ass hurts, I have lice, can't you see the lice!
Around seventy, we'd construct crude topless dancers out of palm leaves and coconuts. You and I would give them all our money, but they'd go back to our cave with Bro. Go figure.
Kegs eighty through one hundred would be a naked blur.
After the century keg, one hundred, we'd take a day or two to sober up while we lashed the empty kegs together with vines and what's left of our underwear, forming a seaworthy raft. You'd try to smuggle on a couple of monkeys; you'd say they were for the trip home, but Bro and I would say we're tired of the monkey-loving, leave them.
Taking the leftover thirty-three kegs, we'd make a long trip around the southern tip of South America (I assume we started out in the southern Pacific, around Hawaii, maybe stranded on Maui or something), land in New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras, sell the monkeys you stowed on board anyway, and use the money to pay for some real strippers.
All the girls would go back with Bro, but what the hell -- it beats coconuts!
- Saul Mighty
What would you want if you were stranded on a desert island?
- Eric
To Lone Wolf, in answer to your question: "What one thing would you want if you were stranded on a desert island?"
One hundred and thirty-three kegs of beer. Brand wouldn't matter, but it'd better be dark, by God. And we'd need Bro there, too.
You, me, and Bro with one hundred and thirty-three kegs to knock back. We'd be fucking the local monkeys by the end of number thirteen! Around fifty, we'd discover our inner beauty. We'd fuck that inner beauty around the sixtieth keg.
That's because we'd have gotten tired of the island monkeys always telling us no, not tonight, I'm tired, my ass hurts, I have lice, can't you see the lice!
Around seventy, we'd construct crude topless dancers out of palm leaves and coconuts. You and I would give them all our money, but they'd go back to our cave with Bro. Go figure.
Kegs eighty through one hundred would be a naked blur.
After the century keg, one hundred, we'd take a day or two to sober up while we lashed the empty kegs together with vines and what's left of our underwear, forming a seaworthy raft. You'd try to smuggle on a couple of monkeys; you'd say they were for the trip home, but Bro and I would say we're tired of the monkey-loving, leave them.
Taking the leftover thirty-three kegs, we'd make a long trip around the southern tip of South America (I assume we started out in the southern Pacific, around Hawaii, maybe stranded on Maui or something), land in New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras, sell the monkeys you stowed on board anyway, and use the money to pay for some real strippers.
All the girls would go back with Bro, but what the hell -- it beats coconuts!
- Saul Mighty
What would you want if you were stranded on a desert island?
- Eric
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
J is for I LOST MY JOB!
A re-post from October 2010, by request.
I LOST MY JOB!
So I lost my missionary position, but that's all right, it was entry-level anyway and kinda boring.
I found an ad in the paper for a boob job, went and applied, they said I didn't meet their minimum applicant requirements, so I went next door, where they had a new blow job opening. That one fit me, and they sent me back next door to help with the boob job, but I didn't last long and had trouble getting up the second day and I wound up getting laid off.
After that I went downtown to the government offices to apply for a hand job.
"You can do this at home," she said, "but the pay's not that high."
I told her I didn't mind the low pay -- something beats nothing, right -- and since I can set my own hours and work at my own pace, I've managed to squeeze out a lot more than she probably thought I could.
I'm an over-achiever like that.
All this is for the damned A-Z challenge issued forth by Alex J. Cavanaugh et al
For my part, I shall be writing anecdotes -- A is for Anecdote!
This, dear friends, is my favorite sort of storytelling. Even my characters tell anecdotes about their lives.
- Eric
I LOST MY JOB!
So I lost my missionary position, but that's all right, it was entry-level anyway and kinda boring.
I found an ad in the paper for a boob job, went and applied, they said I didn't meet their minimum applicant requirements, so I went next door, where they had a new blow job opening. That one fit me, and they sent me back next door to help with the boob job, but I didn't last long and had trouble getting up the second day and I wound up getting laid off.
After that I went downtown to the government offices to apply for a hand job.
"You can do this at home," she said, "but the pay's not that high."
I told her I didn't mind the low pay -- something beats nothing, right -- and since I can set my own hours and work at my own pace, I've managed to squeeze out a lot more than she probably thought I could.
I'm an over-achiever like that.
All this is for the damned A-Z challenge issued forth by Alex J. Cavanaugh et al
For my part, I shall be writing anecdotes -- A is for Anecdote!
This, dear friends, is my favorite sort of storytelling. Even my characters tell anecdotes about their lives.
- Eric
Monday, April 11, 2011
I is for Immaturity
Are you immature at times? Or do you act your age and follow all the rules associated with that age group's accepted behavior?
I got immature this weekend. We almost got kicked out of the Studio Movie Grill. You eat dinner and watch a movie, only we ate dark beer -- Shiner Bock -- and watched Your Highness. I honestly don't remember the last half of the movie. My brother said we almost got into a fight with the guys behind us, which doesn't surprise me, nor would getting kicked out have surprised me.
I threw up in my neighbor's yard. My nephew -- sober -- was driving us and thought it was my house.
Lord I hope the neighbors didn't see that, but found some mystery yurk down at the curb and blamed the local teenies. I coached their kid in soccer.
And my wife is now known as Natalie Portman. As always, I am still either Vin Diesel or Dale, Jr, and the occasional Jason (General Hospital hit man) or James Franco.
It would have been a Natalie meets Franco weekend if she'd seen the movie with me.
When was the last time you didn't act your age?!
- Eric
I got immature this weekend. We almost got kicked out of the Studio Movie Grill. You eat dinner and watch a movie, only we ate dark beer -- Shiner Bock -- and watched Your Highness. I honestly don't remember the last half of the movie. My brother said we almost got into a fight with the guys behind us, which doesn't surprise me, nor would getting kicked out have surprised me.
I threw up in my neighbor's yard. My nephew -- sober -- was driving us and thought it was my house.
Lord I hope the neighbors didn't see that, but found some mystery yurk down at the curb and blamed the local teenies. I coached their kid in soccer.
And my wife is now known as Natalie Portman. As always, I am still either Vin Diesel or Dale, Jr, and the occasional Jason (General Hospital hit man) or James Franco.
It would have been a Natalie meets Franco weekend if she'd seen the movie with me.
When was the last time you didn't act your age?!
- Eric
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
F is for Flaming Pine Cone
Here's an A is for Anecdote story as written by my cousin. It's a second-hand story written by someone trained in storytelling (I come from a family of storytellers), although not formally trained in writing.
Note his pace and his casual style, the personification of the burn pile, how he builds the tension with a gut-punch at the end, a story guaranteed to keep you reading to the end even if you know what's coming. He knows how to deliver the ending.
You should hear this guy in person telling stories.
I present it here unedited, as it was written for a literature class.
Nate is my brother. He is the pyro of the two, thus the explosions.
Flaming Pine Cone, by Jason Watson
It was very hot and windy that day and the smell of freshly cut grass was in the air. I had been on leave from the military and my family was having a get-together by my parents swimming pool. My sister kept everyone relaxed with plenty of vodka jell-o shots. My cousin Nate and I grabbed two more ice cold beers and started walking around the front yard, which had more pine trees than Baton Rouge has people. We looked up to see the tops of the trees swaying back and forth as the wind blew through their tops. Nate looked at me and said, “You wanna light something on fire?”
“Sure,” I said. I figured that since my parents had five acres of land for their yard, this would be enough to keep us busy until we passed out.
As we walked through the yard, Nate and I took it upon ourselves to rid my parents of all of those pesky little piles of pine straw and grass that accumulates after cutting their lawn. As I leaned forward to light one of the piles of straw, Nate said to me, “You know,there’s nothing more Amercian than drinkin’ beer and starting fires!” We both laughed and took a long drink from our beers that were beginning to taste warm from being out in the sun. We continued to scour the area and continue our patriotic mission of eliminating pesky pine straw piles.
“Do you have anything bigger to light on fire?” Nate said, as we watched the orange flames dance away on another pile of straw.
“Sure we do. My parents just cut the entire yard, so our burn pile should be full of stuff to torch!”
“Hell yeah! Let’s torch that mother!” Nate said.
We marched to the south side of the house were the biggest pine trees were. They seemed to watch every move that we made. Then we saw it: the biggest pile of pine straw we had ever seen! The pile was a high as a Pathfinder and twice the diameter. There were so many pine needles it smelled like Christmas. I would not have been surprised if we saw two of Santa’s helpers living in that behemoth.
“Ok,” Nate said, “the first thing we’re gonna need is diesel. It will burn better and it won’t burn as fast.”
“What’s the second thing?”
“More beer.”
We laughed as I ran to my dad’s dingy white tool shed. It was dark as a cave in there because dad had not bothered to replace the light bulb. As I fumbled around the unraveled extension cords and rusty saw blades, I found it: the five gallon can of diesel. I brought the spout to my nose to smell it and ensure that it was diesel. I did not smell like diesel, but since it was in the diesel can that clearly marked ‘diesel’, I knew it had to be just that. As I walked back to the pile of straw, I noticed that the pool was empty and the water was very calm. I looked inside the sun room to see everyone escape from the blistering heat of the sun except me and Nate. We had a job to do.
As I got to the pile, Nate was ready to go: “Did you get the diesel?”
“I found the can that says ‘diesel’.”
“Is that diesel in there?”
“Sure.”
After we drank another beer, I began my task of making sure that all five gallons of the contents of that can were poured on every single pine needle in this pile. As I poured the contents out of the can, I smelled something that wasn’t diesel, I smelled gasoline. Nate gave me a very glazed-over-Pirates of the Carribbean look and said, “Are you sure that’s diesel Jason?”
“I’m sure,” I lied, because by this time I couldn’t smell a damn thing, “it says diesel on the can Nate. How stupid do you think I am?”
Nate did not say a word, he just drank his beer. However, as we looked at the contents coming out of the can, it did not look like diesel either.
“Jason, are you sure that’s diesel?” Nate said.
“I’m sure Nate! It says it right here- Look! ‘DIESEL’!”
“Well it doesn’t even look like diesel!”
“Nate, that’s only a detail we don’t need to worry about right now. Let’s just stay focused.”
I finished pouring all of the contents out of the can in the center of that big pile. I looked at the worry starting to spread over Nate's face. The fumes that rose over the pile gave it a very pissed off look and it filled our noses with the familiar smell of high octane unleaded. It was getting hotter outside and sweat was glistening off of our foreheads. We looked at each other and Nate said, “Here, you light it.”
“There’s no way in hell I’m lighting that damn thing, this was your idea to begin with!”
The pile seemed to grow so high it was beginning to tower over us. Each second we delayed in torching this monster, it seemed to grow and taunt us. Nate knelt next to the pile and extended his red lighter and pressed the trigger. Click, nothing, no flame for the bad pile. Our hearts skipped a beat and we started to struggle for breath. “It must have been the wind, “ Nate said.
“Well try again.”
After several more ‘clicks’, Nate came up with another strategy: “Jason, if I light that thing and I’m next to it, I’m dead meat. What we need now is the flaming pine cone.”
“What in the hell is that?”
“Take a pine cone and fill it with pine needles. After that take whatever’s left in that ‘diesel’ can and pour in on the pine cone. Once it’s covered, light it, and throw it right in the center of that pile!”
We immediately went to work. I found a pine cone the size of a football and gave it to Nate. He looked like Vulcan as he made the proper adjusments to the cone. Both of us knew this would work, and to be honest, it had to work. We could not let this pile with the mystery fluid survive.
Nate and I stood before that big monster. At this point, Nate looked at me and said, “Are you ready?”
“Hell yeah! Let’s light that bad boy!”
With a steady hand, I took the lighter and placed it in the middle of that pine cone. Nate said, “I want you to know that is gasoline Jason.”
“I know.”
I pressed the lighter trigger and it took flame with one strike! Nate took the pine cone and launched it from his hand. The yellow-orange flames danced off the cone as it sailed through the air. When the cone made contact with the middle of the pile, for one second there was no flame. I could not hear the birds chirp or the wild blow through the trees. All I could hear and feel was the oxygen being sucked into that pile. It was like this beast was taking it’s last breath and it wanted us to join him in his funeral pyre.
With the pile’s next breath one second later, a fireball so big you could see it from the international space stations shot up towards the heavens! The force of the blast not only knocked us off of our feet, but blew pictures and painting off of the walls inside of my parents house. Everyone ran outside to see what exploded. They saw Nate and I, laying on our backs looking up at the sky. Nate said to me, “See, I told you that was gas!” I looked at Nate, laughed , and said “Maybe we should stick to small fires from now on!”
- Eric
Note his pace and his casual style, the personification of the burn pile, how he builds the tension with a gut-punch at the end, a story guaranteed to keep you reading to the end even if you know what's coming. He knows how to deliver the ending.
You should hear this guy in person telling stories.
I present it here unedited, as it was written for a literature class.
Nate is my brother. He is the pyro of the two, thus the explosions.
Flaming Pine Cone, by Jason Watson
It was very hot and windy that day and the smell of freshly cut grass was in the air. I had been on leave from the military and my family was having a get-together by my parents swimming pool. My sister kept everyone relaxed with plenty of vodka jell-o shots. My cousin Nate and I grabbed two more ice cold beers and started walking around the front yard, which had more pine trees than Baton Rouge has people. We looked up to see the tops of the trees swaying back and forth as the wind blew through their tops. Nate looked at me and said, “You wanna light something on fire?”
“Sure,” I said. I figured that since my parents had five acres of land for their yard, this would be enough to keep us busy until we passed out.
As we walked through the yard, Nate and I took it upon ourselves to rid my parents of all of those pesky little piles of pine straw and grass that accumulates after cutting their lawn. As I leaned forward to light one of the piles of straw, Nate said to me, “You know,there’s nothing more Amercian than drinkin’ beer and starting fires!” We both laughed and took a long drink from our beers that were beginning to taste warm from being out in the sun. We continued to scour the area and continue our patriotic mission of eliminating pesky pine straw piles.
“Do you have anything bigger to light on fire?” Nate said, as we watched the orange flames dance away on another pile of straw.
“Sure we do. My parents just cut the entire yard, so our burn pile should be full of stuff to torch!”
“Hell yeah! Let’s torch that mother!” Nate said.
We marched to the south side of the house were the biggest pine trees were. They seemed to watch every move that we made. Then we saw it: the biggest pile of pine straw we had ever seen! The pile was a high as a Pathfinder and twice the diameter. There were so many pine needles it smelled like Christmas. I would not have been surprised if we saw two of Santa’s helpers living in that behemoth.
“Ok,” Nate said, “the first thing we’re gonna need is diesel. It will burn better and it won’t burn as fast.”
“What’s the second thing?”
“More beer.”
We laughed as I ran to my dad’s dingy white tool shed. It was dark as a cave in there because dad had not bothered to replace the light bulb. As I fumbled around the unraveled extension cords and rusty saw blades, I found it: the five gallon can of diesel. I brought the spout to my nose to smell it and ensure that it was diesel. I did not smell like diesel, but since it was in the diesel can that clearly marked ‘diesel’, I knew it had to be just that. As I walked back to the pile of straw, I noticed that the pool was empty and the water was very calm. I looked inside the sun room to see everyone escape from the blistering heat of the sun except me and Nate. We had a job to do.
As I got to the pile, Nate was ready to go: “Did you get the diesel?”
“I found the can that says ‘diesel’.”
“Is that diesel in there?”
“Sure.”
After we drank another beer, I began my task of making sure that all five gallons of the contents of that can were poured on every single pine needle in this pile. As I poured the contents out of the can, I smelled something that wasn’t diesel, I smelled gasoline. Nate gave me a very glazed-over-Pirates of the Carribbean look and said, “Are you sure that’s diesel Jason?”
“I’m sure,” I lied, because by this time I couldn’t smell a damn thing, “it says diesel on the can Nate. How stupid do you think I am?”
Nate did not say a word, he just drank his beer. However, as we looked at the contents coming out of the can, it did not look like diesel either.
“Jason, are you sure that’s diesel?” Nate said.
“I’m sure Nate! It says it right here- Look! ‘DIESEL’!”
“Well it doesn’t even look like diesel!”
“Nate, that’s only a detail we don’t need to worry about right now. Let’s just stay focused.”
I finished pouring all of the contents out of the can in the center of that big pile. I looked at the worry starting to spread over Nate's face. The fumes that rose over the pile gave it a very pissed off look and it filled our noses with the familiar smell of high octane unleaded. It was getting hotter outside and sweat was glistening off of our foreheads. We looked at each other and Nate said, “Here, you light it.”
“There’s no way in hell I’m lighting that damn thing, this was your idea to begin with!”
The pile seemed to grow so high it was beginning to tower over us. Each second we delayed in torching this monster, it seemed to grow and taunt us. Nate knelt next to the pile and extended his red lighter and pressed the trigger. Click, nothing, no flame for the bad pile. Our hearts skipped a beat and we started to struggle for breath. “It must have been the wind, “ Nate said.
“Well try again.”
After several more ‘clicks’, Nate came up with another strategy: “Jason, if I light that thing and I’m next to it, I’m dead meat. What we need now is the flaming pine cone.”
“What in the hell is that?”
“Take a pine cone and fill it with pine needles. After that take whatever’s left in that ‘diesel’ can and pour in on the pine cone. Once it’s covered, light it, and throw it right in the center of that pile!”
We immediately went to work. I found a pine cone the size of a football and gave it to Nate. He looked like Vulcan as he made the proper adjusments to the cone. Both of us knew this would work, and to be honest, it had to work. We could not let this pile with the mystery fluid survive.
Nate and I stood before that big monster. At this point, Nate looked at me and said, “Are you ready?”
“Hell yeah! Let’s light that bad boy!”
With a steady hand, I took the lighter and placed it in the middle of that pine cone. Nate said, “I want you to know that is gasoline Jason.”
“I know.”
I pressed the lighter trigger and it took flame with one strike! Nate took the pine cone and launched it from his hand. The yellow-orange flames danced off the cone as it sailed through the air. When the cone made contact with the middle of the pile, for one second there was no flame. I could not hear the birds chirp or the wild blow through the trees. All I could hear and feel was the oxygen being sucked into that pile. It was like this beast was taking it’s last breath and it wanted us to join him in his funeral pyre.
With the pile’s next breath one second later, a fireball so big you could see it from the international space stations shot up towards the heavens! The force of the blast not only knocked us off of our feet, but blew pictures and painting off of the walls inside of my parents house. Everyone ran outside to see what exploded. They saw Nate and I, laying on our backs looking up at the sky. Nate said to me, “See, I told you that was gas!” I looked at Nate, laughed , and said “Maybe we should stick to small fires from now on!”
- Eric
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
E is for Ex-Sex
Would You Could You Sex Your Ex
An original poem by Eric Trant, circa 2004
Would you could you sex your ex?
Would you could you make a mess?
Would you could you in a car?
Would you could you in a bar?
I would not could not in a car!
I would not could not in a bar!
I do not like sex with my ex!
I do not like to make a mess!
Should you would you in a house?
Should you would you lose your blouse?
Would you like it on the bed?
Or would you like the couch instead?
Would you like it on the floor?
Would you like to close the door?
Try it! Try it! You may see!
I do not like it! Let me be!
I do not want it in the house!
I do not want to lose my blouse!
I do not want it on the bed!
I do not want the couch instead!
I do not want it on the floor!
Now please go out and shut my door!
You should try it in the shower!
You should try it with a flower!
Try it! Try it! Find the mood!
Try it! Try it in the nude!
Try it! Try it fully dressed!
Try it! Like it! Please confess!
If I try it, will you leave?
Will you please just let me be?
Here, I will try sex with my ex.
And I do like it! I confess!
I will try it in the shower!
I will try it with a flower!
I will do her in a car!
Bend her over in a bar!
I will do it fully dressed!
I will kindly leave a mess.
And when I turn my sheets that night
My mess will greet me bright and white.
I'll mope and wonder what I did
And how this will affect my kid.
So tell me tell me if you will
Where's the payoff, what's the bill?
There is no payoff, that's the rut.
You were thinking with your nuts.
- Eric
An original poem by Eric Trant, circa 2004
Would you could you sex your ex?
Would you could you make a mess?
Would you could you in a car?
Would you could you in a bar?
I would not could not in a car!
I would not could not in a bar!
I do not like sex with my ex!
I do not like to make a mess!
Should you would you in a house?
Should you would you lose your blouse?
Would you like it on the bed?
Or would you like the couch instead?
Would you like it on the floor?
Would you like to close the door?
Try it! Try it! You may see!
I do not like it! Let me be!
I do not want it in the house!
I do not want to lose my blouse!
I do not want it on the bed!
I do not want the couch instead!
I do not want it on the floor!
Now please go out and shut my door!
You should try it in the shower!
You should try it with a flower!
Try it! Try it! Find the mood!
Try it! Try it in the nude!
Try it! Try it fully dressed!
Try it! Like it! Please confess!
If I try it, will you leave?
Will you please just let me be?
Here, I will try sex with my ex.
And I do like it! I confess!
I will try it in the shower!
I will try it with a flower!
I will do her in a car!
Bend her over in a bar!
I will do it fully dressed!
I will kindly leave a mess.
And when I turn my sheets that night
My mess will greet me bright and white.
I'll mope and wonder what I did
And how this will affect my kid.
So tell me tell me if you will
Where's the payoff, what's the bill?
There is no payoff, that's the rut.
You were thinking with your nuts.
- Eric
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
D is for Dogs
What is a boy without a dog!
I'll tell you what he is: he's an incomplete boy.
We found Bandit as a stray puppy, maybe two months old and starving, wandering around the trailer park next to where my dad docked his boat. She was a lab mutt, white-chested and otherwise black with chestnut eyes. Pop wanted to kill her. Mom let us take her home. My bro and I were three and four, resp., and I can tell you it was a summer afternoon, we were in my Pop's un-air-conditioned white Chevy, and I rode in the truck bed with bro and me holding her while we sat on the fenderwells.
Funny how many animals pop up in my stories who look like Bandit. I even created a black bear with a lightning bolt chest, just like hers.
She got wet or dry same as us. When she had puppies, and she had lots of litters, she left her pups to fend themselves if her boys needed her. She brought us rabbits as kill, and Lord could that dog run! You should have seen her shoot under that barbed wire if there was a rabbit in front of her. She once swam a good ways across the lake because we thought we could leave her on the pier. We didn't leave her after that.
A while back, I wrote this for my dog Bandit as an exercise in POV. For you, girl. RIP.
She smelled rabbits. Lots of rabbits. Maybe a family. Baby rabbits for sure.
She looked back and saw her boys. They called her, but she didn't have time. Rabbits. Lots of rabbits.
Oak leaves and pine needles crunched under her feet. She heard more crunching and stopped. She looked. Her boys, walking this way. One of them kissed his lips together and called her: "Bandit."
She stuck her nose to the ground and circled a huge oak. The trail wound past the oak, between two pines, through a flurry of light underbrush. She stopped and smelled the air. Her boys smelled close. The rabbits smelled closer.
She heard a tiny noise in the underbrush. She put her nose to the ground. The scent burned her nose.
Under the log. She heard them clicking as they breathed. Her back tingled when she crouched. Balancing on three legs, she stepped closer. Inches at a time. Not to scare them. She smelled a dozen rabbits at least. She swallowed hard.
"Bandit."
One of her boys grabbed the back of her neck. It startled her and she turned.
"Bad dog. Come on, leave them alone." Her boy patted his leg and called to her as he walked deeper into the woods.
She looked under the log. A dozen tiny eyes stared back at her. A whole family down there.
But her boys wanted her to follow them. She barked once, at the rabbits. Then she turned and ran after her boys.
- Eric
I'll tell you what he is: he's an incomplete boy.
We found Bandit as a stray puppy, maybe two months old and starving, wandering around the trailer park next to where my dad docked his boat. She was a lab mutt, white-chested and otherwise black with chestnut eyes. Pop wanted to kill her. Mom let us take her home. My bro and I were three and four, resp., and I can tell you it was a summer afternoon, we were in my Pop's un-air-conditioned white Chevy, and I rode in the truck bed with bro and me holding her while we sat on the fenderwells.
Funny how many animals pop up in my stories who look like Bandit. I even created a black bear with a lightning bolt chest, just like hers.
She got wet or dry same as us. When she had puppies, and she had lots of litters, she left her pups to fend themselves if her boys needed her. She brought us rabbits as kill, and Lord could that dog run! You should have seen her shoot under that barbed wire if there was a rabbit in front of her. She once swam a good ways across the lake because we thought we could leave her on the pier. We didn't leave her after that.
A while back, I wrote this for my dog Bandit as an exercise in POV. For you, girl. RIP.
She smelled rabbits. Lots of rabbits. Maybe a family. Baby rabbits for sure.
She looked back and saw her boys. They called her, but she didn't have time. Rabbits. Lots of rabbits.
Oak leaves and pine needles crunched under her feet. She heard more crunching and stopped. She looked. Her boys, walking this way. One of them kissed his lips together and called her: "Bandit."
She stuck her nose to the ground and circled a huge oak. The trail wound past the oak, between two pines, through a flurry of light underbrush. She stopped and smelled the air. Her boys smelled close. The rabbits smelled closer.
She heard a tiny noise in the underbrush. She put her nose to the ground. The scent burned her nose.
Under the log. She heard them clicking as they breathed. Her back tingled when she crouched. Balancing on three legs, she stepped closer. Inches at a time. Not to scare them. She smelled a dozen rabbits at least. She swallowed hard.
"Bandit."
One of her boys grabbed the back of her neck. It startled her and she turned.
"Bad dog. Come on, leave them alone." Her boy patted his leg and called to her as he walked deeper into the woods.
She looked under the log. A dozen tiny eyes stared back at her. A whole family down there.
But her boys wanted her to follow them. She barked once, at the rabbits. Then she turned and ran after her boys.
- Eric
Sunday, April 3, 2011
C is for Creek
What else could C stand for but Creek. Country. Cow. Cowboy. Cowboys, and boys who wanted to be cowboys, children, another C-word.
A creek ran along the backside of our property, dumping in from the upstream neighbor's property, dumping out of our property into Toledo Bend Reservoir, an offshoot of the Sabine River, which separates Texas and Louisiana. East Texas. You don't get more East Texas without being in Louisiana.
That creek came from someplace we never found, but I like to think it originated deep in the East Texas Piney Woods, the Big Thicket National Forest, from a spring-fed well -- which are common in that part of Texas, so it's not impossible. It had a pure source, and the water was cold and trickling even in the hottest drought.
There's something magical about a creek. I challenge any one of you to come upon a creek during your hike and not scout the shoreline for a place narrow enough to cross, shallow enough to wade through, or the coup de gras, a fallen tree spanning the width of the creek over which you cross, holding downed limbs for balance, ending on the other side by climbing a spiderweb of uprooted roots and jumping off the top of the root-ladder, onto the newly-discovered world where no man has been, and realizing you can't go back, not the way you came.
You'll have to survive until you can find another way to cross.
Or, if you really luck out, you find the coup de coup de gras, and discover a vine, thick as your forearm, strong enough to hold you as you monkey-swing across the creek, Tarzan, a lion of the jungle, king of the beasts, flying above the water to the far shores of adventure. You hack at the vine's base with your machete, which you always carry to the creek, always, because you never know when you'll see a snake who needs its head cut, or bamboo, or sugar cane, or water-vines (they ooze water when you nick them, for drinking), or any other number of things that meet the special needs of a machete chop.
You cut the vine to length, so it won't drag the ground. You test its weight. The first of your troop swings across, the lightest, you because you are the smallest, and then your brother, who was usually second, because although he was smaller and younger, he was smarter. You have scars dotting your body that he watched you earn, testing those great idears, first into the breach, too impatient to wait on everyone's useless theoretical discussions of weight, rot, is the limb big enough, will it hold, I don't know, tug-tug, yep, it looks good, is it long enough, should we find another vine?
You grab the vine and step off the cliff and swing and throw the vine back across the creek and say, See?
The others swing across. The older boys swing last, the heavier ones, some of them dragging their feet through the creek because their weight is bending the limbs, testing the vine's capacity. It snaps, of course, when the last and largest boy takes hold. A warning groan from the treetops, that familiar crack of breaking wood, a panicked whisper as trees and leaves and limbs and vine become an avalanche of broken rottery as you and the rest of your troop scatter like ants beneath God's thumb before He crushes you. You marvel that nobody dies, because that limb was friggin HUGE.
The big boy, the one who broke it, survives by diving into the creek, headfirst to the bottom, chest-high on him when he finally stands up amid the wash of floating debris and says, What the hell happened!
We laugh because we are all dry and he's wet. We laugh because he's alive. We dive into the creek after him when he calls us names, slurs not fit for a boy's mouth that only a boy can properly speak.
We drink from the creek, eat the berries that line its banks. We never get sick, not even when we drink downstream from a dead cow and realize you shouldn't drink water with foam on it.
We cross it always, boots in the winter and shivering legs through the pasture, or shorts in the summer and we dry as we follow the cowtrails home. We never stay out of the creek, not even when it snows and we break through the ice to our thighs.
I defy you to resist the urge to cross a creek when you come upon one. There's something magical about a creek, something mystical and inexplicable, something that says everything is better, everything is worth it, getting wet, getting muddy, the tromping along the shoreline, all the hard work will pay off.
If you can just get to the other side.
- Eric
A creek ran along the backside of our property, dumping in from the upstream neighbor's property, dumping out of our property into Toledo Bend Reservoir, an offshoot of the Sabine River, which separates Texas and Louisiana. East Texas. You don't get more East Texas without being in Louisiana.
That creek came from someplace we never found, but I like to think it originated deep in the East Texas Piney Woods, the Big Thicket National Forest, from a spring-fed well -- which are common in that part of Texas, so it's not impossible. It had a pure source, and the water was cold and trickling even in the hottest drought.
There's something magical about a creek. I challenge any one of you to come upon a creek during your hike and not scout the shoreline for a place narrow enough to cross, shallow enough to wade through, or the coup de gras, a fallen tree spanning the width of the creek over which you cross, holding downed limbs for balance, ending on the other side by climbing a spiderweb of uprooted roots and jumping off the top of the root-ladder, onto the newly-discovered world where no man has been, and realizing you can't go back, not the way you came.
You'll have to survive until you can find another way to cross.
Or, if you really luck out, you find the coup de coup de gras, and discover a vine, thick as your forearm, strong enough to hold you as you monkey-swing across the creek, Tarzan, a lion of the jungle, king of the beasts, flying above the water to the far shores of adventure. You hack at the vine's base with your machete, which you always carry to the creek, always, because you never know when you'll see a snake who needs its head cut, or bamboo, or sugar cane, or water-vines (they ooze water when you nick them, for drinking), or any other number of things that meet the special needs of a machete chop.
You cut the vine to length, so it won't drag the ground. You test its weight. The first of your troop swings across, the lightest, you because you are the smallest, and then your brother, who was usually second, because although he was smaller and younger, he was smarter. You have scars dotting your body that he watched you earn, testing those great idears, first into the breach, too impatient to wait on everyone's useless theoretical discussions of weight, rot, is the limb big enough, will it hold, I don't know, tug-tug, yep, it looks good, is it long enough, should we find another vine?
You grab the vine and step off the cliff and swing and throw the vine back across the creek and say, See?
The others swing across. The older boys swing last, the heavier ones, some of them dragging their feet through the creek because their weight is bending the limbs, testing the vine's capacity. It snaps, of course, when the last and largest boy takes hold. A warning groan from the treetops, that familiar crack of breaking wood, a panicked whisper as trees and leaves and limbs and vine become an avalanche of broken rottery as you and the rest of your troop scatter like ants beneath God's thumb before He crushes you. You marvel that nobody dies, because that limb was friggin HUGE.
The big boy, the one who broke it, survives by diving into the creek, headfirst to the bottom, chest-high on him when he finally stands up amid the wash of floating debris and says, What the hell happened!
We laugh because we are all dry and he's wet. We laugh because he's alive. We dive into the creek after him when he calls us names, slurs not fit for a boy's mouth that only a boy can properly speak.
We drink from the creek, eat the berries that line its banks. We never get sick, not even when we drink downstream from a dead cow and realize you shouldn't drink water with foam on it.
We cross it always, boots in the winter and shivering legs through the pasture, or shorts in the summer and we dry as we follow the cowtrails home. We never stay out of the creek, not even when it snows and we break through the ice to our thighs.
I defy you to resist the urge to cross a creek when you come upon one. There's something magical about a creek, something mystical and inexplicable, something that says everything is better, everything is worth it, getting wet, getting muddy, the tromping along the shoreline, all the hard work will pay off.
If you can just get to the other side.
- Eric
Saturday, April 2, 2011
B is for Bloody Stripper
Yes, friends and neighbors, this is a true story, and yes, it involves a real-life bloody stripper.
Let's put on some music... let's see. 311, nope. Three Doors Down, nope. Alice in Chains, Atreyu, Beastie Boys.
Ah, there we go. Look no further. Beastie Boys it is. Kick it! I am most ill at Rhymin and Stealin.
Drink the beer. Now refill. Cue the music. Here goes. (hit the PLAY button, wimp)
My wife tried to tell this story at a recent GNO. That's Girl's Night Out for those of you not down with the lingo. She missed a few key points which I shall now correct.
She left out the police officer, which is the best part if you ask me. I don't know how she forgot that part. And I'm not sure she knows all the cell phone details. I may have left out that part since it involved potential depravity.
She did remember I was covered in stripper blood, though, which is the key point to all this nonsense.
Let's roll back to circa 2004, about two years after I moved out of my house sans wife #1, about a year before I met her most-excellent upgrade. I'm in-between girlfriends, ex-wives, wives, houses, kids, and everything else that goes to shit when you're in the throes of that early-thirties requisite divorce that most of us seem destined to stumble through.
I stumbled through that phase by drinking. Lots of drinking. Dionysus passed out trying to keep up with me, freaking wimp of the Olympians. I ate out my own liver and DRANK it, proving that son-of-a-god Prometheus was an uber-wuss for letting an eagle do that work for him.
One Tuesday night I decided it was go-out time. I ripped off my button-down, picked up a 750ml bottle of flavored rum, and hit the all-nude titty bar, where you bring your own booze, and the girls strip down to nothing but their evil eyes.
She's Crafty, she's got it right... Man I always regret it. Something's going on and I'll probably never get it. And she's just my type! She's CRAFTY!
So I get to the bar and the downstairs is too slow for me. Gals and Guys, downstairs is always lame. Get the special treatment. If you go, go all out. Burn out like a punk. Go upstairs.
I upgraded to the VIP room. Much better. Me and my rum found a table and I grabbed two girlies and beer that's cold.
One girlie kept coming back for more. They do that sometimes. She hit the bottle, got naked, rubbed on me, got dressed, took my money, disappeared for a while, came back, hit the rum, rinse, repeat.
She liked me and said so. They do that sometimes, too. Most of the time, in fact, kiss up for more bucks. This one, though, she liked me. I was wearing slacks and my undershirt, and she kept rubbing on me, grinding, putting her hands under my shirt, doing all those things they aren't supposed to do in those places.
A girl has to have goals, she said, naked, grinding, doing that backward glance over her shoulder from my lap. Man, I love naked women in my lap.
Anyway. She said, A girl has to have goals, and tonight, my goal is to fuck you.
I fully support your goals, I said.
I'm on my period. Something about being on my rag that makes me mad horny. Does that gross you out?
Nope. I got my red wings. Don't ask what that is.
She didn't ask. We drank. She danced. She took my money. We exchanged numbers.
GIRLS! To do the dishes. GIRLS! Two at a time I want GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!
I got into the parking lot and punched in her number and rang her up. Sure enough, the number worked.
Meet me at IHOP, she said. I'm hungry and I need my energy to fuck you.
Which IHOP?
Phone goes dead. Dead as disco. And my mom threw away my best porno mags.
You gotta FIGHT! For your RIGHT! To PAAAAARTY!
So I picked an IHOP. God, I hope this is the right IHOP. I didn't have a car charger for my new phone, and the gods are laughing, all of them, because Lord in Heaven this girl was smoking hot. Jesus is turning His blood to wine to feed the angels as they watch the show unfold.
I stumbled inside the IHOP. I mentioned a 750ml bottle of rum, yes? That bottle was purt near empty, and my stripper and I were the only two partaking. I was tight. She was tight.
I picked a table, and in fact they let me have the run of the place. They fed me. I waited. I paid. I left. Nobody asked. Nobody asked a thing, and for a while I thought they might let me eat for free. I guess I had that look.
Overall, no stripper. Wrong IHOP. I later learned she waited for me at one a few blocks away.
God frowns. Satan laughs. They exchange money, because Satan won that bet playing dirty.
In the parking lot, after I ate, after I drank some coffee and sobered up, I inspected myself and realized my white tee-shirt was streaked with blood.
Stripper blood. From her rag, her period, snail-trailed up and down the front of my shirt, my pants, my crotch, a bone fide CSI blueprint of where she had violated me with her naked, thrusting, grinding, wildly aroused and bleeding vagina. I was lucky the IHOP people didn't call the cops, or if they did, I was lucky I left before the cops arrived.
I got in the car and pointed it northward, back toward home, and concentrated on keeping it between the lines, in this case aimed at the point where the four lines converged.
I exited the tollway, turned onto my street, and in the Wednesday morning hours I fucked up and went 60 in a 45, within sight-distance of my apartment.
Lights spun behind me. A siren chirped. I stopped in the middle of the street because nobody else was out this late, nobody but drunks, thieves, thugs, and cops.
License and registration. Have you been drinking tonight Mr. Trant?
Yessir. All one word, a true Texas yessir.
Honest to God I wasn't afraid of a DUI. Bring it. Please only let me get a DUI. I was covered in blood. I looked like I'd gutted someone, a butcher-esque white boy in a Tahoe at 3AM. They would have spent a week trying to figure out whose blood that was. I was doomed. News at Nine, video of officer beating blood-splattered white boy in Plano, Texas.
That's my apartment up there, I said. I pointed to the stop light, cycling green, yellow, red. I crossed my arms over the bloodstains.
The officer did that flashlight thing, right in my face, my ID, my face, ID, face, ID, as if he couldn't decide much on what else to do.
Face. ID.
Here you go, he said. He handed me my license. Be careful getting home, Mr. Trant, and don't let me catch you again.
Yessir.
At this point, Satan paid God double down, and God laughed, Satan frowned. I'm God's favorite channel, and God never loses, does He. Pay up, you knuckers.
Listen all yall, this is Sabotage!
- Eric
Let's put on some music... let's see. 311, nope. Three Doors Down, nope. Alice in Chains, Atreyu, Beastie Boys.
Ah, there we go. Look no further. Beastie Boys it is. Kick it! I am most ill at Rhymin and Stealin.
Drink the beer. Now refill. Cue the music. Here goes. (hit the PLAY button, wimp)
My wife tried to tell this story at a recent GNO. That's Girl's Night Out for those of you not down with the lingo. She missed a few key points which I shall now correct.
She left out the police officer, which is the best part if you ask me. I don't know how she forgot that part. And I'm not sure she knows all the cell phone details. I may have left out that part since it involved potential depravity.
She did remember I was covered in stripper blood, though, which is the key point to all this nonsense.
Let's roll back to circa 2004, about two years after I moved out of my house sans wife #1, about a year before I met her most-excellent upgrade. I'm in-between girlfriends, ex-wives, wives, houses, kids, and everything else that goes to shit when you're in the throes of that early-thirties requisite divorce that most of us seem destined to stumble through.
I stumbled through that phase by drinking. Lots of drinking. Dionysus passed out trying to keep up with me, freaking wimp of the Olympians. I ate out my own liver and DRANK it, proving that son-of-a-god Prometheus was an uber-wuss for letting an eagle do that work for him.
One Tuesday night I decided it was go-out time. I ripped off my button-down, picked up a 750ml bottle of flavored rum, and hit the all-nude titty bar, where you bring your own booze, and the girls strip down to nothing but their evil eyes.
She's Crafty, she's got it right... Man I always regret it. Something's going on and I'll probably never get it. And she's just my type! She's CRAFTY!
So I get to the bar and the downstairs is too slow for me. Gals and Guys, downstairs is always lame. Get the special treatment. If you go, go all out. Burn out like a punk. Go upstairs.
I upgraded to the VIP room. Much better. Me and my rum found a table and I grabbed two girlies and beer that's cold.
One girlie kept coming back for more. They do that sometimes. She hit the bottle, got naked, rubbed on me, got dressed, took my money, disappeared for a while, came back, hit the rum, rinse, repeat.
She liked me and said so. They do that sometimes, too. Most of the time, in fact, kiss up for more bucks. This one, though, she liked me. I was wearing slacks and my undershirt, and she kept rubbing on me, grinding, putting her hands under my shirt, doing all those things they aren't supposed to do in those places.
A girl has to have goals, she said, naked, grinding, doing that backward glance over her shoulder from my lap. Man, I love naked women in my lap.
Anyway. She said, A girl has to have goals, and tonight, my goal is to fuck you.
I fully support your goals, I said.
I'm on my period. Something about being on my rag that makes me mad horny. Does that gross you out?
Nope. I got my red wings. Don't ask what that is.
She didn't ask. We drank. She danced. She took my money. We exchanged numbers.
GIRLS! To do the dishes. GIRLS! Two at a time I want GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!
I got into the parking lot and punched in her number and rang her up. Sure enough, the number worked.
Meet me at IHOP, she said. I'm hungry and I need my energy to fuck you.
Which IHOP?
Phone goes dead. Dead as disco. And my mom threw away my best porno mags.
You gotta FIGHT! For your RIGHT! To PAAAAARTY!
So I picked an IHOP. God, I hope this is the right IHOP. I didn't have a car charger for my new phone, and the gods are laughing, all of them, because Lord in Heaven this girl was smoking hot. Jesus is turning His blood to wine to feed the angels as they watch the show unfold.
I stumbled inside the IHOP. I mentioned a 750ml bottle of rum, yes? That bottle was purt near empty, and my stripper and I were the only two partaking. I was tight. She was tight.
I picked a table, and in fact they let me have the run of the place. They fed me. I waited. I paid. I left. Nobody asked. Nobody asked a thing, and for a while I thought they might let me eat for free. I guess I had that look.
Overall, no stripper. Wrong IHOP. I later learned she waited for me at one a few blocks away.
God frowns. Satan laughs. They exchange money, because Satan won that bet playing dirty.
In the parking lot, after I ate, after I drank some coffee and sobered up, I inspected myself and realized my white tee-shirt was streaked with blood.
Stripper blood. From her rag, her period, snail-trailed up and down the front of my shirt, my pants, my crotch, a bone fide CSI blueprint of where she had violated me with her naked, thrusting, grinding, wildly aroused and bleeding vagina. I was lucky the IHOP people didn't call the cops, or if they did, I was lucky I left before the cops arrived.
I got in the car and pointed it northward, back toward home, and concentrated on keeping it between the lines, in this case aimed at the point where the four lines converged.
I exited the tollway, turned onto my street, and in the Wednesday morning hours I fucked up and went 60 in a 45, within sight-distance of my apartment.
Lights spun behind me. A siren chirped. I stopped in the middle of the street because nobody else was out this late, nobody but drunks, thieves, thugs, and cops.
License and registration. Have you been drinking tonight Mr. Trant?
Yessir. All one word, a true Texas yessir.
Honest to God I wasn't afraid of a DUI. Bring it. Please only let me get a DUI. I was covered in blood. I looked like I'd gutted someone, a butcher-esque white boy in a Tahoe at 3AM. They would have spent a week trying to figure out whose blood that was. I was doomed. News at Nine, video of officer beating blood-splattered white boy in Plano, Texas.
That's my apartment up there, I said. I pointed to the stop light, cycling green, yellow, red. I crossed my arms over the bloodstains.
The officer did that flashlight thing, right in my face, my ID, my face, ID, face, ID, as if he couldn't decide much on what else to do.
Face. ID.
Here you go, he said. He handed me my license. Be careful getting home, Mr. Trant, and don't let me catch you again.
Yessir.
At this point, Satan paid God double down, and God laughed, Satan frowned. I'm God's favorite channel, and God never loses, does He. Pay up, you knuckers.
Listen all yall, this is Sabotage!
- Eric
Friday, April 1, 2011
A is for Anecdote
So I did it. I signed up for the freakshow called The A-Z Challenge, hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh et al
For my part, I shall be writing anecdotes. This, dear friends, is my favorite sort of storytelling. Even my characters tell anecdotes about their lives.
I should add that the stories I plan to share are true. With embellishments, of course, but true.
I should also add that another A-word comes to mind: Appropriate.
Not all my stories are appropriate. I shall start off with one on April 2 entitled: "B is for Bloody Stripper," which I plan to write directly, after finishing no less than one Bud Ice beer.
You've been warned.
- Eric
For my part, I shall be writing anecdotes. This, dear friends, is my favorite sort of storytelling. Even my characters tell anecdotes about their lives.
I should add that the stories I plan to share are true. With embellishments, of course, but true.
I should also add that another A-word comes to mind: Appropriate.
Not all my stories are appropriate. I shall start off with one on April 2 entitled: "B is for Bloody Stripper," which I plan to write directly, after finishing no less than one Bud Ice beer.
You've been warned.
- Eric
Be consistent. Now shake it up!
It's a series of mutually exclusive mantras that some smartass likes to parrot from time to time, right? And you've all heard it before, but let me tell you the truth about the advice to be consistent, but shake it up.
Here is what They say: Be consistent. Establish a routine. Set and meet goals. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT!
Here is what They' say: (That's "They-Prime" for my mathematically challenged friends.) Shake it up. Break the mold. Push your boundaries. BE SPONTANEOUS!
It's like fire and water. It sounds mutually exclusive, doesn't it? I mean, fire and water are mutually exclusive. One kills the other.
Nope. Wrong. That's why I'm the genius. I see things sideways, and that makes me special, and I don't mean wear-your-helmet special.
See, I look at fire and water and I put them together and realize that sho-nuff, they work out great when mixed! That's how you cook. You boil stuff. Water without fire and fire without water can't boil an egg.
It's the same with that conflicting, seemingly mutually exclusive advice to BE CONSISTENT! BUT SHAKE IT UP!
You need to do both, and I don't mean just with writing. With writing, yeah, but with other stuff, like in the gym. Work out regularly, but change your routine. That's how you stay sharp, isn't it? That's the only way to get sore.
Personally, my life is a vortex of chaos. I have ignored the dozen or two writer and poet bloggers I genuinely love to read, both on my comments and on your blogs.
I have ignored my writing, my workout routine, my diet. I changed it up at work, even take a different route to work rather than the same ol drive.
These changes have reinvigorated me. I worked out and got sore. I wrote and pumped out words I'm happy with. My drive to work sucks in a completely different way, now.
Shake it up. Be consistent. Embrace the chaos, enjoy the switch-ups, relish the routine, and stay on-schedule.
Sometimes it's all you can do is hold up your hands and enjoy the ride.
Have you made changes lately? What did you change? Workouts, habits, writing, anything goes.
- Eric
PS: On two separate notes...
1) My boy is doing GREAT. He's sleeping through the night, but not every night (random consistency is the theme, you know). I am almost ready to get back on a routine writing schedule, soon as I can get a consistent night's sleep.
2) I turn 40 next week. I don't know what that means, other than I'm not dead yet.
Here's some Monty to celebrate that #2, forthcoming:
Bring out your dead!
Here is what They say: Be consistent. Establish a routine. Set and meet goals. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT!
Here is what They' say: (That's "They-Prime" for my mathematically challenged friends.) Shake it up. Break the mold. Push your boundaries. BE SPONTANEOUS!
It's like fire and water. It sounds mutually exclusive, doesn't it? I mean, fire and water are mutually exclusive. One kills the other.
Nope. Wrong. That's why I'm the genius. I see things sideways, and that makes me special, and I don't mean wear-your-helmet special.
See, I look at fire and water and I put them together and realize that sho-nuff, they work out great when mixed! That's how you cook. You boil stuff. Water without fire and fire without water can't boil an egg.
It's the same with that conflicting, seemingly mutually exclusive advice to BE CONSISTENT! BUT SHAKE IT UP!
You need to do both, and I don't mean just with writing. With writing, yeah, but with other stuff, like in the gym. Work out regularly, but change your routine. That's how you stay sharp, isn't it? That's the only way to get sore.
Personally, my life is a vortex of chaos. I have ignored the dozen or two writer and poet bloggers I genuinely love to read, both on my comments and on your blogs.
I have ignored my writing, my workout routine, my diet. I changed it up at work, even take a different route to work rather than the same ol drive.
These changes have reinvigorated me. I worked out and got sore. I wrote and pumped out words I'm happy with. My drive to work sucks in a completely different way, now.
Shake it up. Be consistent. Embrace the chaos, enjoy the switch-ups, relish the routine, and stay on-schedule.
Sometimes it's all you can do is hold up your hands and enjoy the ride.
Have you made changes lately? What did you change? Workouts, habits, writing, anything goes.
- Eric
PS: On two separate notes...
1) My boy is doing GREAT. He's sleeping through the night, but not every night (random consistency is the theme, you know). I am almost ready to get back on a routine writing schedule, soon as I can get a consistent night's sleep.
2) I turn 40 next week. I don't know what that means, other than I'm not dead yet.
Here's some Monty to celebrate that #2, forthcoming:
Bring out your dead!
Friday, February 25, 2011
Unsolicited Inspiration
God's a funny guy, and lemme tell you why I say that. I mentioned on Ann Best's website, when she was discussing bloggerville and whether it will survive, that the Almighty keeps Himself entertained at my expense.
See, I've been off-kilter since that baby was born. He's 3.5 months old, not quite sleeping through the night, giggling a little, crying louder, finding his personality, manipulating his mommy and me, and being an all-around joy.
Plus, work hit me hard.
But enough with the excuses. God doesn't make excuses, doesn't apologize, doesn't give a reason, and doesn't ask why, so why am I doing it?
The fact is I haven't been writing.
Cue God, or fate, or chance, or karma, put whatever name you want on it, but along comes that force making fun of me.
Out of the blue I get asked for a couple of critiques. My ex-wife sends me all my old writings -- and maybe I'll post the very first story I wrote back in high school, now that I found it again!
My publisher calls and says he wants to do a Tour de Dallas, and he politely doesn't mention the book deal because I don't think he likes the books I sent him, and the one I'm supposed to be writing isn't getting written.
I get back on the blogger-wagon a couple of weeks ago and start fidgeting on the keyboard and making sure I still have online friends.
But then the BEST thing happens!
My old boss read an early version of my short story "One Small Step" about a year ago, before I submitted it, before it came out in An Honest Lie 2: Delusions of Insignificance.
He liked it so much he took it home for his wife to read.
She took it to her work. They let their kids read it. He said it inspired him to dig out his old Arthur C. Clarke books and re-read them, said they don't write stuff like that anymore.
He said they were at a baseball game last year and the moon was full and his wife pointed up and said, You think Percy is up there?
And this morning he shows up in my office with a gift bag and a copy of An Honest Lie 2 and says, Sign my book, and we got you something.
What is it? I ask.
Open it and see.
Well, that's what I saw. It even says FREEBOTTOM on the pocket. Percy Freebottom is the character, see. That there figurine is him or my name's Fudd.
What a gift! How inspirational, especially to a writer whose nose gets bent a little farther out of shape every time someone reads his stories.
It's those little inspirational moments that keep us going. It's not the money -- what money? -- or the fame, or the notoriety. It's those moments.
It's that email I sent my Pop framed in his office. It's that email I sent to my (then) wife on September 12, 2001, that somehow went viral and I got emails from strangers saying I'd touched them, made them cry, did you really write this Eric, thank you for saying what I was thinking! I was surprised, by the way, to find that 9-12 email taped to my cousin's fridge door during a visit several years later.
It's those moments that keep you going. They're genuine, heartfelt, real, unsolicited, moments.
Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for not letting me give up.
That's God I'm thanking, by the way, not you knuckers. You all just distract me from the ~important~ things in my life!
But really, I hope I inspire you, and that some of this enthusiasm rubs off on you and you realize how important a little story can be.
Remember that. You never know who's reading!
And here's another plug for "An Honest Lie 3: Justifiable Hypocrisy" Go submit something!
http://anhonestliespeaks.blogspot.com/
Have you received unsolicited inspiration lately? How? Who?
- Eric
See, I've been off-kilter since that baby was born. He's 3.5 months old, not quite sleeping through the night, giggling a little, crying louder, finding his personality, manipulating his mommy and me, and being an all-around joy.
Plus, work hit me hard.
But enough with the excuses. God doesn't make excuses, doesn't apologize, doesn't give a reason, and doesn't ask why, so why am I doing it?
The fact is I haven't been writing.
Cue God, or fate, or chance, or karma, put whatever name you want on it, but along comes that force making fun of me.
Out of the blue I get asked for a couple of critiques. My ex-wife sends me all my old writings -- and maybe I'll post the very first story I wrote back in high school, now that I found it again!
My publisher calls and says he wants to do a Tour de Dallas, and he politely doesn't mention the book deal because I don't think he likes the books I sent him, and the one I'm supposed to be writing isn't getting written.
I get back on the blogger-wagon a couple of weeks ago and start fidgeting on the keyboard and making sure I still have online friends.
But then the BEST thing happens!
My old boss read an early version of my short story "One Small Step" about a year ago, before I submitted it, before it came out in An Honest Lie 2: Delusions of Insignificance.
He liked it so much he took it home for his wife to read.
She took it to her work. They let their kids read it. He said it inspired him to dig out his old Arthur C. Clarke books and re-read them, said they don't write stuff like that anymore.
He said they were at a baseball game last year and the moon was full and his wife pointed up and said, You think Percy is up there?
And this morning he shows up in my office with a gift bag and a copy of An Honest Lie 2 and says, Sign my book, and we got you something.
What is it? I ask.
Open it and see.
Well, that's what I saw. It even says FREEBOTTOM on the pocket. Percy Freebottom is the character, see. That there figurine is him or my name's Fudd.
What a gift! How inspirational, especially to a writer whose nose gets bent a little farther out of shape every time someone reads his stories.
It's those little inspirational moments that keep us going. It's not the money -- what money? -- or the fame, or the notoriety. It's those moments.
It's that email I sent my Pop framed in his office. It's that email I sent to my (then) wife on September 12, 2001, that somehow went viral and I got emails from strangers saying I'd touched them, made them cry, did you really write this Eric, thank you for saying what I was thinking! I was surprised, by the way, to find that 9-12 email taped to my cousin's fridge door during a visit several years later.
It's those moments that keep you going. They're genuine, heartfelt, real, unsolicited, moments.
Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for not letting me give up.
That's God I'm thanking, by the way, not you knuckers. You all just distract me from the ~important~ things in my life!
But really, I hope I inspire you, and that some of this enthusiasm rubs off on you and you realize how important a little story can be.
Remember that. You never know who's reading!
And here's another plug for "An Honest Lie 3: Justifiable Hypocrisy" Go submit something!
http://anhonestliespeaks.blogspot.com/
Have you received unsolicited inspiration lately? How? Who?
- Eric
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Call for Submissions: March 15
Deadline is March 15 to submit your short story for An Honest Lie 3: Justifiable Hypocrisy!
I spoke Saturday with the publisher, Debrin Case, and he mentioned submissions have been slow this year.
How slow? I asked.
We only have four stories so far, he said. But there is usually this huge data dump in the first two weeks of March.
So get your submissions in! He's looking for new authors, unpublished, up-and-comers. He's a small publisher, so make sure that's your bag. Small pubs usually mean less money, more personality, less editing, more artistic freedom, smaller distribution, more devoted fans, newer and less-known authors, a better chance at actually getting published!
So it's a give-n-take with the small publisher. I personally have enjoyed it because the pressure is less intense, and the pay even from a large publishing house rarely outweighs the stress they induce on their writers.
Anyway, get to submitting! If you need a crit, I'll take a look at 1kw or so before you submit. Remember editors hate to edit, so clean up that story before you submit!
Are you submitting? Post up a ~small~ excerpt. What is your story about? Please spread the word. Let other talented writers know they have until March 15 to submit to An Honest Lie.
My story is called "Melvin Gee's Short Trip to Hell," working title. It's about clipping angel wings and riding that Long Black Train.
My excerpt (330wd, don't post more!):
~~~~
"I'm Melvin Gee," Melvin said, holding out his hand, which a few moments ago had been little more than a fleshy sack of shattered bones, crushed along with the rest of his body beneath a mangled Ford F150. "I'm not sure I'm in the right place, but heck, I just followed one of the lights."
"One of the lights? That's unusual." The angel looked at Melvin's offered handshake. Then she checked a clipboard in her left hand, tapped it with a feathery pen in her right hand, nodded, and looked back up at Melvin. "Melvin Michael Gee?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Hmm," the angel said. "Looks right. Whatever, let's go. We have to get you signed in with the big guy."
The angel turned and began walking down a packed-dirt path. Slender and long-robed, seven feet at the shoulders, lacking the wings Melvin supposed an angel should wear, the angel presented herself in a regal way. Her hair was a radiant silver, and spread down her back as she walked.
Melvin noticed that where the angel's bare feet touched the dirt path, the grass crept toward the prints, pinching off the trail behind her. Melvin hurried to follow her, both of them walking toward a range of mountains several miles in the distance.
Holding her pen between her fingers, trying not to mark her robe, the angel rubbed her left shoulder as she walked; the ink stains on her robe spelled old habit.
"Yes, I know what you're thinking: the sky, this field, that little stand of trees, the mountains... beautiful. Peaceful, isn't it. Makes you want to lay down and sleep. Don't. This is the Old Garden, the one you cats got booted out of. If you fall asleep, or slip off this trail, or God help you if you steal one of those precious apples, you'll get carried off. But I bet the big question is why I don't have wings."
"Actually," said Melvin. "I was wondering about the path. It—"
~~~
- Eric
I spoke Saturday with the publisher, Debrin Case, and he mentioned submissions have been slow this year.
How slow? I asked.
We only have four stories so far, he said. But there is usually this huge data dump in the first two weeks of March.
So get your submissions in! He's looking for new authors, unpublished, up-and-comers. He's a small publisher, so make sure that's your bag. Small pubs usually mean less money, more personality, less editing, more artistic freedom, smaller distribution, more devoted fans, newer and less-known authors, a better chance at actually getting published!
So it's a give-n-take with the small publisher. I personally have enjoyed it because the pressure is less intense, and the pay even from a large publishing house rarely outweighs the stress they induce on their writers.
Anyway, get to submitting! If you need a crit, I'll take a look at 1kw or so before you submit. Remember editors hate to edit, so clean up that story before you submit!
Are you submitting? Post up a ~small~ excerpt. What is your story about? Please spread the word. Let other talented writers know they have until March 15 to submit to An Honest Lie.
My story is called "Melvin Gee's Short Trip to Hell," working title. It's about clipping angel wings and riding that Long Black Train.
My excerpt (330wd, don't post more!):
~~~~
"I'm Melvin Gee," Melvin said, holding out his hand, which a few moments ago had been little more than a fleshy sack of shattered bones, crushed along with the rest of his body beneath a mangled Ford F150. "I'm not sure I'm in the right place, but heck, I just followed one of the lights."
"One of the lights? That's unusual." The angel looked at Melvin's offered handshake. Then she checked a clipboard in her left hand, tapped it with a feathery pen in her right hand, nodded, and looked back up at Melvin. "Melvin Michael Gee?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Hmm," the angel said. "Looks right. Whatever, let's go. We have to get you signed in with the big guy."
The angel turned and began walking down a packed-dirt path. Slender and long-robed, seven feet at the shoulders, lacking the wings Melvin supposed an angel should wear, the angel presented herself in a regal way. Her hair was a radiant silver, and spread down her back as she walked.
Melvin noticed that where the angel's bare feet touched the dirt path, the grass crept toward the prints, pinching off the trail behind her. Melvin hurried to follow her, both of them walking toward a range of mountains several miles in the distance.
Holding her pen between her fingers, trying not to mark her robe, the angel rubbed her left shoulder as she walked; the ink stains on her robe spelled old habit.
"Yes, I know what you're thinking: the sky, this field, that little stand of trees, the mountains... beautiful. Peaceful, isn't it. Makes you want to lay down and sleep. Don't. This is the Old Garden, the one you cats got booted out of. If you fall asleep, or slip off this trail, or God help you if you steal one of those precious apples, you'll get carried off. But I bet the big question is why I don't have wings."
"Actually," said Melvin. "I was wondering about the path. It—"
~~~
- Eric
Friday, February 18, 2011
Fracking macking macker bracker
Just wanted to let everyone know exactly how I'm feeling these days.
Fracking macker fracker bracker cracks. That's the mood.
You ever have those days where you want to run naked through a cornfield?
That's me. Do I need to go all the way to Mexico to find a cornfield? I feel a streak coming on...
By the way, buy Roland D. Yeomans' book, "The Bear With Two Shadows"
Writing in the Crosshairs
He'll put a link up near the top of his blog if he really wants you to buy it! (That's for you, Roland.)
- Eric
Fracking macker fracker bracker cracks. That's the mood.
You ever have those days where you want to run naked through a cornfield?
That's me. Do I need to go all the way to Mexico to find a cornfield? I feel a streak coming on...
By the way, buy Roland D. Yeomans' book, "The Bear With Two Shadows"
Writing in the Crosshairs
He'll put a link up near the top of his blog if he really wants you to buy it! (That's for you, Roland.)
- Eric
Monday, February 7, 2011
Playing by Ear
I'm convinced nothing great is done on purpose.
Nothing. Maybe God can do it, but I can't, and I don't think any other human can do it.
You simply can't come up with a "great" idea, employ "great" writing, develop a "great" marketing strategy, and issue forth to the world a "great" masterpiece that spans the generations.
Greatness is an accident, every single time. Don't get me wrong, there are intentional components that go into structuring great writing -- plot, scene structure, grammar, and so forth -- but the truly great pieces are written by accident.
The author writes by ear, feeling the story, forgetting about the rules, forgetting about sentence structure and paragraphs and action scenes and descriptions and dialogue.
Lemme give you an example, since I see some of you nodding and saying, Loon-ball.
Sex.
Good example, right? But what the hell does romping bootie have to do with writing?
I'll tell you, since it's obvious now that you don't combine those two things like I do.
Great sex is never on purpose. I mean, I've had great sex when it was pre-planned, but there were always little unknowns, little twists and turns and unforeseeables that made it that much more fantastic. There were little tweaks that made good sex great.
And those twists were accidents.
Let's skip the gratuitous detail and let me challenge the naysayers by asking this: Do you plan every position, in advance, before you engage in sex?
Nope. It's spontaneous. You have some idea of what you want. You have some general skills, specific talents, a place and a partner and an arsenal of dirty thoughts.
But it's not pre-planned.
Neither is great writing. You can have a general idea, and a place, and a plot, but the writing, the act itself is ACCIDENTALLY banging out just the right words... who would have thunk?
Who could have guessed?
You read it later and realize your monkey paws did indeed pound long enough on that keyboard to peck out a masterpiece!
And when you try again later, bang all you want, you can't do it again. Because it was an accident.
Don't believe me? Go ahead and try.
- Eric
Nothing. Maybe God can do it, but I can't, and I don't think any other human can do it.
You simply can't come up with a "great" idea, employ "great" writing, develop a "great" marketing strategy, and issue forth to the world a "great" masterpiece that spans the generations.
Greatness is an accident, every single time. Don't get me wrong, there are intentional components that go into structuring great writing -- plot, scene structure, grammar, and so forth -- but the truly great pieces are written by accident.
The author writes by ear, feeling the story, forgetting about the rules, forgetting about sentence structure and paragraphs and action scenes and descriptions and dialogue.
Lemme give you an example, since I see some of you nodding and saying, Loon-ball.
Sex.
Good example, right? But what the hell does romping bootie have to do with writing?
I'll tell you, since it's obvious now that you don't combine those two things like I do.
Great sex is never on purpose. I mean, I've had great sex when it was pre-planned, but there were always little unknowns, little twists and turns and unforeseeables that made it that much more fantastic. There were little tweaks that made good sex great.
And those twists were accidents.
Let's skip the gratuitous detail and let me challenge the naysayers by asking this: Do you plan every position, in advance, before you engage in sex?
Nope. It's spontaneous. You have some idea of what you want. You have some general skills, specific talents, a place and a partner and an arsenal of dirty thoughts.
But it's not pre-planned.
Neither is great writing. You can have a general idea, and a place, and a plot, but the writing, the act itself is ACCIDENTALLY banging out just the right words... who would have thunk?
Who could have guessed?
You read it later and realize your monkey paws did indeed pound long enough on that keyboard to peck out a masterpiece!
And when you try again later, bang all you want, you can't do it again. Because it was an accident.
Don't believe me? Go ahead and try.
- Eric
Monday, January 24, 2011
(not so) GREAT Expectations
Have you ever set your expectations so high you were bound to fail?
We do this, all of us. It's one of the reasons modern Americans relish their divorce -- the marriage simply didn't meet the expectations as set forth by our sitcoms and dramas and porn sites.
That's why I'm divorced, I'm convinced of it. She wasn't a bad girl. In fact, she was pretty good. I was a pretty good guy. Pretty Good + Pretty Good = Pretty Good, if you do the math.
So why divorce?
Because I expected more from her. She expected more from me.
Both of us had unrealistic expectations. We expected GREAT, not Pretty Good, and what the hell is GREAT anyway?
But we grow, all of us, I hope, as we age and suffer through life and plunge head-first into the Great Black Nothing from whence we all came.
Great Black Nothing... don't steal that, because it's the focal point of my current WiP.
Which brings me to my current WiP and unrealistic, over-zealous expectations!
See, in November my son was born. I was working a novel at the time, kept working it, and worked it more in December.
Then I showed it to my publisher.
"Didn't grab me," he said.
All right. Sure. I got more where that came from. As the cowboy says about peeling horses: If you've never been thrown, you're not riding hard enough.
So onward I rode. I abandoned that piece and began working on a story he and I discussed and both thought would have potential.
Enter the Great Black Nothing.
Enter my Great Expectations.
Enter my goal to bang out 20,000 words -- yes, 20kw! -- during my two week paternity leave.
Enter my goal to bang out 20kw over the Christmas holidays.
Enter my goal to finish a book by the end of January!
You know, pre-baby, that would have been a reasonable goal. But that little booger stays up ALL DAY LONG! I thought he'd nap more. I thought I wouldn't have a leak in the roof. I thought I wouldn't get into a wreck (no injuries, minor). I thought the car would pass inspection and not need $700 in repairs so I can drive it legally. I thought I wouldn't need to drive my mom to Galveston to see family. I thought Christmas and my time at home would be quieter.
I thought and thought and thought it all wrong.
I thought I could do it, but the fact is, I couldn't, I didn't, I didn't even come close.
I have 12kw, now, and half of those were yoinked from a piece I wrote a year-and-a-half ago. So I really only got about 6kw written.
What's my point? I have no idea.
Don't get disappointed if you miss your goals. I guess that's my point. Set deadlines, stick to them, prioritize what's important, be thankful when you hit your goals and meet your expectations, but don't fret it if you fail.
As every cowboy knows, failure is simply part of the breaking process. You wanna learn to ride, better learn to fall.
Do you have any misses you want to share? Successes are welcome, too, brag away!
- Eric
PS: THANK YOU TO THE WELL-WISHERS WHO EMAILED ME! Always feel free to contact me at saulgoode35 at yahoo dot com. I missed you all, too, and am hopefully back to where I can blog and keep up with what's going on.
We do this, all of us. It's one of the reasons modern Americans relish their divorce -- the marriage simply didn't meet the expectations as set forth by our sitcoms and dramas and porn sites.
That's why I'm divorced, I'm convinced of it. She wasn't a bad girl. In fact, she was pretty good. I was a pretty good guy. Pretty Good + Pretty Good = Pretty Good, if you do the math.
So why divorce?
Because I expected more from her. She expected more from me.
Both of us had unrealistic expectations. We expected GREAT, not Pretty Good, and what the hell is GREAT anyway?
But we grow, all of us, I hope, as we age and suffer through life and plunge head-first into the Great Black Nothing from whence we all came.
Great Black Nothing... don't steal that, because it's the focal point of my current WiP.
Which brings me to my current WiP and unrealistic, over-zealous expectations!
See, in November my son was born. I was working a novel at the time, kept working it, and worked it more in December.Then I showed it to my publisher.
"Didn't grab me," he said.
All right. Sure. I got more where that came from. As the cowboy says about peeling horses: If you've never been thrown, you're not riding hard enough.
So onward I rode. I abandoned that piece and began working on a story he and I discussed and both thought would have potential.
Enter the Great Black Nothing.
Enter my Great Expectations.
Enter my goal to bang out 20,000 words -- yes, 20kw! -- during my two week paternity leave.
Enter my goal to bang out 20kw over the Christmas holidays.
Enter my goal to finish a book by the end of January!
You know, pre-baby, that would have been a reasonable goal. But that little booger stays up ALL DAY LONG! I thought he'd nap more. I thought I wouldn't have a leak in the roof. I thought I wouldn't get into a wreck (no injuries, minor). I thought the car would pass inspection and not need $700 in repairs so I can drive it legally. I thought I wouldn't need to drive my mom to Galveston to see family. I thought Christmas and my time at home would be quieter.
I thought and thought and thought it all wrong.
I thought I could do it, but the fact is, I couldn't, I didn't, I didn't even come close.
I have 12kw, now, and half of those were yoinked from a piece I wrote a year-and-a-half ago. So I really only got about 6kw written.
What's my point? I have no idea.
Don't get disappointed if you miss your goals. I guess that's my point. Set deadlines, stick to them, prioritize what's important, be thankful when you hit your goals and meet your expectations, but don't fret it if you fail.
As every cowboy knows, failure is simply part of the breaking process. You wanna learn to ride, better learn to fall.
Do you have any misses you want to share? Successes are welcome, too, brag away!
- Eric
PS: THANK YOU TO THE WELL-WISHERS WHO EMAILED ME! Always feel free to contact me at saulgoode35 at yahoo dot com. I missed you all, too, and am hopefully back to where I can blog and keep up with what's going on.
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