Fish Humor

Two fish are swimming upstream. One bumps into a concrete wall. He raises a fin to his forehead and says, "Dam!"

Hello, again.

Hello? Anyone in there? I'm older, grayer, still unpublished, but my cockatiel, Sydney, still loves me. Still writing. Still critiquing. Still waiting to find a decent job in an economy that sucks worse than my misuse of action verbs.

The Click and the Dead

Countdown over. Should I have reached the conclusion, it would have meant the end to hummingbird feeding season. It also would have meant that I must not have a writer's soul by not feeling the pain of the absence of writing for nearly six months. As it is, I'm putting my chair into fighting position against the desk and firing from all pens. Bring on the vivid verbs, annihilate anemic adverbs, assess active adjectives, and look for muscle beach, iron pumping nouns.

Did you read the story about the protagonist who had no motivation?

Probably not. And it ain't happening here either.

God versus the Chicken

It's 7 a.m. I don't have to pick the garden vegetables, because I did so last night. Living large off the garden in summertime. To get chickens next or not get chickens is the question. Free eggs aren't free, I argue. Aside from the small cost to buy the original four or five chickens, it's the daily chore of scooping up the eggs while being pecked to death by a lethal weapon. While the poop is great fertilizer, I bet the deposits will be like Sydney, our pet cockateil, presents--distributed indiscriminately and often on my shoulder. I swear I can hear him chuckle, "I want more mashed potatoes!" Then there's the foxes, raccoons, and wild dogs. One more reason, they do not need to climb over or burst through the fence that seems so impregnable at the moment. And I know they will be named, and there goes any hope of a free Sunday dinner.

Nope. I have to draw the line at chickens once again and enjoy the guest bedroom for a few days will I chicken scratch a few more words on the topic of God's grace in my next novel.

Recorders versus Blogging

Hard to blog at 28.8 modem while downloading massive YouTube recorder concerts for your wife. The tropical storm fizzled and missed us. No large amounts of rain as desired. Now the furnace is turned on for the next two days, 100 or so. Time to hibernate inside after picking vegetables, chopping wood, pullling weeds, moving mulch, stacking concrete, running from moisquitoes, slapping at horseflies, shooing away deer, drowing squirrels, feeding fish and birds, and weedwhack the weeds. Hey, at least the late summer corn crop is growing like a weed. I cannot believe it, eight days planted and six inches high. Must be the potent squirrel poop in that part of the yard. Oops. Gotta go throw the laundry in the dryer and pretend I've written 500 words today. "Really, Mr. Barretta. It's all in my head."

The Mafia and My Garden Wall

76 days to go...Hauling concrete chunks from a nearby construction site so I can continue work on my garden wall is my equivalent to working out at the gym. I just wonder when I'm going to find an arm or a leg or a decomposing Mafia hit. Why do they always show up buried in concrete?

Snakes? I've seen a few. One or two brown haired rodents, also. Mice or rats or muskrats, I don't know. The wall is starting to take good shape after years of working on it. And yes, three days ago she approached me with the inevitable, "Can we move this thirty foot section of the wall six inches in this direction so I can put in more daises?" I'm beginning to understand the Mafia a whole lot better.

Come on rain. I don't want to water tomorrow.

Third Graders and the Playboy Centerfold

77 days to go...Okay, I finished Elizabeth Lyon's book, "Manuscript Makeover" today in between scoring Connecticut third grade narrative papers about the most exciting day in kid's lives. Can you say these kids have yet to live, well, except the kid who's been to the moon, Jupiter, and Pluto causing NASA to re-establish Pluto as a planet based on the space debris he brought back to earth. That kids been around.

EL's book has be almost excited to revise my three completed novels. Need to chose one and make a go of it. Her book is excellent, and it is dogeared worse than a teenager's copy of Playboy with Barbie Benton inside. Bonus points for anyone who can tell me who BB was without goggling the Internet.

Also cut all the grass along the road when I got home. Zen and the art of grass cutting. Did mine, the common area, my next door neighbor, and kept on going and did the guy's down at the end of the cul-de-sac. Then I cut my yard, weed whack a sensitive area, burned some invasive weeds in the burn pit, watered a new area where I planted corn six days ago. The corn is already four inches high! Thems some good seeds.

My foot hurts. A gout attack is in my near future. It is off to bed I go to dream about monsters, snakes, and clam bakes with a girl named Becky. (Don't tell my wife.)

Writing and Shouting

78 days to go...Man, that teleportation really messes with the ability to write. Anyone doing any writing worth shouting about?

Teleportation Achieved

93 days to go...

...I believe I've sufficiently recovered from my drive from Phoenix, Arizona to Apex, North Carolina to report that I drove the 2,236 miles in 38.5 hours. Why did I do it so fast? I don't know, but I told my wife I would stop once I got tired. That didn't happen, however, until Charlotte, North Carolina. That's when I found out that the car had a teleportation device button. Next thing I know, I'm home in the driveway. Now I'm mad at my niece for not telling me about this device. Now, my left wrist hurts. I'm not sure if it is from the drive or a lingering affect of being teleported those last few miles.
NOTATIONS
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* EATS: What a shock! Only three diet cokes and two candy bars consumed for the entire trip. That's an amazingly low amount of caffeine.
* TOLLS: There were no tolls along the roads I took, though I did see a troll under the Mississippi Bridge at Vicksburg.
* FASTEST SPEED: 82 mph while getting out of the way of a car approaching from behind traveling over 100 mph. Her curly blonde locks were corralled twenty miles down the road by the state police. Hope she shows up on C*O*P*S.
* WORST CITY: El Paso...Nasty accident and zero options to squeeze by because the town hugs the mountains/desert and the Mexican border. Runner-up, Shreveport, LA. One butt ugly town, twisty roads with quick speed changes; however, it is a small city and the pain is over quickly.
* ODDEST SIGHT: From a distance, the lights of Florence, Texas seem to flicker on and off. Once you got right up to one of the lights, you realize it is hundreds of wind turbines with their nightlights flickering off and on in an enormous display of pale yellow-reddish Christmas lights.
* ANIMALS SEEN ALIVE: Ostrich (hundreds of them), two jack rabbits trying to pace me, a huge alligator turtle trying to cross the Interstate, an armadillo sniffing for clues at the scene of a crime (dead rabbit), a hawk eating a rat on top of a cactus, llamas, alpacas,
* ANIMALS SEEN DEAD: The usual suspects (squirrels, rabbits, turtles, domestic animals) and an alligator.
* Texas never ends.
* The Mississippi was really high, but everything else looked parched and all rivers looked low.
* BIGGEST SURPRISE: How lush and productive the Rio Grande Valley is from Las Cruces, NM, until I left the river valley 100 miles later. Lots of produce, trees, and cows where nothing would be without the river.
* WORST DRIVERS: Atlanta...Yeah, I know that there are a lot of damn Yankees there, but the indigenous population has accepted the awful driving skills. Atlanta drivers are as fast and dude as anything I've seen around Chicago or Boston.
* PHOENIX-to-HILTON HEAD FUTURE TRIP FOR THE LEONARD'S (niece and hubby and kids): Go the southern route. The roads are better; the traffic less. Maybe you'll get a tail wind like I did to smooth out the ride. The northern route (I-40) is almost guaranteed a crosswind. Gas is generally cheap by 5-20 cents a gallon in Texas compared to the northern road. Passage through the major cities is fewer and generally better. As always, go through them during off-peak hours.
* BEST SCENERY: Toss up between AZ/NM border area and where I-10 heads away from the Rio Grande in Texas. Panoramic majesty for both. And I saw my first real mirage. I could swear the lake was there, but there were dust devils coming off the surface of the "water". A true indication that it wasn't water I was looking at.
* BIGGEST BUMMER: No alien encounters or hot, gorgeous hitchhikers. (The two ZZ-top look alikes under a bridge in Mississippi don't count.)
* BIGGEST REALIZATION: You CAN jog in the driver's seat to prevent blood clots in your legs if you're inventive enough, but expect other drivers to give you weird looks and drive far away from you.
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...Hey, let's do this again sometime soon.
According to Webster's, soon is an adverb meaning "...really, not in this lifetime." ;-o

Road Trip

98 days to go...Heading to Phoenix in nine hours to drive a car back to North Carolina. (Doesn't this family ever drive cross-country in say, October! My mind is occupied by road songs and novels.

"Radar Love" by Golden Earring comes burst to the front for the songs. "I've been drivin' down the road, my hands wet on the wheel..."

As far as novels, "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac jumps in front of "Blue Highways" by William Least Heat Moon. Never read "Travels with Charlie" so I can't compare it. My character in "Turning 51" (223 rejections) takes a trip from Raleigh, NC to central PA to Boulder, CO in an effort to unravel a mystery. Yeah, I've done that route more than a few times. Lots of memories, but not any exciting romantic interludes with six-toed blondes with eyes of blue ice. That only happens in Germany, but that's a story for another day.

Got one to share...either novel or song?

P.S. Decided the southern route I-10, I-20, and I-85 since I've only hopscotched that area of the country versus the northern route I-40. I've been on every mile of I-40 from Barstow, CA to Wilmington, NC, and most of it several times.

P.P.S. Obviously this means no entries until I get back home. I know, I know. Disappoint is cluttering the pipelines of the Internet.

Scoring New Jersey

1oo days to go...Hard to believe. Better get cracking' soon.

Seventh grade New Jersey students are still trying to persuade me at work where they should go on their field trip, and I continue to score those papers. So where does a 7th grader want to go on their field trips when they think know one will ever know? Six Flags Great Adventure (I'm shocked, not), Dorney Park, Hersey Park, Franklin Museum in Philly, and the Science Museum in Newark, surprisingly large number for Ellis Island with a side order of the Statue of Liberty. Of course, the Jersey shore (or beach) gets many nods, Clementon Park, Stokes, Wildwood, Seaside Heights, Sandy Hook, but surprisingly few mention Atlantic City, except the 13-year-old that knew about the assortment of alcoholic beverages dispensed there. It is nice to see the Natural History Museum in NYC getting copious nods along with the Museum of Modern Art. NYC, in of itself, garnered numerous papers because, by gum it, it's just one fun town.

Some of the more geographically challenged youths opt for day trips to Washington, D.C. along with an afternoon jaunt to Mt. Rushmore. In fact, outside of the tri-state area, D.C. gets quite a few nods. But I won't slight Baltimore. It's aquarium gets mentioned often. Boston gets some nods, along with Niagara Falls. Some local colleges get the nod for a day field trip: Princeton, NYU, Rider, State College of New Jersey (which I believe used to be Trenton State where I spent three semesters in the dark ages).

Even more geographically (and time management) challenged were students expressing the desire for day trips to Disneyworld, California, Texas, Canada, Slovakia, Uzbekistan, Paris, Rome (multiple times), Italy (yes, I know Rome is in Italy), Greece, Guatemala, and Finland. The country of Africa gets mentioned once in a while. It's only a few hours away.

Smarter kids realize that they can't do these foreign trips in just a day. Persuasive students have suggested longer stays in Canada, California, Hawaii, Australia, the country of Europe, Portugal, Spain, and China. An enterprising lad thought a multi-week trip around the world would enlighten his classmates to the multiplicity of cultures. The teachers could pay for it all. I want a job on that staff.

Of course there are kids out there who are smoking the wackyweed a bit younger than my generation did. I've read to outstanding arguments for a trip to the moon, and one that made a passionate case for being the first school kids on Mars. (Not to mention the first people.)

There were many financially conscientious students who indicated that their schools didn't have the funds for a trip and that we should just have a nice day in the cafeteria or the field next door or the park down the street. They made me want to offer the school some of my meager funds to get these kids inspired to greater heights. These kids should go to the movies with the number of kids who suggested the movies were the correct field trip, and then bowling afterwards.

And then there were the more self-absorbed kids. "...to the MALL, and the school can give each of us $100 to spend." I'm surprised by the number of uninspired kids who thought the mall is an educational trip. Other uninspired educational trips included: 7th street (not sure what town), Burger King ("...so we can learn a trade..."), the skating rink ("...because it's fun to laugh at the kids who don't know how to skate and fall down a lot..."), a professional sport's game ("...because I love the [Phillies, Giants, Jets, Rangers, Yankees, Mets, Titans, Patriots, etc.]...") and I only noticed that one of these was a girl. Sorry guys, but 50-yard seats for a Giants-Patriots game in 2008-2009 isn't going to be had for $50.

It's been interesting, and don't get me wrong. Out of the 5,000+ papers I've read, I have read some brilliant essays by 12 and 13-year-old kids, written in forty-five minutes, that would have challenged any Pulitzer Prize winner to exceed.

"There is nothing more important than expanding our knowledge on a field trip to become better human beings and improve society."

Right on, kid, whoever you were.

MMWUC for June 23, 2008

101 days...I've been hiding from my writing computer. It stares at me. It looks lonely. It's off. Two more days of work left, then unemployment strikes at the heart of the wallet again. On Saturday, I fly to Phoenix to drive back my sister-in-law's car. I'm unsure of my route back. I-40 all the way or the southern route on I-10, I-20, and I-85. I'm unsure how fast to go. I once did Denver to eastern PA in 29 hours solo. I'm not sure that marathon driving efforts remain in my blood. Should I take my time and soak up the triple-digit heat of the southwest? Should I go through southern Missouri to Memphis in time to catch the crest of the latest and greatest Mississippi flood. (Yo! It's not the heavy rain, Army Corps of Engineer dudes. It's the funnel dikes and the lack of swamp/wetlands to absorb the excess rain to replenish those wonderfully rich flatlands.) Do I know anyone on either route with couches? Skippy's gone from western Oklahoma to Seattle. A rich millionaire wearing dirty overalls and a hayseed hat once helped me out in Missouri when a strong wind damaged my car once. Wonder if he's still there in Jonesboro? If he is, he's probably pushing 90. I used to know some people in New Orleans, but they're gone with the tide. I met a girl in Winslow, Arizona. Such a fine sight to see. Oh wait! That was the Eagles, not me. (Blogger is acting up. Autosave isn't working. Oh well.) I met a nice girl in Richardson, Texas (not far from Dallas off of I-40). It was just before I met my wife. I doubt that either one would appreciate me dropping in like a WWII paratrooper in northern France in June, 1944.

Maybe I'll just sing my way across Texas...El Paso to Beaumont. Should only take me a day or so.

As for the rest of your wrangling writers, let's make each word count.

MMWUC for June 16, 2008

One hundred and eight days...Elizabeth Lyons, sub-God, (God status if I get published) says in her book that I mentioned a few days ago to practice writing riffs (small little sections of writing). Okay, I will. Wanna know what riff writing is...get the book, you won't be disappointed. Or return tomorrow and see an example.

Otherwise, make time for your writing.

Blank Sunday

One hundred and nine days...my, how time does fly, or how flies the time. I ain't got nothing today. Waddya you got?

Are we there yet?

One hundred and ten days...

Still reading more of Elizabeth Lyon's "Manuscript Makeover". Can I find improvement in my "finished" manuscripts based on her words of wisdom? Yep. Do I find things that she's suggested that I've done? Yep. Brings up the question that I've addressed before at some time. When do you know you're done? How do you honestly know that you've accomplished the tasks? I guess we never really know and that's why people like the young woman that runs The Rejector blog continually gets queries from the clueless submitting the dregs of the earth as though the dregs were really National Book Award winning material.

Write on! Write on!! Brothers and sisters, amen. Write on!!!

P.S. Shannon...Have you written today? Get on with it!

13 Black Cats are under the Ladder

Where is eveyone today? Must be Friday the thirteenth that has them all spooked. Call me shocked. I saw no new advertisements for another "Friday the 13th" movie.
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Jason uses his walker with deadly accuracy only to forget why he the elderly woman is at his feet and smashing his toes. When he remembers, it's too late. He's in his own worst nightmare on Elm Street relieving Halloween over again each night in his dreams. "Friday the 13th: 88 ain't Great"

Mulch Madness

One hundred and eleven days...

Yippee! My new pile of mulch arrived today. 19 cu yards of worm food and weed smothering delight. I know it has nothing to do with writing, but my wife has turned me into a farmer, so this is nearly as good as finishing a piece of flash fiction.
---
On April 1st, God smote Satan. Satan went to Hell. The damned wept; angels rejoiced. Gas prices still rose.

I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes

One hundred and twelve days...

Mosquito bites. "Umm. Just love to scratch them," Ned Flanders said to Homer Simpson. He can have them, along with the spider bites and poison ivy. I hit the trifecta the other night and now I'm scratching like nobodies business, but the silver lining is...I'll get back to you on that.

Rollcoaster Writing

One hundred and thirteen days...

Where is the love? Some of the persuasion papers I'm scoring at work from seventh grade students in New Jersey that they have to write in forty-five minutes are better than what I can do in a couple of hours with my dictionary at my side. But then again, I don't have a burning passion to convince my principal that Six Flags, Dorney Park, or Hershey Park are educational field trips to examine the extent of their knowledge of gravity, g forces, and the friction cohesion of roller coasters.

Oh yeah, and never forget about all the great and nutritious food you can get at those places that render the cafeteria food "...putrid and poisonous portions of poorly planned poop on a plate." Kid gets an A in my book.

Dolores and the Blond

One hundred and fourteen days...

No breeze stirred for weeks. Four weeks. Travis marveled how dust had accumulated on the porch without leaving in the same manner the minute particles had arrived. Ants marched single file across the sand dunes of dust in search of drops of sweet tea he'd allow to fall. He marveled at their persistence then sprayed them with a can of ant and roach killer.

Another line. A think lined of dark clouds lined the edge of the horizon. They quickly ate the sun, and the promise of showers edged closer until darkness became full and the distant bolts of lightning began with the faintness of the bug. Work had drained him and the promise of rain, the first streak of lightning, and finally, a low rumble that didn't come from the direction of the tracks to the east kept him in his chair.

He heard the first breeze before he felt it. The cottonwoods chimed a hundred yards away, and then the breeze swept across the porch, chilled a bead of sweat, and swept the loosest grains of dust off the porch. He reached up and flicked off the porch light. The house was dark. The breeze pushed again. He checked the chamber. Two rounds. He was ready for Dolores.