Going on tour by sitting in the same spot

I’m doing something a little different this time.

Fellow blogger, Naptimethoughts, has invited me to join something called the Writing Process Blog Tour. This “tour” involves me sitting in a chair and answering four questions about how I write. Then, I ask two other bloggers to do the same thing. In the end, I think some psychologist will come along and coin a new phrase for the mental disease that makes people want to blog, if narcissism isn’t enough to cover it.

sweet music

I banish Ethel to the porch, fire up my favorite pipe, and tap it out like sweet music. (Image: Harris & Ewing)

It’s always an honor to be asked to participate in a harebrained scheme by another blogger, especially one who is witty and writes things you enjoy reading. Keep up the good work, Naptimethoughts.

But why would I discuss writing on a blog about parents and children? Out of ideas? Filler?

Well maybe. But this is also a blog about writing. If you haven’t noticed it, that’s good. If you don’t think about how the words got on the computer screen, it means I’ve done something right.

Now that we’ve established the motive, let’s move on to the crime. Here is the info you probably (and rightfully) never cared about.

  • What am I working on now?

For starters, I am always working on this blog – trying to transport fragile, funny episodes from my memory to your computer screen without busting them into a million un-funny pieces with inadequate writing.

Beyond that, I am hoping to publish a new novel this year. This one is titled, A Housefly in Autumn. It’s a Young Adult book, or at least I think it is. I’ve never published YA before, so I’m a little anxious about it. Right now I’m trying to arrange for cover art, formatting, and all the other things that go into making a manuscript into a book.

I am also writing the first draft of another book. This one is also in a new genre for me, so I’m not going to say much, because it could turn out to be total crap, in which case you will hear no more about it.

  • How does my work differ from others in the genre?

There are lots of entertaining parenting blogs out there. If there is one way in which my blog is different from them, I’d have to say it’s that I don’t use the F-word as much. It turns out parents like to swear a lot when they talk about their kids. Go figure!

My fiction is different mostly because I like to write across genres. I do humor and drama, contemporary and historical. I even have a novel manuscript squirreled away that borders on science fiction.

a smile throug a tear

Humor and drama; historical, contemporary, and futuristic – all in one book. Variety is just one of the reasons I love short stories. (And that’s my self-promotion for the day!)

More about this.↑

  • Why do I write what I do?

I don’t know why I write at all. Writing is hard. It makes me tired and I’d rather be playing games. As far as what I write, I write what seems like a good story in my head, whether it’s a true story or something I just dreamed up. Sometimes it is still a good story when it gets to paper, sometimes not.

I most enjoy reading humor and history, so that probably influences the things I choose to write about and the way I approach the process. I like reading classics too. I wish that meant that I write classics.

feeling classical

Sometimes, when I’m feeling classical, I just slip on my writing tights and let go.

  • How does my writing process work?

I’m not sure it does work. I try to set a little time aside most days for fiction. Blog posts I fit in whenever I can. With three boys under six, time can be tight.

They say you find time for the things that are your priorities. I find time for my family and a few paragraphs here and there. This explains why my lawn looks like hell and I’ve always had a day job instead of a career in something.

Little by little, I finish manuscripts, and then I spend a long time figuring out what to do with them. Some of them I put away for later. Once in a while, I publish one. If I ever find the talent, time, and money for effective marketing, you might hear about one of them.

Until then, there’s always this blog. And it’s free!

handoff

Then I simply hand the manuscript over to my agent, and the rest takes care of itself.

Now it’s time to recruit some partners in crime.

For that I turn to Pieter at Ah dad. Pieter writes funny commentary about many topics, but when he writes about his family, there is a heartfelt quality about his blogging that emanates right through the computer screen to you. Plus, he’s in the Southern Hemisphere, and if I understand geography, that means he does everything upside down.

Also, Jon, from South of the Strait. A lot a bloggers talk humor at you, but Jon writes humor. His wit doesn’t gang tackle you. It’s a storyteller’s wit, thoroughly mixed in, not bunched up around the exclamation points. I like that.

Gentlemen, I leave it to you. If you want in on this boondoggle, just answer these four questions and pass the buck to two more victims honorees.

Date night with a baby and a lizard

You should know what you’re getting when you sit down to watch a behemoth, radioactive lizard frolic around the Pacific rim. I had a hunch; I should have listened to it.

My wife and I hadn’t been out on a date in months. She wanted to see the new Godzilla movie, mostly because of Bryan Cranston. He wouldn’t jump from Breaking Bad into a ridiculously stupid movie, right? Right?

We dropped the big boys at the neighbor’s, but we kept the baby because my wife has a strange fetish with movie theaters. She’s not happy unless she can sneak in McDonald’s food or brazenly walk in with a tiny human who could go off at any moment. I drew the line at McDonald’s being part of our date.

The baby was incredibly quiet through the movie, except for a brief period when his foot got stuck under the arm rest. He did not infringe on anyone’s enjoyment of the film. I wish I could say the same thing for the film.

I don’t know why people are always trying to make a better Godzilla movie. I don’t know why we need a better Godzilla movie. A man in a lizard suit stomping on model army tanks is all I’ve ever wanted from Godzilla, and that was accomplished to perfection 60 years ago.

real Godzilla

Just roll in some toy army vehicles and we’ve got ourselves a movie.

I would issue a spoiler alert for what comes next, but the real spoiler will be seeing the movie theater charge show up on the credit card statement.

My wife felt cheated that Mr. Cranston was in less than half of the movie. She figured they must have run out of money to pay his huge salary at that point. My theory is that he saw the rest of the script and bailed. I have yet to figure out what his character added to the plot anyway, other than a crazy old man who turned out to be right, but so what? Crazy people are always right in movies.

Cranston cameo

“Oh my God! Is that the rest of the script? Run!” (Image: Warner Bros.)

My wife is much more charitable toward films than I am, but when the lights came up, her first words were, “Want to know all the problems I have with that movie?”

I don’t even remember all the problems. I do recall that after an EMP wave fried all the electronics in San Francisco, preventing the heroes from driving into the city, they were able to hotwire a boat at the dock with no problem. Yup, it fired right up, with spotlights on and everything.

Oh, and then there was the ultra-powerful atomic weapon that was detonated about 10 feet beyond the Golden Gate Bridge with no consequences to the city. Too bad they dragged all those puny Cold War atom bombs all the way out to remote islands. They could have used those for a fireworks show at Candlestick Park.

This would have been the worst Bryan Cranston movie ever, had he actually been in it. But that’s okay; we’ll probably have another date night next year.

Let the game come to you

My son scored a goal at his last soccer game. I’m not sure how it happened, and neither is he, but we’ll take it.

You know that kid who dribbles the ball down the length of the field, trailing behind a comet tail of slower children, and boots in five goals per game? My boy is the one at the very back of the following pack, jogging along to see what all the hubbub is at the front.

soccer star

You know those athletes who fail because they try to do too much? He’s not falling into that trap.

He’s not a natural athlete, but that doesn’t bother his enjoyment of the game. Soccer isn’t so much a sport as a social activity to him anyway. He’s the kid who peels off from the action of his own game to wave down his friend who is playing on the adjacent field.

The propensity to get distracted from the game is not uncommon among kindergarteners. This is a good and natural thing. It also has the potential to be comical. During the last game, a child climbed up into a pine tree bordering the field and called the names of players. The players took turns ignoring the action to squint into the tree and try to identify the climber until adults ruined the fun by making him come down.

soccer distractions

“I think that tree just called my name.”

When it comes to style of play, my son is not a dribbler. He is not often very near the ball anyway, but when happenstance does nudge the ball close to him, he is likely to give it a good boot and let the other children chase it down. I am proud to say he almost always kicks it in the right direction.

I am thankful that I wasn’t trying to see the kid up in the tree during that glorious moment when my little superstar tallied his spectacular goal.

Somehow, his team had maneuvered the ball onto the offensive side of the field, which is rare enough in itself. My boy had very cleverly positioned himself on the periphery of the mob,  letting the other children endanger their shins. This wise strategy was bound to pay off eventually.

*Begin slow motion narration*

With six kids kicking it at once, the ball squirted randomly out of the crowd and rolled to my boy’s feet. Finding himself temporarily unable to locate any friends in nearby games, he happened to be watching his own game at that moment.

The ball was at his feet. It was time to give it his one good boot. Turing himself in the proper direction (his best soccer skill), he found himself staring into the empty goal.

He cocked his leg. The other children were almost upon him.

Just in time, my little sniper unleashed his mighty shoe and sent the ball rolling with pinpoint accuracy over those 10 feet and into the goal.

*Resume normal speed narration*

His teammates bounced around him as he launched the celebration. It was a moment of immense pride for me. The boy may not be a natural athlete, but he sure can dance.

Reading, writing, and romance

Our son has learned a lot in kindergarten. His reading skills are pretty good, and his math knowledge is growing. And then there’s everything about love and romance he’s picked up in the past year.

In the fall, it became clear that he had a crush on one little girl. Whenever I mentioned her name he would blush and get that secretive smile on his face. It embarrassed him to answer questions about her. My wife would scold me for making him squirm, but then she doesn’t fully understand a father’s job.

Mid-year, he traded this crush for a new one. In fact, he traded it for two new ones. I really can’t argue with the boy showing this sort of ambition, but I was taken aback about how open he was about them.

By the sounds of it, everybody in his class has a crush on somebody else, and then maybe somebody else after that. Once this conspiracy of crushes came to light, crushes became cool. All the kids are having them.

Suddenly, he likes to talk about his crushes. Here’s what he’s got worked out:

He’s going to marry his #1 crush. Except, she has a crush on somebody else. He’s not completely sure how this will affect his plan, but he does recognize it as a minor complication. He still fully intends to marry crush #1, but if it turns out she’s carrying too much external baggage, he always has crush #2 in reserve. Crush #2 may actually have a small crush on him too, making this a solid contingency plan.

The situation has completely reversed itself since last fall. Now I have to rib him by referring obliquely to Crush #1. When I hint that I’m speaking about her, he demands that I say her name, right out loud, in front of Mommy and everybody.

This change from a boy shy about girls to Rico Suave has been an eye-opener. I’m afraid some day he’s going to open his mouth and Barry White’s voice will come out of it. But it seems like these kids have also been following current events as they apply to the legal aspects of romance. I guess it’s good that they’re learning about the world around them, but if I were in kindergarten, I think I’d rather just play on the swings a while longer.

Last week he told me one of the boys wanted to marry him.

This was a new development. “One of the boys?”

“Yeah.” Then he went on to educate his backward, old dad. “Boys can marry boys, but only in New York,” he told me. “And girls can marry girls, in New York.”

“Do you want to marry him?” I asked.

He shook his head at me and gave me a look that asked if I had been paying any attention at all over the past several months. “No. I got other people I’m in love with.”

I ship out with Admiral Dewey in the morning, baby.

Kids sure do grow up fast these days. And by “these days” I mean since 1898.