When I knew I had potential (sorta)

I wish I really knew what the hell I was doing when I write. I think I'm mostly just winging it.   I know that sounds crazy, crazier to actually say it, but it's true.  I haven't had a writing class since high school.  And that was a class assignment, the teach telling us to write something about why staying out of trouble is a good thing.  I pretty much said to stay out of jail. (Duh!) C-minus, but I passed!  Something about no footnotes, and my atrocious spelling.  (This was way before Microsoft Word)

      Lucky for me, I've always had a book in my hand since college, so when I write something I get a feeling for it; ‘Does it sound 'right?"  Is it 'Clear?"  Does it 'Flow,' no hiccups?

     The challenge for me: creating characters from people I see every day, with enough bombs going off every few pages so the reader is saying, 'OMG!  You're kidding.'

     When did I know I had an aptitude?  When I asked my son, in the seventh grade,   "Hi, John.  How's school?"
     "It's OK.”
     "Let's see what you have to do."
      "Well...I got this paper I have to do about why education is a good thing.  It's kind of a contest for the entire school."
     "When's it due?"
     "Well...ah...tomorrow?"
     "WHAT?"  (Kid needed help, I could tell.)  "Well, we better get busy."
      Week later.  "Hey, John. How'd you make out on that paper you wrote?"
      "Dad, you're not going to believe... (a weak giggle)"  He whispered, "I won for the seventh grade."
     "You won!  You're kidding.  That's great."
      "Not really.  Now they want me do it in front of the Open House."
      "Upon stage. Like a speech?  Terrific!  You’ll do good.  When it going to be?"
      "Well...ah...tomorrow night."
      "John?  When were you going to tell us?"
      "I don't know."  His face was red.  (The apple didn't fall far...)

      I didn't write it for him, we simply sat at the table and discussed the possibilities.  We knew he could probably copy something from a back issue of Reader's Digest.  But I wanted him to do something original.  Not like today; a simple Google search, copy and paste, "Look I'm a writer!"

      Think outside the box.  We came up with two young boys walking home together, "Did you do that homework on the solar system?"
     The other, "Nah, I don't need that.   I ain't going to never need stuff like that.  I'm getting a job real soon."
     "You're not going to graduate?"
      "They need a dock guy down at Johnson's Hardware."
     "But..."
     and it goes on, how his competition for a job like that, without a high school diploma, would be enormous.  700 words later, written like a one act play, the boy decides he might need a diploma, and does the homework.

     Well, was his teacher pissed at me. Amazed at what John had written, all so suddenly!  Too suddenly for her, I guess.

     I got, in a nice way, the second degree.  "Your son really did a good job on...his...paper."  She didn't have to use 'air quotes,'  I heard it in her voice.

     "Well, all I can say is he showed me the assignment, and well we sat down and discussed it together, and he came up with it."
      I knew she didn't believe me.  "He has potential as a writer.  Maybe we'll get him into some other contests.  Almost like...night and day," as she wandered off.

      Okay, maybe I changed a few things in it...maybe...spelling, bad grammar, but that's it.
     That was the first  time I was ever praised for something I had a hand in writing.  I remember it today!

Macy's 2020?

     Across Flower Street they're working on the Macy's.  It's now close to two years and counting to upgrades their flagship store, and still they won't be completed until Christmas, if then.  I asked one of the construction workers, an older gentleman, who arrives at the coffee shop about the same time as I do (6a.m.) "When will you guys be done, 2020?"  trying for a laugh.  It's 6 am.  Loosen up his sense of humor?  Guess not.  Guy got mad.  He must have thought I was trying to be cute, degrading both him and his job.  "Oh, we’ll be done real soon.  2020, you’re kidding right?"  Like it was an affront to his work ethic.  Then mumbled something (blasphemous, no doubt, I heard the words  ‘total jerk’)  under his breath and moved up to the counter.

     He usually comes in, orders a small coffee, sits in one of the lounge chairs, for at least an hour, then saunters back across the street.  Supervisor of some sort, I guess.  Never takes off his plastic hard hat.  Six stand around and watch one guy with a jackhammer, while they eat their breakfast burritos off the nearby (I think I’m having a coronary) Taco Truck, parked in the red.  Paid by the hour, big surprise.

     On my way home this morning, I got thinking about;



     How many 'readers' do we lose every day, faces glued to cellphones/internet/ Facebook/ Twitter, etc.,  Before Bill Gates and Company didn't these people have newspapers in their hands, or maybe a paperback book?  The percentage drop of readers in the last forty years?  30-40%?   So the question I ask myself is whether what I'm doing;; writing  stories and doing my novel, as fast as I can before I shuffle off;  Is writing becoming a lost art, like handmade shoes?  Will fiction be available in the future?  Those in print simply yellowing unread on some bookshelf somewhere?  I write them because they're fun to do, creating characters, who do and say things I want to do and say.  I can be the hero in them on the page.  But is reading itself a lost art?

     I guess it's like just about anything we do in life, 100 years from now who will remember us?  Not many, unless you become President, and your name is in the  history books  (Oops, on the internet).   A pure guess, one tenth of one percent of one percent of us will be remembered 50 years from now.



   (This is depressing as hell. How did I get off on this?)



   Time to get back to my characters.   What will they be up to next?  Saving  the world from absolute and total annihilation.  What else?



     Sooooo, until next time, with happier thoughts, promise, (as I sir and sip my Jim Beam and Ginger Ale) thank you for your support.