There is a kind of writing I began back when I was a teenager in high school. In fact, I'm thinking it may actually have been as early as junior high
(7th, 8th, or 9th grade). I would write ridiculous hero stories and include my friends
(and occasionally enemies) as characters. I would read these to my friends in order give them a laugh. Most of them loved the stories
(because they tended to fare all right with regard to clever humor) and would seek me out at lunch, study hall, or after school to have the latest offering read to them.
The humor was totally inane and childish
(not too unlike my humor today). Jokes were mostly predictable, but that was part of the charm. Listeners needn't bother trying to follow the story too closely, and they didn't. They just waited until their character came on stage. I didn't find any of these stories in
The Archives last week, which is a shame. The one had everyone laughing, except a couple of creeps who had no sense of humor. I knew they had no sense of humor from the beginning and went out of my way to point out their stupidity. That may have contributed to their lack of appreciation.
There was one scene I remember. My hero character had just been captured with his secretary. That was Myra. Now Myra was about the sweetest and nicest girl you could meet. She had a sense of humor, but there was nothing "naughty" or wild about her. I kept putting her in compromising situations - but not compromising her personally. I kept her interest by making her character the smarter character. So when they were captured by the villain, it was the hero who panicked, and not Myra. Oh, this was written as a radio play. I actually got a bunch of people together and recorded it. That's lost, too. Why did I throw everything away?
HERO: What are you going to do with us?VILLAIN: Ha! You will be subjected to the most horrible torture possible.HERO: You don't mean?VILLAIN: Yes. You will be forced to watch a documentary on how plants grow until dead. (Our high school science department was about the most dull in the world.)(Sound of footsteps fading away and door closing.)HERO: Ahhh! I can't stand it! I can't stand it!MYRA: Hush! These are just the cartoons. The real film hasn't begun yet.I remember that was Myra's favorite scene in the entire script.
Later, when working in an outgoing mail department, one of my co-workers and I coined the phrase, "Laze Ass." Since the organization was a Christian one we had to be careful about when and where we used this phrase, so we abbreviated it to L.A. Eventually, I created
The LA Patrol, a group of super heroes disguised as warehouse workers. Again, my co-workers loved the stories, but management wasn't keen on it at all. Conservatives are BIG into control, and don't like people having fun without permission. So we had to keep the stories underground. This became of greater urgency when management became the villains.
It was the basis for my creation of
Hot Shot Reporter. I worked for a small town newspaper, and I and my co-workers suddenly became Super Heroes stamping out international crime syndicates operating from two small towns with populations smaller than that of my villages in
Swords of Fire.
I was making another set for the computer software company I worked for when my job was eliminated. The orginal owner, Lori, would have appreciated the humor, I'm sure. The new owners, a beer company from the
Netherlands, had no sense of humor. They required every employee install software which allowed a group of observers in the Netherlands to monitor EVERYTHING we did on our computers. Talk about control. Not being one to work well under such an environment I still recall the day I shouted at someone in Human Resources about how things were being done. Less than two weeks later I didn't have a job. Good.
So what does all of this have to do with anything?
Well, my post from the other day -
Guest Comment? It woke up the
Muses, specifically
Risa and
Sonja. It occurred to me that it might be fun to do the same thing on-line. This would be especially so when one considers that most of the people I know on-line are also
writers. They could write their own! I wonder if people would be interested. I mean, some have great character names already:
FairyHedgeHog,
McKoala,
LaughingWolf,
Xenith,
BuffySquirrel,
SpyScribbler,
Whirlocher,
Writtenwyrdd,
BloglessTroll,
Talpianna,
FluffyCat,
BatGirl. That's a dozen right there. It could be a series!
Twelve From Cyber Space!What do you think?
I also plan to include a Poetry Page. No, not my own. Hopefully, submissions from other authors. Of course, I would have to pay them, wouldn't I? Oh, and note the pictures in the example below. Some of them I stole from my computer and some I copied from my blogs. On these two pages they represent advertising space. (The curse of all publications.)
In order to fill the publication with stories I shall need to expand and/or complete various short stories from my list. One of the first I shall expand are the Sassy and Otto stories. I've already posted one on A Voice in the Wind and one on this blog. Below is a collage of Sassy and her five friends. They have formed a kind of club, as is evidenced by their wearing the same neckwear.
