Talk About Tuesday 8

79° doesn't sound hot until it's over 50% humidity with still air and the only things you can hear are exhausted crows, frisky cicadas, and the usual backing-up tones from the local quarry and train yards. It feels like I only ever notice the industrial sounds on still, quiet, miserable days like this. I woke up and it seemed like it was closer to 89° with 500% humidity in my room. No AC upstairs here. Someday I will have that kind of luxury, but today? Nope.

Regardless, I need a topic to discuss. Let's see... I've complained about family like a miserable wretch, talked about money, and ... hold on. Ugh. I'm listening to a playlist of video game music and something from one of the newer Spyro games popped up from before the remakes and after they dumped my boy, Stewart Copeland. What is this generic fantasy bullshit?! Ugh. It'd be fine for a modern RPG or something like that, but this is NOT SPYRO! Where's the whimsey? It sounds like he's tracking a serial killer in 1940s Manhattan, not floating around trying to go through rings and rescue frozen dragons.

Ugh.

I'm old.

Anywho, that's not what I really wanted to talk about. No, what I want to talk about are ideas.

Ideas aren't always easy to come by, but when you're a creative person, they're your bread & butter (or gluten free bread and butter substitute, in some cases. Both are good). How do you know when an idea is good or bad?

The easiest barometer for the relative goodness or badness of an idea is this: does it make me excited? If your idea excites you, it's probably a good idea on the surface. Okay, but what if it's still a bad idea? Well, learn more about what you'll need to do to make that idea real. If it's an activity like Skydiving, you go to skydiving school. If it's an idea like something you're going to write or draw, go look up examples of it! In my case, I basically wound up thinking up a new version of an older book. Unfortunately, then I read the older book.

The older book sucked. It was hard to believe how much money both it and the, frankly, boring movie based on it made.

My book will probably not make that much money. I'm ok with that.

It's basically going to be Chuck-Tingle-level farce, but with infinitely less butt pounding. Uh. If you're not 18, don't look him up.

You might not wanna look him up at all, but if you've been following the Welcome To Nightvale podcast you've probably encountered him...

I'm sorry.

But I'm not, because the idea of writing really schlocky horror is super appealing right now.

Summer horror books aren't usually the best ones, and I'm not aiming for pure literature - this is a beach book all the way.

And how many horror stories are from the perspective of a beleaguered grocery store clerk?

I haven't really found any. The closest I've gotten is Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix. That's a good book, too, so you should absolutely check it out.

I think I'll include a passage from the project for you guys, since you've been so patient with me on Tuesdays so far :) (Warning for some strong language. If you've worked retail, you've probably thought it...)

*****

What did it matter to Andy what had happened to Jolene Meachum's frigging yacht? He'd never own one. No one he'd know as another human being would own one. So it had disappeared into the ocean. Who cared? No one was on board, no one was hurt, and it wasn't leaving a visible trail of gas on the water, so who really gave a fuck? But of course, she was still whining about how horrid it was to have to use the ferry to get from her Summer Home to the mainland and annoy cashiers at the local grocery store instead of running complex maneuvers out on the water to trade goods with local fishermen.

Andy didn't give a single flying fuck. He didn't care that her "business" dealings with the lobstermen were interrupted by the hatefully temporary loss of an overpriced watercraft. The business dealings were probably illegal and probably involved hard drugs anyway. That's mostly what went on on the water, if the fishermen who stumbled into the store with bad teeth and itchy arms were any indicator.

*****

I don't know if that's intriguing to you, guys, but it is to me. Can't tell you the name of the project until I've written more. :)

Go Enjoy Something!
FC