CrazyJohn: On Writing
I spent much of the afternoon reading "On Writing" by Stephan King. King has a fabulous literary voice, one that is funny and honest and, as I read it, it seemed he was writing that book just to me.
In the opening chapter, he describes his earliest childhood memories. The fact that he thought "dratty" and "drafty" were the same word made me laugh out loud. I think all kids get words wrong for a period of their life... and then grow up and pretend that they don't get words wrong anymore. Regardless, he recounts his first attempt at writing fiction: four magical animals who helped little kids. They were lead by a character named "Mr. Rabbit Trick," which I think is insanely clever. And, as I was reading it *FLASH* I was magically whisked back to forth grade. I remembered my first attempt at writing fiction: The Killer Doughnuts. Maybe Nate will remember this, maybe he won't... but in fourth grade we were given free time to write whatever we wanted (*FLASH* again! I'll get to the second one in a second). The first thing I wrote was about Killer Doughnuts from outer space... and it was basically just a role call of different kinds of doughnuts (I must have been a fat kid). After that initial role call, something inside of me must have said that, to be interesting, the Killer Doughnuts needed an adversary: Captain Carrot and the Bean Brigade was born. It became a story about the epic struggle between junk food and healthy food. In a way, this story symbolizes what I feel most comfortable writing: adversarial struggles between good and evil which are lightly garnished with clever puns and what some would mistakenly call humor.
I don't remember much about the stories I wrote... only what I've just recounted to you about the basic plot of the stories. And I remember loving, and looking forward to, those free writing times.
The second flash that just occurred was that I just remembered my first time improvising in front of an audience. It was fourth grade, and we were picking--as a class--who was going to represent our class in the talent show. I remember that day as being "hat day"... a special treat for me, since I loved wearing hats so much and we weren't allowed during the regular school year. And, for some reason, we were in the Art Room as a class that day. Regardless, I got up in front of the entire class and did "stand-up." I remember saying something extremely clever about rich people having fish and poor people having dogs... which made no sense to me because dogs eat SO MUCH FOOD and cost so much money and fish are, well, not very interactive. I think I pantomimed petting a fish (complete with giving it a stupid fish name) and it got a big laugh. I didn't win the competition, but my teacher Mrs. Halstead, decided she was going to give me five whole minutes the next day in class just to be in front of the class and do it again. I remember how nervous I was that whole night... now their were expectations, what was I going to say? The next day I brought with me a little microphone that I borrowed from my dad (which I wrapped around the leg of a table up front) and did my "routine." The crowd's reaction wasn't as good as the day before. And I remember Mrs. Halstead left the room at one point... leaving the entire class just watching me. For what seemed like forever.
What ever happened to Mrs. Halstead? Well, for those of you who went on choir tour with me (the smut novel reading choir tour), Mrs. Halstead was the teacher we came across at one of the churches in Florida. Remember? I pointed her out and made her stand up in front of everyone. And then Alex sang to her during our Six Single Singer song and she played along and Alex blushed and didn't know what to do. Remember that? That was her. I love Mrs. Halstead.