Serials and Scenarios – Comma(on) Rituals - Part !

I propose a charming new ritual – let’s delete Mondays. The extra hours could be turned into Saturday Jr.

Someone who’s really good with legalese or political double talk needs to draft a petition. I’ll sign it.

It should be a ritual to post on Monday, but I’m not quite ready to commit to the requirements of ritual as described below.

Rituals are defined as - A ritual is a formalised, predetermined set of symbolic actions generally performed in a particular environment at a regular, recurring interval. The set of actions that comprise a ritual often include, but are not limited to, such things as recitation, singing, group processions, repetitive dance, manipulation of sacred objects, etc. ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rituals

This explains Cheeseheads and half-naked, brightly painted, screaming men at sporting events.

And I’d paint my torso and wear dairy products on my head and dance if we could really and truly delete Mondays.

I’ve asked some writing buddies for their rituals. I’ll post a few over the next few days.

Though I’m not organized enough to have developed rituals, I’d venture a guess that cleaning out my e-mail files before writing would count as a not-so-productive one.

I suppose I should develop a happy comma success dance. I have trouble with commas. It may come from my less than positive experience with snakes, and what does a comma resemble, I ask you. So, pumped full of adrenaline at the sight of a snakelike comma, I often don’t know what to do with them, and I’ll admit I kind of lose it. Either I use commas as liberally as some use a pepper grinder, or completely randomly.

Fortunately, I have gotten better with careful teaching. Michelle, my first line go to ego stomper (technical term – critique partner) tells me my comma cancer might be in remission.

The best comma rule ever, came from Steve. He stated that words beginning with the same letter as the current month all received a comma at the end. I suppose it’s a reward thing -- good prose gets rewarded with happy little snakes. Kind of like stickers in Kindergarten – maybe.

I think Steve may smoke peppercorns, but it was amusing – don’t try this with editors!

Come back tomorrow for Comma(on) Rituals. : )

Scribbles and Scrambles - Scenes From My Life - Seussian Mom Moment

Now that you’ve read some of my formative events, I’ll share just a few scenes from the lives of my children.

In our home, terms of endearment are creative. And pretty much any word can become one.

When our middle daughter was at that excellent stage where babies laugh at anything and find delight in the strangest things, she did something silly and I called her a little geek. Our son, who was four at the time, burst into tears.

“What’s the matter?”

“You didn’t call me a geek.” So I did, and then he was fine.

Several years later, when said cute baby had grown into a middle schooler, (I refuse to make any statements that could incriminate me about this particular stage in life) she went to a football game with a group of friends.

Drama often accompanies hormonal surges in adolescence. The football game outing sparked and flared with melodrama like the pictures of the surface of the sun.

Said daughter returned home, disgust dripping off her facial features. A few well-aimed questions opened up the happenings of the evening. Apparently, a classmate, juiced on caffeine, sugar and aforementioned hormones, bothered the gaggle of girls all night.

While they watched the game, talked, ate – he was there – tormenting and teasing.

“Mom I was so mad.” She explained in great detail and ended with these lines.

“He ripped off my hat, and pulled out my hair,
And made me spill my chips everywhere!”

This undid me. The sing-song delivery, the cadence, the beauty of the rhyme, the visuals -- I dissolved in laughter. She, not knowing what I was laughing at, stomped her foot. Oh, that settled me right down. Ha.

I laughed myself sick while she gathered the rest of the family who then looked on like helpless, untrained monkeys.

For days, weeks even, I tried to tell this amusing anecdote but couldn’t. Occasionally puffs of airborne words filtered out of the full blown ha, har, ha, hee’s. Never enough for someone to actually understand the story. I could get two to three words out, but then I’d melt into a puddle of glee. The family member who was assigned to accompany me in public would try to tell the story. I heard several versions. Ah, but mine is the best. Wish you could hear it.

Years later, the perfect Seussian delivery still brings a chuckle, and a bubble of hysterical laughter lies just below the surface.

I suppose I should seek professional help…… but how would I ever explain my symptoms?

Scary and Sensational - Stay Tuned - Collins & Hines Summer Thrillers

Heather has thrown down a gauntlet. I now have a goal to make her wet her pants.

How quickly good ideas degenerate into the earthiness of humanity. sigh.

I may share my Dr. Seussian mom moment – that could do it. I’ll have to swirl that one around in my sieve-like brain to see if anything falls out. (Pun intended – like a disposable diaper circa 1973.)

While I’m stewing on that let me share a differently slanted thought.

I’ve decided that Christian fiction writers are some of the neatest, and most talented individuals you could ever hope to meet.

Not only have I been blessed enough to have a group of extremely talented and encouraging critique partners, but I’ve somehow gotten into the enviable place where I occasionally get to read an ARC. Advanced Reader Copies look like the novel, sound like the novel, smell like the novel, but aren’t quite cooked yet. Kind of like entering the kitchen and inhaling baking chocolate chip cookies, oh so close, but you gotta let them cool so you don’t have to seek treatment for severe throat and lip burns.

I have in my possession two very excellent reads that haven’t quite dinged the timer. So, I’ll just dangle these in front of you for just a few seconds.

Brandilyn Collins new series – Kanner Lake – debuts with Violet Dawn. If you love her, you’re going to love this book. If you haven’t read her, and you like suspense, and strong characters – ditto. Suffice it to say that I only stopped reading because my eyes crossed with exhaustion and I couldn’t make out the words. I’ll post a review on Amazon and CBD, soon.

T.L. Hines is a newbie novelist. His Waking Lazarus is -- wow – you’ll be hearing his name thrown around a lot in the next few months. Again, I’ll be posting some reviews. My husband, who does not read a lot, and rarely fiction, picked it up one night and couldn’t put it down. So I was thrilled when he had to work late the next night so we didn’t have to wrestle for it. I so hate it when he begs! Another compelling, eye-crossing read.

I’ll see if I can muster up something for Heather tomorrow. Hmmm.

Scribbles and Scrambles - Twisted Formation - Aunt Har Har Comes to Visit

* some names not mentioned to protect the innocent.

My aunt is only ten years older than me. So when she came to babysit my younger brothers, I got to be her sidekick. As I aged, she babysat only on evenings my parents would be out late. One of her last visits rolled around. I was eleven and almost ready to take over all of the brother wrangling.

Earlier that afternoon my baby brother toddled around the house in the disposable diapers of the seventies. Disposable was the big sell at that point, they didn’t have elastic around the leg holes or cartoon characters emblazoned on them, they were just pretty much disposable, which, if you’ve ever used cloth diapers, you would probably agree made them a very good thing. A friend of mine, Kim, was over hanging out, which is what we used to call playing. She and I went into the living room as bottle clenching toddler buns disappeared into the kitchen. Dad jogged down the stairs intent on some errand, and the three of us met up in the hallway. Kim’s eyes darted to the corner, and mine followed. A small dark olive green object sat at the edge of the entrance to the kitchen. As if magnetized, she leaned closer, and then her body followed her eyes. Dad now had noticed and we watched her bend over and scoop the object up.

Her knit eyebrows screamed confusion, I think she almost scratched her head in bewilderment. “What is this?” She finally asked. By then she was just a foot away from us.

I screamed and Dad laughed one loud guffaw. “It’s a turd!” He chortled and gasped. “From the baby’s diaper!”

I will never forget the scene. Kim launched the disgusting little gem and fled from the room. Dad and I laughed so hard that neither of us wondered what happened to Kim. A flash of white got my attention. I wiped the water from my eyes and watched Kim bend over the offending object with a paper towel clutched in her fist. She scooped it up and raised it high over her head in victory.

Enter Aunt Har Har. The boys were scrubbed and drugged or whatever they did to get rowdy boys to sleep in the seventies. My bedtime neared. Aunt Har Har offered to tuck me in. I think she was just bored. But as we were chatting I remembered the excitement of the flying turd.

She sat on the edge of my bed and I told the story with great relish. She laughed, and then laughed harder. I should mention here that I had a bedside light, not on a table, but on the floor next to my canopy. As I described Kim’s realization and actions. Aunt Har Har bent over double and laughed, “har, har, har, har” into my lamp. And I laughed so hard I peed the bed.

Sigh.

Those were the days.

Scribbles and Scrambles - Twisted Formation - Part 1

Humor is subjective. Some people don’t find the Stooges amusing. Others are left cold by some of the more popular newspaper comics. Napoleon Dynamite is a perfect example. Either you loved it or thought it was the stupidest movie ever to grace celluloid. (Do they still use celluloid or am I mixing up my vocabulary words again? Forgive me if I just laid out some nasty medical condition for your perusal, especially if you’re eating.)

My aunt thinks there should be a DVD with snippets of the great one-liners and comic bits from all of her favorite funny movies, so she could just pop it in and laugh herself sick when she’s having a bad day. But her set of “must have” movies might not be anyone else’s.

This has me wondering why I laugh at the things I laugh at. I have gotten hysterical over some of the most benign and bizarre things. My family loves to see me wind up for a laugh attack. They laugh at me, but hardly ever at what set me off. The most recent attack was during the movie Elizabethtown. A little kid has a temper tantrum, and his screams set me off. I even entered silent laugh mode which is where I laugh so hard no sounds come out except the occasional Smedley-type – “har, har.” Trust me, I’ve lived through many a temper tantrum, and usually they don’t make me laugh. Go figure.

One of the strangest things that gets to me is heavy objects. My husband loves this. This condition (it is probably in medical journals under abnormal psychology) started when I was very young. Mom asked me to pour milk. Every time, and I kid you not, I’d be perfectly fine, normal, and laid-back even, as I opened the fridge. Walking to the table was no problem, but something happened when the lid was off, and I was poised over the cups. Suddenly, the act of pouring milk was off-the-charts hysterical.

I wonder how many nervous breakdowns my mom had. She hid them well, except for the occasional twitches.

Sophistication dawned with motherhood. I now have no desire to laugh when I pour milk.

But moving heavy objects is another story altogether. As long as I bear the burden alone, I’m fine. I can haul boxes with nary a grin. I’ve pushed/humped/heaved heavy furniture across miles of carpet in my day. But if my husband asks me to help him haul something, I lose it. Any psychiatrists out there -- feel free to diagnosis this problem.

Tomorrow, I’ll share a very formative event…entitled Aunt Har-Har.

Serials and Scenarios – Mary and Susan - Swirling Leaves

Happy May Day – the legal ring and run holiday. Not that I know anything about ringing and running.

I asked some authors to add to a couple of story starters (a sentence or two – for the non-writers in the group). Today I want to share two.

Susan Meissner and Mary DeMuth added to the same starter and took it different directions.

I love how creative people think.

I suppose since I focus on dregs, I should come up with some random numbers and give them to mathematics genius (genei? What’s plural for genius?) It’s not fair to leave the logical out, right? Can’t do it… breaking out in…cold sweat. Must stop…thinking about it…now.
Stay tuned…likely for a really long time. Math free site folks.


My story starter is in red italics and their comments are in bold blue.

Susan:
Swirling leaves riding the icy wind, danced up Liesel's skirt. The leaves weren’t the only things stirred up by the breeze which now carried the cloying scent of death.
The tattered pages of the manuscript that lay at the dead man’s feet began to fly about the barn floor. She reached down to grab at them, but a gust of wind snatched them away from her grasp. She ran back to the huge wooden doors, forced her body against them and closed them shut and the papers and leaves settled to the ground in a hush. Liesel knelt down to gingerly peel away a yellowed piece of paper that had plastered itself to her ankle. She carefully turned it over. The printing was smudged in places but she could still make it out. Which meant anyone else could, too, were they to look at it. She grabbed the other pages at her feet, crumpling them into a wad. They would burn quicker that way.
http://susanmeissner.com/

Mary:
Swirling leaves riding the icy wind, danced up Liesel's skirt. The leaves weren’t the only things stirred up by the breeze which now carried the cloying scent of death.
She felt the gun under her skirt, caressed its long handle tucked into her nylons. “That terrible Rolf,” she whispered to herself. “How dare he turn in the Von Trapp family.” She turned the corner. In perfect formation, Rolf stood in the front row of the Young Nazi Brigade, three from the left. She had a perfect shot.
Mary E. DeMuth Blog. Website.

Scribbles and Scrambles - Life's a Circus

My mother must have been crazy. Or maybe not.

Maybe there was brilliance in her madness.

Either way, I’m sure my brother’s usual behaviors and a chance of freedom for a few hours had something to do with her flash of wisdom or complete loss of sanity.

She let us go to the circus without adult supervision.

If memory serves me accurately, I was twelvish, my brother was sixish. Cory, one of my friends, tagged along, probably to help me with David since it took two kid leashes to keep him corralled. Unfortunately, they hadn’t made a kid leash that would keep him in tow very long. We called him Houdini, among other things.

A brief aside……. A Sunday school teacher once asked him his middle name. “David Dammit,” he replied.

This circus adventure opened up a whole new world for the three of us.

A very scary and sticky world.

I suffer from circus dread. Similar to the feeling you experience on roller coasters. Kind of like you almost want to be there, coupled with a swelling dread that causes rumbling and swirling of your three previously consumed meals.

My circus dread began when I encountered a clown. I’m going to be very honest here, please no hate mail or scathing comments. A clown scared the liver out of me when I was five, and to this day clowns cause a nervous sweat to bead my lip and uncontrollable shakes, therefore, I loathe clowns.

I once had to teach a clowning class to Brownies and I required hours of psychotherapy to get beyond the nightmares -- I think – I’ve lost those months.

So, ever since I tossed my popcorn as a young impressionable pup, I’ve suffered from circus dread. Because if there’s a circus in town, there’s lurking clown (s, es – what do you call a herd of clown).

Early on in the excitement of the very warm and muggy Nebraska day, David discovered that the lovely young women on the elephants and horses wore very little clothing. Distracting him became a goal that we soon gave up. Too many women and a pair of binoculars did make it less likely that the place would go up in flames or implode, though. (Not that I’m implying that he blew things up or set things on fire, of course. (Legal/Noogie protection notice)

My friend, Cory, and I relaxed and set out to enjoy the circus. David was glued to the railing right in front of us, and there were three rings of activity to watch. We blew money on the normal circus fair. Cotton candy, popcorn – you get the picture. At one point I purchased a huge cup of Sprite.

As I sat there, inexplicably, I launched the full cup onto the green polyester pant-suited woman in front of me.

In the slow-motion horror of it, I watched the cup turn, douse, land, douse, bounce, douse her entire head and back. Of if only the cotton candy crusted floor had opened up and swallowed me.

I froze. And swallowed hard, lest I follow the Sprite with a bright pink vomit chaser. She turned. It would’ve been a great time for the rapture.

With wobbly bottom lip and tear filled eyes I screeched, “I’m so sorry!”

She stood, looked at the puddle of sugary pop on her seat, probably calculating how long it would take in the heat and humidity for the polyester to dry. It may still be wet and sticky to this day. She smiled, looking a lot like a drowned spotted rat. “That’s okay honey, I’m a klutz, too.”

She disappeared, came back with towels and cleaned up the area. Cory reported all this to me because I had curled up into the fetal position. When I recovered, I noticed that her chair contained someone else. One of her kids. Wonder if he’s still in psychotherapy.