Anger, Laughter, and Chocolate

Some anger:
My younger son just finished reading Animal Farm for school. He loved it and hated it. At one point, he became so angry at what was happening that he threw the book across the classroom. Well, not all the way across, but he threw the book. I applaud his outrage over the depredations of Napoleon. The interesting thing to me is that of the kids in his class, only my son and one other kid grew upset over what was going on in the book, and that outraged my son even more. He kept saying to his friends that Napoleon was evil, and they couldn't understand why he was saying that. Right up to the very end. I think this may be very indicative of our culture, because all the kids expected it all turn out okay in the end and, really, Napoleon was just trying to do the right thing. It's interesting and more study should be done about this.

As a side note, I don't remember there being any issue among my friends with understanding the book when I read it in middle school. Now, I'm curious if that was a product of my school (smart kid school) or a product of my generation. I think this question is coming to me about 30 years too late.

Some laughter:
Well, actually, I'm just still laughing over "It was a sock," but, because I'm a nice guy, I'll give you something else to laugh about:




And, now, the chocolate:
Remember, Wednesday is the deadline for submissions in the Great Chocolate Contest. Briane Pagel has a great story in the works, but I'd hate for him to win by default... even if he does say he's going to win anyway.


But, now, the real "Anger and Laughter"! Today is the FREE! release of the newest piece of Shadow Spinner:

Yeah, those are the proof copies, one of which someone should be winning very soon. Only three in existence! My son temporarily has the third one. But, anyway, today, Monday, February 4 and tomorrow, Tuesday, February 5, "Part Fourteen: Anger and Laughter" will be available for FREE! You can't beat that price is all I can say. To go along with the FREE! release of "Anger and Laughter," I also have FREE! today only:
"Part One: The Tunnel"
"Part Six: The Man with No Eyes"
"Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow"
"Part Twelve: The Gash in the Floor"
"Part Thirteen: The Clearing"
Tell your friends, and don't forget to click the little "like" button. That would be awesome!
And, if you've read "The Tunnel" or any of the other parts, it would be great if you'd feel lead to leave a short (or a long) review.

"There's a poop on my floor."

Before I start into today's post, Briane Pagel has been working on his short story for the Great Chocolate Contest. He is, of course, serializing it. I'm not sure why exactly I'm saying "of course" other than that, coming from Briane, it feels like an "of course." At any rate, you can read the story up to its current part
here (part 1)
here (part 2)
here (part 3) and
here (part 4).
This is a good example of why I wanted to do this contest. Briane has taken this in such a different direction than I ever would have thought, and that is an "of course." Still, it's like nothing I would have imagined, and I can't wait to see where he's going with it. My favorite thing is Seal Team i. That's just pure genius. [Just in case you don't have the math background to understand why: "i" is the imaginary number used in all sorts of advanced mathematics. Since this is all based on the "Imagination Room," this is an awesome concept.] Also, the story guest stars Rusty, which is just awesome in and of itself. You should go read!

Today's post:

When you have an animal living in your house, you can just expect the occasional... accident. Even from potty trained animals, it's gonna happen at some point or another in all likelihood. Now, don't get me wrong, the dog is pretty good. She never pees in the house, and she only ever poops in the house if her stomach is upset, and she can't get outside. Like in the middle of the night. And I'm not gonna expand on what "upset" means. Let's just say that the last time we had an issue with her was at Christmas when I let her have a bunch of ham scraps, and by ham scraps I mean mostly ham fat. I will never do that again, because her stomach was upset for about two days after that, and, well, no one wants to clean that up.

Anyway...

This last weekend, my daughter had a friend over to spend the night. The dog

slept in the boys' room. Not that that's not where she normally sleeps, but she did that night because of the friend. The kids sleep with their doors closed at night, so, see, the dog slept in the boys' room means that that is where the dog was the whole night.

The cat was in my room. That's where the cat has decided he needs to sleep of late. At the end of my bed on either my feet or my wife's. Mostly, this is fine. Except that my daughter is more than a little upset that he, the cat,

I think he's contemplating painting his claws.

has decided not to sleep with her anymore. But, then, she's kind of dangerous when she sleeps, so I can understand why the cat might want to be somewhere else.

Basically, that night there had only been two living beings in my daughter's room: my daughter and her friend.

The next morning, as I was semi-dozing on the couch with the dog (because I'd had to get up at 6:00am to let the cat out), my daughter came and poked my in the arm and said in a half-dazed voice (because she wasn't completely awake yet), "Dad, there's a poop on my floor." I'm sorry, but pre-7:00am on a Sunday morning is too early to deal with that sh... stuff. Besides, my kids know that they are responsible for any poop left for them as gifts in their rooms. I took care of anything not in their rooms, but they get to deal with the stuff in their rooms. Let's call  it the price you have to pay for having a pet and for having that pet sleep in bed with you. However, it didn't make any sense that there could be poop in her room, because there had been no animals in her room.

In an effort to find out more information, I said, "What kind of poop?" This is a perfectly logical question and has specifically to do with what kind of clean up job the poop will entail. Basically, "is it hard or soft?" which is the framework within which I expected her answer to fall. Instead, she held up her hands indicating the size of the poop. What she was showing me with her hands was... well, much bigger than, say, a twinkie. My dog, my little dog, has never had a poop that got anywhere near the size of a twinkie, and, if she did, I'd immediately take her to the hospital, because something would be terribly wrong with her. I responded with the only thing that made any kind of sense in my brain (poop is too big for the dog, and the dog wasn't in her room anyway), "Maybe <her friend> pooped in your room?"

No, it probably wasn't the nicest thing to say, but, when you rule out the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable, must be true. Right? Besides, I've known kids to do much, much worse.

The comment did not amuse my daughter. At all. She sort of stomped away down the hall. I didn't get up. Poop on her floor is her job to clean up. And I was still busy trying to figure out how there could be poop on her floor anyway. And I still wasn't completely conscious. The dog was warm and cozifying, and I just didn't feel like moving. Yes, her friend was asleep through all of this.

I think my daughter really was, too.

A couple of minutes later, she came back, stopped next to me and said very flatly, "It was a sock," and walked away.

The laughter, my laughter, woke me up.

And that is the kind of thing that makes me, as a writer, glad I have kids, because there is no way I would ever have thought of anything like that on my own. Seriously, Alex, all writers need kids just as a source of material. They have a genius that adults can never find, and they don't even mean to do it. Don't be surprised if something like this shows up in something I someday write.

Middle School Boys Are Pantsers

It's Friday night as I'm writing this, and I'm sitting here in the midst of a sleepover for my middle child who just turned 12. How do you turn this aging thing off? Seriously! I'm tired of them getting older. Once May gets here, we're going to lose our last single digit child, and that's... very upsetting.

Anyway, I'm sitting her in the midst of this... well, there's no better word for it than chaos. Maybe cacophony. Actually, I really like the word cacophony. It just has such a cool sound to it. See, it's hard to stay on track with all the noise Noise NOISE and the constant distractions.
"Even better than the real thing... child..."
"Oh, my gosh! You guys are so premature!"
And, um, a lot of video game babble that I don't understand and can't repeat although the words "Mario"  and "Zelda" are common.
And there seems to be an outbreak of wet willies.

But all of that is beside the point. If there even is a point.

Well, no, there is a point.
"You're on  the road, but you've got not destination..."
The point is that middle school boys, possibly all boys, are pantsers. Other than  the fact that I bought some pizza and that they had cake, there is no plan at all involved in any of this. At all. In fact, if there had been a plan, a plot of any kind, it wouldn't have worked, because you can't get all of them onto the same thing at the same time unless it has to do with food, and  there was no way that I was going to plan a sleepover that totally revolved around food.
"Through the storm, we reach the shore. You give it all, but I want more."

But, see, I know this about boys. They are kind of easy that way. You invite them over and make sure they have video games available, and they are totally self entertaining. Maybe a movie when it gets late. Actually, yes, a movie when it gets late otherwise they just keep playing video games until they become comatose. That's another word I like, by the way.

You want to know some other words I like? Sure you do. And, if you don't, well, that's too bad.
"Is it getting better, or do you feel the same?"
I like "adamant" and "belligerent." I like the sounds of both of those, too, and I especially like them because they sound like what they are.
"Did I disappoint you or leave a bad taste in your mouth?"
I mean, if I didn't know what adamant meant, I could almost guess it just from the sound of the word. And belligerent sounds like someone itching for a fight.
Did I mention the wet willies?

See, boys, they don't need the plots. They just do their thing. Sometimes they're doing it together, but never are all of them doing it. There's always one or two off on the laptop or some iContraption doing something completely separate from everyone else and being completely fine with it.
"But I still haven't found what I'm looking for."

"No! No pillow lights!"
"Wait! No pillow fights! Turn the light on!"

And now it's time for Mad Libs. With poop. Seriously. Every single one of them has to have the word "poop" or some variant at least once. Unfortunately, some of them are really funny:
"What big poops you have!"

But anyway...
You see how difficult it is to stay on track with all of this... this... stuff... going on?

I'm quite sure this must be what it's like to pants a book. See, the thing is, the boys, they're okay with what's going on, but no one else has a clue as to what's happening or what they're talking about.

My daughter got bored with them. She went off to practice her accordion because she didn't have anything else to do. The boys never noticed she left.

It's completely different from when my daughter has a party. Those things have to be planned. Plotted. Completely. They want things to do. Activities. A time frame. It's an entirely different experience. Okay, true, my daughter's not quite a middle schooler, yet, but I'm pretty sure this isn't gonna change. And the boys have always been like this.

What I do know is that if I were to try and introduce a few girls into this party and make them play by the boy's rules, they'd drive me crazy with how bored they'd get. And, during one of my daughter's parties, if I were to try and put some boys into it, they'd just wander off and not participate.

I don't really know what all of this really has to do with writing other than that different types of people like different kinds of things. Some people like books that don't have a distinct plot where things just sort of happen. Some people like books where only things that matter to the story happen in the story. What I do know is that the two types of people don't mix very well.

I won't be planning any co-ed parties for a while, that's for sure. Wait, what's that I said about halting that whole aging thing?

Oh! Also, don't forget the Great Chocolate Contest in which you could win the greatest chocolate in the world (that I've ever tasted)! Seriously, this stuff is as good as Russel Crowe's ego is big!