When all else fails, read the directions! Crap! If I had a nickel for every time I opened something with the directions on top and bold print stating "read directions first" but didn't, I'd have a few more dollars. With all seriousness aside, it's a curse. Manly-man men never read, must less ask for directions. I think it's a combination of insanity and being et-up with the dumb-ass. Honestly, it's the visual-over load of pages and the mouse at my finger tip. I'm compelled to click until there's something I can focus on and I have 1 point to prove it. Anyways, finally found my way here and in the eternal words of Buckwheat, “Here I is!” My manuscript is 145k words and I'm busy as a beaver whittling. Pretty much a sure thing it will be a home-made Christmas gift for our grown children. Not just because I wrote it. Paper, glue, binding and cover, the whole-nine-yards. A new definition of "limited edition." Maybe I should use duct-tape. What self-respecting wana-be-author from Alabama wouldn't use duct-tape on his "limited edition?" I began writing Growing Pains in LA in 1996. But when my computer fried many years ago, it burnt about 40k words without back-up. I'm about as dumb as I look and superstitious to boot. While canoeing the Choctawhatchee River, I bumped into another wana-be-author. Dying of thirst in the Saharan Desert and finding an all-you-can-drink ice tea stand would have been more likely. I took it as an omen and stopped writing. A couple of years ago I asked myself the question, "What's the worst that can happen?" When that question was posed growing up in LA, the count-down clock started and a world-of-hurt was coming for someone. I began again and wah-lah. Wars, flying and world-wide adventures of the most unusual kind including an elephant rescue attempt was all part of family life. For me and my friends growing up, it was the natural world of LA. Tailor-made for boys to explore. Then there were the neighbors. The sheriff who hired a farmer turned safe-cracker as a deputy and pinned one of his crimes on a rapist to get him behind bars. And the pool hall owner who made so much possible. There was even a psycho chimpanzee that smoke Cuban Cigars and loved to watch "I Love Lucy" when he wasn't drowning cats. Many lives needed to be lived before I began this work of fiction and it took a bit of work to weave Growing Pains. Hence the 145k words. Sometime I think the fiction is more believable than the true events I based the story on. I wrote what I lived, what I learned and imagined the rest. Maybe our grandchildren will read it. Duct-tape lasts a long time. That's my "How-do-you-do" and I'm sticking to it.
Belated welcome to the forum! Uh, when you say "LA", do you mean Los Angeles or Louisiana? Or maybe Labrador? Lagos? Latvia? I'm in Los Angeles and we don't rescue elephants around here. We just gather 'round and watch 'em sink into the La Brea Tar Pits. (Unless, of course, there's a movie camera around, in which case someone like Johnny Weissmuller shows up and rescues it, while yelling and signing autographs.)
Welcome to Writing Forums, Michael! I hope you find what you're looking for here, whatever your interests in writing. This forum aims to provide the best workshopping resources on the internet, and to that end we have a few rules which you should familiarise yourself with before you get stuck in. The main section of the site is the Writing Workshop, where members can post their writing in order to receive critique of their work. However, before we allow members to post their work, they must have met some basic requirements. Firstly, you must have been a member for fourteen days, and have made twenty posts on the forum overall (please note, posts in Word Games do not count towards this). This is so that members, when they post their work, have familiarised themselves with the forums and contributed to them (as well as hopefully learned something for themselves). Secondly, members must provide two constructive reviews of other people's work for each piece of their own that they wish to post. This is because we believe that the focus of workshopping should be equally upon giving reviews as receiving them, as they allow a writer to practice and improve their editing skills, which they can then apply to their own writing. Beyond the Writing Workshop, you will find that we have extensive forums for discussion of aspects of writing, as well as a community area for general discussion. We also run periodic short story and poetry contests, which are good for challenging yourself and expanding your skills. The requirements of the Writing Workshop don't apply to the contests, so new members are allowed (nay, encouraged!) to get stuck in and enter! We also have a growing short story club (think book club, but with short stories!), which you can find stickied in the Book Discussion forum. If you have any questions or problems, then the moderators (myself, Lemex and Dante Dases) should be your first port of call. Any technical problems with the site itself should be directed to Daniel, the site administrator and owner. I would recommend you have a look over the rules so that you know what to expect, and what is expected. But aside from that, I hope you enjoy your time here. Banzai
In Tarzan's Hollywood, elephants didn't need rescuing. He gave a holler, the pachyderms came a-stomping and turned every bad guy into toe-jam. Maybe you should get out a wee bit more often. Been a while since a big-un went down in the goo. But I know you're lying, people in your LA wouldn't sit around and watch a gentle giant go down in the goo. They'd save it. Now the people from my LA would also pull it out. Not to save it, but to eat it. Starting off it might be a tad larger than the frying pan, but they'd cut that sucker up for some mighty-fine eatin. Lookie here, you wouldn't by chance know of any good and free grammar downloads. I've seen a few but don't know which one works the best. Had a free week with one and it was very helpful ( www.free-grammar-check.com.). It would check a chapter in less than a minute. But too many errors, had to cut back to a paragraph or two. Hey! You ever walk into a convenience store and see pigs' feet near the cash register? Always in a gallon glass jar sitting in pink juice, can't miss-um. Buddy told me they taste pretty good. Been trying to build-up the nerve to eat one for a few decades but never seen a jar half-empty, always full. I look at them and no sheit! There's toe jam between those two toes! And thinking of pigs and Hollywood, do you remember the "Pig-Callin Family" who was on Jay Leno some years back? That man and his family called the pigs so fine. It impressed Jay so much, he let him keep the shirt. Imagine that, get to go on the Tonight Show with Jay, travel all the way from Augusta, GA and don't even take a decent shirt. Truth be known, the man didn't have a decent shirt. I know. I worked with the pig caller. Don't know what I did in a past-life, but I'm sure as sheit I'm paying for it now.
Thank you. Your aviator reminds me of a couple of turtle stories. One snapper had the head the size of a cantaloupe and eyeballs bigger than mine. Another found its way into a swimming pool at an apartment complex. The big one was just hungry for the fish on the stringer and not a leg thank God. Couldn't give up wade-fishing fast enough when turtzilla popped his head out of the water. But the other one in the pool was pissed. Took about 15 minutes to fish him out with the life-hook and to get him in the cut-off ice barrel used to cool the beer keg. Bunch of residents watched the turtle rodeo from their balconies and when the manager came outside to see, it turned funny. She walked up real cautious and when she could see the snapper sitting on the bottom, he was sitting up on all-fours. Looked like a junk-yard dog and you could see that pissed-off look. When the damn thing saw her he jumped! Cleared about a foot and the edge of the barrel. The barrel turned over and snapper kept on coming. It wanted her ass real bad. She went running screaming bloody murder and the surrounding upstairs apartments erupted in laughter.
Yeah baby! But only in my mind......Only in my mind. I think they help make all those side-dishes in a story. Are you familiar with the Bill Sketeo hanging hole? You can google him and read the story. I spun my opening and middle around his lynching. Wait a dang second......I was there......Yeah! That's the ticket! I was there man! But I couldn't have a bunch of podunk rednecks torture and kill him. Yeah....It was a bunch of frigging Yankees chasing the good guy. Yeah! That's the ticket! An evil lot. Soldiers of fortune who raped and pillaged their way through Georgia on Sherman's march to the sea. Why not join a Major and find that Confederate gold. They'd be stealing stolen gold from thieves. Already had the raping and murdering down pat. Reckon I did a bit of historical fiction. Honestly, Pretty damn scary to go camping in the boonies with high school buddies and find the hanging hole clean-out just hours after we filled it in. Someone must have been living in the woods. Somewhat common back in the day in LA. Just tending crops.....If you know what I mean. One of those camping buddies played a big role in getting the State of Alabama to place the historical marker nearby. So what's your story?
If you really want to know my story, I'm sure you could find quite a bit digging around on this site. I've probably got too much on here. I'm sure there are a bunch of people who'd prefer I kept quieter.
Well Crap! Dug enough yesterday! 12 yards of pine bark and had to hump-it to beat the rain. Turned out it didn't rain....Thank God. Bark is light but water, that's 8.6 pounds per gallon and would have changed the job and my back big-time. No.....Not going to go digging to a simple Q that goes unanswered. Goodbye.
