The Ninja Bug Assassin
August 10, 2008 at 11:12 am (authors, blogs, bugs, family, humor, insects, love, marriage, writing) (assassin, author jody l. campbell, bugs, dragonflies, family, grasshoppers, humor, lady bugs, marriage, ninja, spiders)
The other morning, I was making my infamous cup of gourmet coffee, still somewhat puffy eyed, and I was suddenly surprised to see a grasshopper in the inside sill of the kitchen window. It’s an early October morning, so I was thinking he must have hopped on one of us yesterday … perhaps the dog, to get inside out of the cold. I’m wasn’t sure really why, since it’s a relatively harmless little critter, the immediate sight of it somewhat shocked me. I am not afraid of bugs and I’m the hero of the household when it comes to “killing the infiltrating hornet” or “smashing the trespassing spider” or whatever quest assigned to me from my wife … who for all accounts and purposes is utterly terrified of insects. For the most part, I try to gather up the little breaching bugs and bring them outdoors where they are set free to potentially wreak havoc in someone else’s household … a last chance for them, if you will. That particular morning, I realized that the life of that grasshopper was in dire jeopardy. I remember considering trying to scoop it up with my hand and get him outside, but I was still half awake and if I missed, this guy was going to be jumping all over the place and I was going to make a ruckus in a quiet, peaceful and still sleeping household that would surely wake the other occupants. My wife, daughter, and dog were all sleeping soundly and that’s the way I wanted to keep it. On the other hand, if this critter wandered off … or I simply forgot about him … (you reach a certain age and your mind can start to … I forgot what I was going to say) … his fate was certainly doomed. You see … there is an assassin among us in this house. She is silent and does not scream or announce her swat of death. She is covert with lethal precision. And if she saw this poor little insect inside the walls of her home, she would smash this bug without provocation, without remorse, without a glancing thought, and then I will be the one that has to remove the carnage.
My wife is a gentle, loving, and nurturing woman. She is a wonderful mother and a loving wife. She is tender, beautiful, and passive. Except there is a dark side to my wife. She is a super hero to some … to others … mostly in the insect world … she is an evil villain. My wife has an alternate lifestyle. She has been trained in the ancient arts of the Ninja. She knows hundreds of ways to assassinate insects without cause, without provocation, without an ounce of consideration, and without a thought. It must have taken years of training and conditioning for this woman to be as effective as she is. She can assassinate a bug coming near her … not even really going in her direction … just near her and not even really notice that she just killed it … going on about her business as usual, while the dying bug writhes in the throes of death at her feet.
One day … not too long ago, my daughter, my wife, and I were in the back yard playing with our daughter’s toy golf set and I was trying to teach her the all important lessons of pars and teeing off and which club to use for which par. I don’t even like golf, but it seemed important for me to teach her what I know about it. My wife stood in the background and watched admirably as I fought to maintain the focus of the five-year-old with such stimulating techniques. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a small, harmless dragonfly flew near my wife. I’m not talking about the three to four inch variety of dragonfly that makes us all a little bit nervous when it invades our space with loud flapping wings and hovering to and fro in front of our face and over our heads annoyingly, I’m talking small. Like maybe just over an inch … maybe an inch and a half. He was just a little guy. And he wasn’t flying at her. He was flying by her. But he made a mistake. He flew into the international “Non-Fly Zone of The Ninja Bug Assassin.” Also known as INFZNBA. Without flinching … without even really looking, her arm extended out, swatted the crap out of the poor unsuspecting dragonfly… who for all we know was on his way home with a toy for his or her tots as he promised he would be … but as it ended up … not this day … not ever. He fell to the ground immediately dazed and confused. His wings were badly broken and his spine cracked in half. He would never fly again. But that didn’t matter because the assassin wasn’t finished yet. The bug was still alive. Without consideration of this bug or his loved ones, my wife, the Ninja Bug Assassin, lifted a foot and stomped on the poor bug. I would love to say he was dead instantly and felt no pain … that his pain was brief and he died immedietely. However, surprised as I was, my facial expression surely conveying that fact that I did not approve of the unnecessary slaughter I had just witnessed, I watched the long tail section of this bug curl and uncurl as it writhed in painful convulsions which led me to take my larger booted foot and disintegrate the insect to put us both out of our current miseries.
I looked at my wife. I said nothing, but my expression surely spoke volumes.
“What?” she asked in defense of her action. “It was coming at me.”
“No … it wasn’t,” I said shaking my head and reciting a brief eulogy for the deceased.
“It might have,” she tried to convince me.
The most horrific aspect of the whole assassination was the child seeing the entire ordeal. A future Ninja Bug Assassin already in training and not even realizing it. I could see the sparkle in the young girl’s eyes looking at her mother with awe and admiration.
I try to show my daughter which bugs you can pick up and which ones you can’t. Sometimes, I have learned new things about bugs myself. Like ladybugs can actually bite you. Don’t tell me otherwise because one of them little creeps did so once and I winced and said “OW!” to the utter shock and horror of my daughter. She hasn’t picked up a ladybug since that day … and neither have I for that matter. Probably another reason why she will become a skilled assassin like her mother.
The Ninja Bug Assassin style of killing does not exhibit the most choreographic executions to their intended target. It’s not always the most graceful or pretty sights to witness. Sometimes it can even be downright awkward. It can involve hopping around on one leg, while screaming … or running around in circles ducking and rising repeatedly like a chicken … or swaying to and fro with both arms flailing in the air or repeatedly circling around the hair and head of the assassin … as if trying not to drown … with no body of water nearby. Even a variety of these techniques can and will be used in many of the assassinations. The results are always the same. No matter what the poor bug does to escape the Ninja Bug Assassin, it winds up dead. It cannot escape from the lethal clutches of the NBA.
After the assassination, my wife returns to her lifestyle as if nothing happened without conscience. Almost as if humming a lullaby to herself it would seem. The body of the unsuspecting target will be dead or dying at her feet, a mere afterthought before she decides what to make for dinner … or perhaps what she’ll wear to work tomorrow … or ponders whether to fold laundry or do the dishes first. Something of that nature.
That morning, I’m looked at that grasshopper and told it in a whisper trying not to be heard, to stay still. I knew that I was going to forget to all about him when I was more awake and would have the speed needed to catch it and release it. If I tried to before I was fully awake, I would certainly miss and be running and crashing and stomping all over the house to try to catch it before … it’s too late. She would awaken, come out to see what the ruckus was all about … the grasshopper would mistakenly hop near her direction, and without a moment’s notice, even in her foggy state of emerging awakeness, she would strike with deadly results and the carcass of the grasshopper wouldbe squished against the fibers of the carpet and left for the “removal system” AKA … me to clean up the mess.
A happy ending that day, however, I’m glad to announce to all of you bug lovers out there. I didn’t forget about the little guy. Actually, okay … I forgot at first and I was in the office on the computer and heard my wife in the kitchen starting her cup of coffee and a bright amber warning light of memory flashed across the screen of my brain. Oh my God, the grasshopper! I must save his life! I leapt up and without trying to raise too much suspicion went into the kitchen as if to kiss my wife good morning. But the skills of the Ninja Bug Assassin go far beyond the actual executions to the unsuspecting targets. She was dubious of my intent and anyone could tell her sonar, radar, and any other ar she uses was on immediate high alert.
“I have to get rid of a bug,” I confessed. Honesty is the best policy, they say.
Ninja Bug Assassin Mode went into automatic overdrive. She walked across the kitchen like Keanu Reeves in special effects of another Matrix film. Slow motion, yet ready, willing, and able to strike the “blow of death” at any second.
“Where is it?” she challenged in a demonic voice not her own.
“I’ll take care of it,” I promised. Her eyes scoped the entire perimeter of the kitchen and I knew then, this grasshopper’s time on this good green earth was limited.
“Please, Honey,” I pleaded for the innocent bug’s life. “I’ll take care of it. Get me a net from Jadyn’s bedroom.” She did without complaint. I had to be on high alert.
After handing me the net, she retreated back to the safety of the dining room where she watched in silence and … almost what I think may have been a slight degree of melancholy that she was not going to have the opportunity to kill. I scooped up the grasshopper and ran him outside before anything else could happen to him. He must have felt the tension. It was so thick inside, you could have cut it with a knife.
I tipped the net upside down and as he fell to the grass I could have sworn I heard him say … “Bless you, dear sir.” I stuck a finger in my ear and wriggled it all around and went back inside. But first I said, “You’re welcome, friend.” It must have just been my imagination.
All in a day’s work when you live among the Ninja Bug Assassin Association of America, or NBAAA … something our daughter is destined to join the ranks of.
Jody L. Campbell
Two Girls in My Bed … Not Exactly a Fantasy
August 7, 2008 at 10:16 am (authors, blogs, children, computers, family, humor, kids, love, marriage, writing) (acorn, author jody l. campbell, blogs, cartoons, children, early morning, family, humor, kids, writing)
I woke up the other morning around 4 AM and there was this beautiful young girl in our bed between me and my wife. She was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and she smiled when I opened my eyes and she said … “Hi daddy!” Hmmm …
“What are you doin’ in my swamp?” I asked her in my best Shrek impersonation. This, as always, produced a smile.
“Sleeping,” she said.
“You don’t look like you’re sleeping to me,” said I.
Mommy, who was now awake, decided to try and return her to her own bedroom and that seemed to work, but I never got back to sleep. So, I tossed and turned for about an hour and finally relented at about 5 AM and got up. I crank started the dial-up connection and went to the kitchen to start a cup of coffee. In my mind, I was imagining the two tasks competing in a head to head race to see which would get accomplished first: the finished product of a cup of coffee or finally getting online through the archaic dialup and low KBs connection. To my astonishment, the computer won hands down. Adding the necessary ingredients into my coffee, I made my way towards the office, set the coffee on the desk, positioned the chair to a comfortable setting, and placed my hands on the keyboard. Ah yes, I can write … I thought, anyway.
Had I just heard something? A door creaking, maybe? I turned my back to see a fleeting glimpse from the corner of my eye speedily making its way towards our bedroom where I hoped my wife had not suffered the same fate as I had that morning trying to get back to sleep.
“Hey!” I hollered out. The figure’s pitter-pattering feeties stopped dead in their tracks, turned 180 degrees and bee-lined for the office.
“I can’t sleep,” she said.
“Join the club,” I said. She tried in vain to tell me she was scared, but I could tell otherwise with her gorgeous, but lying eyes. She’s not a very accomplished fibber yet. It’s a work in progress.
“Why not lay on your bed with the door open for a while and I’ll protect you since you’re right next door to the office,” I offered.
“Okay,” she said excitedly. Too excitedly for me to think this was going to have any semblance of endurance. Sure enough … a few moments later, she emerged back into the office to tell daddy a really cool story. Of course it was gibberish and she was making it up as she went along. Gotta love her 5 year old imagination. I have no idea where she gets it. <whistles>
Now, if I was Mommy, I’d be making her get back into bed and saying … you need your sleep because I do not want you to be a cranky girl at Nanny’s today and high maintenance when you finally get home tonight. This would produce wailing and crying in protest, and that she was scared and that she wasn’t tired. But I’m not Mommy. And I didn’t want to hear either wailing or crying at this time of the morning. I don’t want to hear wailing or crying any time of the day. I simply do not have the fortitude my wife inhibits when it comes to such matters.
“Look Daddy!” she exclaimed referring to the predawn light coming through the edges of the mini-blinds, “it’s already morning time!”
“Uhuh,” I said, “but it’s still early honey and I want your mommy to be able to sleep.”
“Can I stay up?” she asked knowing I would let her. How does she do that?
“If you stay in your room and occupy yourself without waking up your Mommy.”
Off she went happily and I didn’t really think Mommy was going to get back to sleep in all honesty. She has an uncanny ability to lay there for hours trying, though. And, I used to get up early when I was young. And look at me … I turned out just … fine? … Hmmm … wait a minute!
“Jadyn! Go back to bed!”
“Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!” Now … even the dog was wide awake. I clicked the red X on the upper right hand corner of the monitor screen and called it a day on the Internet.
This very morning, while I write … I have gone through the exact same routine as the other day, sans waking up to my wide awake daughter between my wife and me. I got a little bit further along in the routine this morning. I was already getting my stats on the preseason football games and the final roster cuts when I heard …
“Mommy!” being hollered out from her bedroom. Oy vay! 6:15 AM is what the clock displayed. Wow … she’s sleeping in, I thought to myself sarcastically.
“MOMMY!” She hollered even louder with more enthusiasm while I was deep in thought. One would think I’d be intercepting the hollers before they produced a wide-awake Mommy.
I went to her bedroom and opened the door. “What’s the matter, Honey?” I asked.
“I want my nut.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know, Daddy,” she said with a degree of contempt and a dash of sarcasm. It’s a little early for that, wouldn’t you think?
“Um … NO! I don’t know.”
“The peanut.” I’m still clueless. “I think it’s up on the shelf with my ballerina puppet.” I moved the puppets and saw no peanut. “It’s the one I got out in the woods, Daddy!” Obviously, she finally realized her father still had no idea what he was looking for. “The squirrel nut! Hello!” Yeah, full blown sarcasm. I hate to admit she gets that from me.
Now I finally understood what she was looking for. She had found an acorn in the woods one time while she was hiking with her preschool class. I have not, in all honesty, seen this crazy acorn in several months and why I’m looking for this damn nut at 6:15 this morning when I could be writing a blog entry is quite beyond my realm of reasoning.
“There’s no acorn up here, Jadyn,” I said.
“Oh … okay. I thought it was.” Uhuh … sure you did. Conniving little … Man, I love her though.
As I tried to exit her bedroom and shut the door, I got the “I gotta go potty” routine, so I just knew she wasn’t going back to bed. I used to get up early when I was a kid. And look at me. I turned out just fine. Hmmm … wait a minute. Nope. I don’t want her wailing this morning. I just got an idea for a blog entry. How about petty bribery?
“Jadyn?”
“Yes, Daddy?”
“How about I put Tak and the Power of Ju-ju on for you and you stay real quiet and not wake up Mommy.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” she practically screamed. So much for keeping the house quiet, I thought as the dog emerged from our bedroom.
Anyway … Mommy’s still in bed (wide awake, I’m sure) and my daughter is laying on the sofa watching her TiVo’d television show. And that gave me the opportunity to write this blog writing exercise. Thank goodness!
Jody L. Campbell
The Flower
August 6, 2008 at 9:14 pm (authors, blogs, children, family, humor, learning, love, writing) (author jody l. campbell, daughter, family, flowers, flowers of fortune, free flowers, gifts, humor, lilies, tiger lilies)
I don’t try to over-think things. Maybe that’s my problem. I don’t know what my problem is actually. Here is a true-to-life scenario, my reaction to it, and the inevitable outcome. The common denominator is that I’m a shmuck, but at least I admit it.
“Daddy! Look! Flowers! Can I pick one for momma?” She was so excited about the silly flowers.
They were the same stupid tiger lilies that grew in the back yard every summer. I looked at them and saw that at least ten unopened petals were attached to the same stem formation that had a completely sprouted blossom of brilliant orange. If we picked it now, thought my dense incapacitated mind, the rest of the petals will surely die and we will lose all those flowers. Does it make a difference, really? In the long run? Does it? What do I do with these flowers and the large jungle grass plant part of it after the lilies have passed? I mow it down. And what happens the following year whether I do anything about it or not? They grow back. Without effort. They’re there every year. Let her pick them my mind said.
“If you pick a flower,” instead my stupid mouth butted in, “we will lose ten others.” Is that something that seems personal to me? No. So what’s the big deal? Just looking to ruin a six-year-old’s fascination with flowers. A seemingly perfect opportunity to give her mother something thoughtful that cost me … what exactly? Ten other blossoms? What did those cost me? Nothing. They came with the stupid house.
To defend my pathetic character … let me rephrase that. To … defend my … oh to hell with it. I can’t defend anything about it. It’s stupid. Let her pick the damn flower. Why didn’t I just say yes? Well … I did, so get off my back. But getting back to defending myself … or at least why I wanted to try to pathetically. I wrote this stupid story a couple years back. It was called Flowers of Fortune and it was about orange tiger lilies and for some reason after I wrote this stupid story, the tiger lilies in the back yard became … sacred ground, I guess. I wanted to count them and see if perhaps my story would inevitably become prophetic. Do you want to know what happened to the protagonist of the story? He died. So why in the hell would I want to see if my story would become prophetic? Do I want to die? Not really. The flowers would grow a new amount of blossoms each day and the main character would dream about the new number of them and decided to play the lottery and won. Except he never got to enjoy the money … or even the knowledge that he won, because he was dead long before the lottery drawing. Now that I blew the ending for you … in the event you haven’t already read this tale of mine, does that make sense to you that for some reason, these stupid flowers became some sacred ritual for me to watch grow and count annually? No. It doesn’t make sense to me either. I should have said … “Absolutely, honey. Let’s pick a bunch of them,” but there was something else niggling me. It said inside the narrow minded container of the interior of my brain that we would be wasting precious flower life if we picked it prematurely and teaching my daughter the importance of wasting and not wasting … seemed … pathetically important? I’m trying. It’s weak, I know. But picking and getting to see one blossom for one day before it died and losing ten other potential blossoms seemed wasteful to me at the time.
At least she won. She had that same injured look she gets from her mother. It’s both adorable and irresistible at the same time. Damn that curse on her side of the family!
“Alright,” I gave in. I watched her try to yank one out and I cringed as she almost pulled three square feet of earth and roots up from the ground with her petite but determined hands. “Go get the scissors for daddy,” I suggested. “But don’t run with them!”
“Okay,” she exclaimed excitedly and I worried thinking maybe I should have just gone in and got them myself. Do I worry too much, maybe?
She came back out and I grabbed the scissors and thanked her for the chore she completed. I aimed them strategically at the very stem she had tried to excavate on her own behalf a minute or so ago and cut it on an angle. One opened, brilliant, orange blossom, and ten other wasted sprouts never to open I thought. How dense am I?
Pretty dense I found out. Some people that have green thumbs and have picked tiger lilies before can probably already assume the purpose of this writing of mine. I had no idea. We did not indeed waste any flowers at all. As a matter of fact, we picked that flower about four days ago and have enjoyed three different blossoms sprouted and there’s another one on the way … most likely to sprout and enjoy for tomorrow. They are the flower that keeps on giving … as long as they’re in water, I guess. One blossom opens and the next day, it closes for good and begins to wither away. With the death of that blossom, it seems to send life to another sprout and begin a life cycle anew. We’ll undoubtedly have this one particular stem in our house for well over ten days and have exactly that many days to enjoy that many blossoms.
Today, I have learned an important lesson from my six-year-old. Actually, I’ve learned a lot of lessons from my six-year-old today. I’m glad she’s going to be around to teach her ignorant old man that it’s okay to pick the flowers sometimes. It’s okay to waste a little bit from time to time … especially if it was free to begin with. It’s okay to experiment. It’s okay to be six-years-old … at heart … and want to discover new things.
Thanks darling. I have an idea. Let’s go pick some more of those flowers before they pass their lifespan in the ground out back. Let’s fill our house with the blossoms everywhere. Then I can mow the jungle grass down that much quicker and we can still have some beautiful looking flowers in the house. She may only be six-years-old, but she’s a great teacher and my favorite flower.
Jody L. Campbell
To Write or Not to Write … That is a Question?
August 5, 2008 at 9:58 am (authors, blogs, humor, writing) (authors, ice spiders, jody l. campbell, literary agents, mansquito, novel manuscripts, sci-fi channel, Season of the Sand Devil, traditional publishers)
Perhaps not as poetic as Shakespeare could have … would have eloquently written it … but I ain’t exactly William. The good lord knows I’m trying. Not to emulate William. To exemplify myself. I have no idea how many query letters this makes. How many rejection letters to counter our efforts. My wife is a driving force to be reckoned with and the labors of her hard work are merely squandered by the lack of empathy in this business. The business of writing. Writing for your life, if you will. Because when all is said and done … that’s what I’m really doing.
I must interrupt my thoughts for a moment to tell you all this. I’m online right now … I was going to say … write now, but I didn’t want anyone to think I typoed without it being on purpose. Come on … I have sperl chek. Anywell … whilst online and deciding to write about this in my blog … a familiar voice emitted from the speakers of the laptop announcing the fact that “I have mail.” It not only broke my concentration and made me ponder why in hell I even attempted to write while I was online … what was I thinking … obviously, I wasn’t! Hello … how ya doin’ nice to meet ya! Reluctantly, since my concentration was already broken, I opted to check the email and see who the hell had the gall to bother me while I was writing. Another agent query reply. Oh joy. Another rejection? Should I have just deleted it and saved myself the pain? I opened it … because for crying out loud Jiminy Cricket … you never frickin’ know! I read it. What? I rubbed my eyes and read it again. Did she just say she was interested? Come on. I read it again. And again. I was just about to give up all hope and I’m sure I’m not even near surface of what some other writers have endured before getting accepted. It’s just such a thankless industry. I read it again just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating from the heat index and the humidity. Gall darn … it’s in black and white. She said she’s interested. Somebody pinch me. Ouch! You know … I meant that figuratively … not literally. That frickin’ hurt! Let me read that one more time. OMG … she is … she really, really is. She wants me to snail mail her the stuff and I may have to wait several months. But … she’s interested.
What am I talking about? I assumed you understood. Sorry about that. I have written one book and appeared in two other anthologies. I want to be noticed by my peers as an author. I want to obtain the fruit of my labor. I don’t want to get filthy, stinking rich. It’s not like that. It’s just a little notoriety I’m looking for. Someone to read me and say … yeah … that was alright. He’s not bad. Maybe he’s not Stephen King … maybe he’s not Edgar Allen Poe … hell, I could use the opiates for something to write about lord knows, maybe he’s not Grisham, Rice, Benchley, Hemingway, Lovecraft, O. Henry, Straub, Koontz … but he’s got something. Maybe even if it’s a little something … he has a gift to entertain his audience. He has something to captivate his audience and make them feel the plight of the characters he chooses to write about. He has something. I don’t care how small it is. Do any of you watch the Sci-fi channel? No … this is not true confessions. I don’t really care for that matter. Truth is, I don’t watch that much. I watch Ghost Hunters and some reruns of the X-Files because I was a fan of it when it was on syndicated television. I actually envisioned Gillian Anderson to play the part of Rhonda Lary in my manuscript if they ever made a movie of it. Of course, if you tell her this, I will deny it through my teeth in a state of star-struck awe. But … anyway … the movies they make on there. Is it me? Are there some people out there truly entertained by the movie Mansquito? Half man, half mosquito, all blood sucker. Are you serious? Just the trailer to this movie was bad! Is there someone out there in this world that actually watched that movie and are hoping for a sequel?
Really? People. I got some bad news for you. If you’re one of the ones sitting at home that I just described … half man and half mosquito shouldn’t be sucking anything. First of all, female mosquitoes are the blood suckers of the species. So to be politically correct, the title of the movie should have been Womansquito, not mansquito. The male mosquito simply supplies the sperm to the females who then require a meal of blood to develop the eggs. Male mosquitoes simply eat-slash-drink nectar from flowers and inseminate the female species . Ohhhh … now that’s scary! Maybe if I’m a frickin’ tulip or a daisy! I didn’t watch the movie. I saw the trailer and said to myself … the only thing worse than them making a movie about something this stupid are the people that actually watch it and think it was kinda good. The ones that can’t wait for “The Return of Mansquito.” And then it wasn’t long after this … I saw the trailer for another movie on Sci-fi channel. Now wait a minute before you go accusing me of spending all my time on this channel to begin with. I don’t … and my wife will vow testament to that. I told you the shows I watch on there … and they happen to have commercials … but this trailer I actually saw on “The Best Week Ever” or “The Soup” and they made fun of this movie and exploited the fact that not only was it on the Sci-fi channel, but it was also written by the same guy that wrote … yep … you guessed it … Mansquito. It was called Ice Spiders and it was about giant florescent green spiders that attacked a community of skiers on the slopes of a ski resort. Hey … if this is what you people want … I can write that stuff. I just happen to choose something that I think would be a little more … shall we dare say … entertaining to the mass populous.
So I write these stories and I write these blog entries and I feed-slash-suck off the nectar of my feedback from my friends and my family and I strive to become better at what I do. I belong to Internet writing-slash-author communities where we can all go on and review and rave and bash each others work and say it’s because we want to be better at what we do … and blah, blah, frickin’ blah. No one wants to hear the story they just sat down and wrote sucks. No one. I don’t care who the frig you are. On the flip side of that, people … no one wants to hear that everything they write is “awesome” or “good” or “great.” We all need areas of improvement and when you send out your material to only your friends and family … because they’re the only ones you don’t seem to have to hold a gun to their heads to get to read it … although I have to email them all every now and then and remind them that I have a web site and I’m a writer and I’d appreciate it if they’d read it or I’ll go get my gun … you’re going to get a more partial and biased review than you are if you send it out for an unbiased and neutral community of self-proclaimed writers and authors to review. Some of them may feel challenged by your stuff. Some of them may offer some inspirational advice. Some of them may sabotage your work because they think they’re better than you. Maybe they are. But that wasn’t the reason I put it out there to be reviewed. Nor was that the reason they put their own work out there. It’s just the way they are and maybe the fact that they were not breastfed as infants. I don’t really know all about that nor do I care. I just want to write and be noticed. So instead of the self-publishing avenue this time, I have written a full length manuscript entitled Season of the Sand Devil and I think it’s good enough to be made into a movie that Sci-fi channel could finally be proud to show on their network. I am seeking representation from an agent for this manuscript to get it published by a traditional publishing house.
Can I write? I don’t know. I love to write. That’s what I know. I can type fast like a son-of-a-gun and I don’t even do it the right way and my wife is still envious of how fast I can type. She took all those classes and has worked in the administration field. My typing experience comes from one simple personal typing class in high school and writing on a typewriter, then word processor, and now a computer my whole life. I have a broken right hand for crying out loud and my fingers are a bit gnarled and I can still type pretty darn fast. Typing fast doesn’t make you a good writer. I realize this. What comes from the typing defines whether you have the talent to entertain people or not. Most people that have read me … friends, family, and even the Internet writing communities, all say that I inhibit this talent. Maybe I’m not the greatest. Certainly not the kind of writer that will have a Pulitzer Prize on his mantle. I’m okay with that. But, I’m not the worst writer, either. To give the guy that not only wrote Mansquito another opportunity to go out and write Ice Spiders and then make movies of both his ideas has this insidious way of mocking me. I don’t want to take anything away from this guy. But he’s had two movies made of his writing. (that I know of) I’d give me eye teeth to see my stuff on any channel with the opportunity to finally get noticed for what I am striving to be. A writer. Should I write or should I go? If I write it could mean trouble … if I don’t … it could be … double. Don’t sue me The Clash. I couldn’t help myself and hey … you just got some free advertising because anyone that knows that song of yours has it ringing in their head for the rest of the day, so bite me and you’re welcome.
Is it a miracle that when I sat down to write this, my intention was to express my frustration in this industry, trying to get an agent to represent me to finally notice me … and before I was done writing my first paragraph, I actually had one say via email … they were interested? I don’t know. What are the odds? I don’t really believe in miracles. I believe in hard work and ethics paying dividends. Just because she said she was interested doesn’t mean I’m in. I have a coupla other irons in the fire and lord knows we have a plethora of unreplied queries on the back burner simmering. Hopefully, anyway. If you know me and you love me … clap you hands … no wait … that wasn’t what I was going to say … so much for The Clash song tinkling around in my head … I was going to say … keep your fingers crossed for me. I need some inspiration in this industry right now. It does a body good. Maybe not a body, but a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Unless you’re Edgar Allen Poe and can write under the influence of opiates and pull it off successfully. Now … if you’d all excuse me … I have to go plagiarize the sequel to Mansquito … so I can get frickin’ noticed!
Jody L. Campbell
