The Emerald Rose

It all started back in October of 1962 (The Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK in office, Mr. Guinness a fledgling college Freshman at the State College, and most of you readers not even a glimmer of lust in your Dad’s eye yet!) But anyway, I got an “F” on the first English Essay I submitted, and was furious, and I mean flames coming out the ears and everything. So off I march to see the Professor. “You just write whatever is in, or on your mind. You MUST learn to “construct” an essay, use the exact grammatical structures necessary, proper punctuation, sentence structure, continuity, etc. You write a sort of “street prose” we’ve heard refereed to as “stream of consciousness”,….and that is not acceptable in my class.”

      (No wonder she’s an old maid with no friends!) I was speechless, but I did get off one question to her. “What about the content, the story line, the concept?” Her Professorial, Scholarly, answer, “That has nothing to do with it.” Well needless to say that’s when I decided I will always write the way I write, “stream of consciousness” or not, and I will always tell a story, or make a concept “pop”, regardless of “dangling participles”   prepositions on the end of a sentence, and what ever dyslexic spellings I have intrinsically seared into my brain,…like the word “becasue” I always flip the “u” and the “s”. Of course I know how to spell it but the damn fingers must have been sleeping in class again,(I hate when that happens).

     So that is what I’ve done for forty years now. I have looseleaf books full of short stories I’ve written, I’ve published literally dozens of newspaper articles and columns, and not a single word or correction has been made by an editor. I’m going to start writting for a couple of “trade” publications with circulations of 30,000-50,0000 monthly just to hang out my “credentials” as a Professional Association Manager and Company . Can’t hurt business.

      But the bigger itch is looming again. Every few years it comes out and begins to gnaw at my “creative brain” not nibbles, but big bites! It usually starts when I see a magazine or a book on writing. I WILL sneak back to the store and buy it after about three or four days of it taking bigger and bigger chencks of my brain, or what’s left of it. I’ll cruise through it in a day or two and up it goes onto what I call the “writer shelf” of my book case, along with the other twenty or thirty books on writing.

      Blogging has helped and hurt “the itch”, helped because I can just sit down and “spit it out” on my blog, little unconnected “chunks” of my “stream of consciousness”, AND even get feedback from you guys. It hurts because it’s lie an addictive drug,….I want more, nay,…I have to have more,….I must write more!!!

     I can tell you for a fact that if I win the Lottery, after the mundane payoff the mortgage, send each of the kids $100,000, go rent a 45 foot sailboat for two weeks of cruising in the Caribbean (with the wife), I would come back “crack my knuckles” sit down and work sun up to sunset and write a novel that I am pleased with. (see preposition on the end of the sentence,…I bad!). Everyone has their “I want to….” list, and this is top on mine. I even think of “sick thoughts” to get the time. In other words I bought a laptop computer and maxed it out on memory, storage, connectivity, programs etc. basically for one “sick thought”,..that if I EVER have to go to the hospital for anything of a major type stay, my last words as the EMT’s wheel me to the Ambulance will be “Make sure you bring my laptop when you come to see me the first time,…please!” How’s that for demented!

       So what would I write, a “spy novel”, a Terror novel (never, that stuff creeps me out!), a Sci-Fi novel (Naw, my brain is too rooted in reality to contemplate counter realities!), an Adventure novel like the Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlam stuff,  …Yeah that would be my “genre” , fast moving, suspenseful, little romantic angle (hey even “Super sleuth es ” need a little “spoon” right Lucy?) a little death defying escaping, a tad of almost being crushed by the train whizzing by, that kind of stuff. I’ve been playing with a “conspiracy” concept of a small tight knot group of “financial moguls” creating this whole melt down scenario to cover up an even bigger international scam that would permanently shift the power structure of the world, and create an entire new “Economy”,….it’s a rough idea now, but it’s getting fleshed out slowly. Gotta get more “humanity” in it lest it be a boring economic text book bomb.

   Well, that’s the itch, the one that’s hard to scratch! No way I can just come home and do piecemeal writing, and put it all together. I am the “stream of consciousness guy” and need to sit and write until my fingers drop off, with an IV of Guinness twice a day and food I can eat with one hand while I continue to write. (I told you it is “an itch you can’t scratch”. In a lot odf cases it has been driving me nuts for years, it’s what motivates me to build businesses so I can sell them off, take the time off and concentrate on writing. Failure is not an option in my mind regarding this whole writing obsession.

     Well I hope I haven’t bored you to death, just remember, in case the stroke zap’s my speech, e-mail my wife and tell her I WANT my laptop, not flowers, cards and that crap, my laptop, and if you can smuggle in a few pints o’ Guinness, that too would be appreciated, and I will guarantee you will be in the dedication of the book,…..

       “This book is dedicated to ……………………..without whose concern that my laptop get to me, and “a few pints to fuel the flow of words”, this book never would have been written,….Thank you!”

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