I love tigers. Even did a big post about them on February 6, 2022. Missed stuff about the rare Golden Tiger, which there are only 30 of in the world. I’ll add a video about them if I can find one. For now, enjoy the memes and the day.
It’s my son’s birthday. Simple as that for this post. Been thinking of parenting in general, so here are some quotes to celebrate the day. I am a little disappointed that the majority of what I found was about mothers raising children. Not a lot out there for fathers, which really should change since more fathers are involved in parenting these days.
A little background here: I had a really rough week and thought I’d relax with a glass of Chocolate Whiskey. Don’t criticize that choice. Anyway, I had been hydrating all day and had a good lunch, so I thought I was good. About 1/4 into the glass, the ceiling and floor decided to fight for dominance. Maybe the hour of playing Pokemon Go in the heat and not having had dinner reversed my prep. Either way, I’m a little out of it while I write this on Friday night.
Work was crazy busy because a lot of people had off on various days. Some of the kids are still getting used to the changes, so we had a few difficulties. Nothing that is out of the normal, but they are still draining when you’re handling them. Not only physical, but there’s an emotional toll as you help a student who is suffering and you can’t just wave a wand to help them. Think I ended nearly every day feeling like I’d gone through a boxing match with Mike Tyson. I mean, the monster version from the ‘Punch Out’ NES game and not the real one. I’ll be going back for more on Monday though.
Didn’t help that I had to deal with another stressful issue nearly every day. Can’t get into the details of that one, but it isn’t fun to get through a difficult day of work and then contend with more stress. By the end of the day, I was barely standing. The ones where I had my son saw me pushing to my limits in order to make sure he had fun and was taken care of. Collapsed soon after he went to bed, but it was never a relaxing sleep. The days I didn’t have him, I tried to get some editing done and it took the last of my energy. How I managed to wake up for the last few mornings is a miracle? Seriously, emotional stress caused by relentless sources really needs to be factored into my plans more often because I simply can’t keep ignoring them.
That seems like a decent enough segue to my writing world. Well, I did managed to type in edits up to chapter 3. I attempted chapter 3 last night, but the words on the page wouldn’t stay still. I’ll get to that and whatever else I can do today. My plan is type in edits then do the Pokemon Go event until lunch. After lunch, I’ll do more of the edits and eventually make dinner or bring in. Not sure if I feel like cooking even though I bought all the stuff I needed for orange honey chicken. I’ll probably go back out for more Pokemon Go after dinner, but mostly as an excuse to use a Dunkin Donuts card to get ice cream on the way home. Sound like a plan? Well, I hope it works.
I did manage to sort through my story ideas and organize them. Of course, I found that I’ve done this at least 4 other times in the past. This time, I dropped ideas that I didn’t think would work any more and noted the ones being turned into solo or short story collections. The Mylrixians (my superheroes in Windemere) are still making me nervous, but not as much as ‘Child of the Hunt’. I write fantasy, but really wanted to drop an alien adventure into the world just to show how magic interacts with non-Windemere races. In a world where people don’t like such risks, I’m not sure if I should continue that. I also need to rethink ‘Angel of Tears’, which established that there’s a portal to Earth. Not sure I want that anymore, but the entire story involves someone from our world being brought over. I also have a big character in another series that hints at Earthlings having come over from time to time. Maybe I should let the portal be vague, but I don’t really know if that’s possible.
To further explain ‘Angel of Tears’, it was about a group of pirates from inside a section of Windemere that even the gods can’t get into or see. They’re all from different worlds and time periods like a caveman, a crusader, a robot, an alien, etc. They are looking for the lost Angel of Tears whose return will clear the denizens of this area of a curse. She is the one who brought them over until she found a world (Earth) that she liked and tried to go through her own portal. She lost her memory and ended up becoming a college student who strips on the side. The adventure involves her being brought back and having to regain her memories and powers. I still like the overall concept, but the connection to Earth makes the whole thing iffy to me. Yet, the pirates all being from different worlds was a key component.
Nothing else happened this week. Last weekend, my son got to enjoy a little birthday mini-golf and pizza with two of his friends. His real birthday is tomorrow and I’ll be doing lunch and a movie with him. That’s pretty much all there is to life now. Taking it day by day and wondering when things will ease up. The Oswego trip in August should be fun and I’ll be up there in time for a baby introduction a friend is throwing. Great timing on my part as long as I don’t get lost finding my way around up there. I still plan on doing notebook work instead of book editing though. Less stuff to bring up and easier to take a break for a walk or nap.
Goals of the week?
Get a few chapters of Darwin & the Avenging Elf typed in.
Time with son on his birthday.
Finish the Lego Gotham City set and the special display case.
Hydrate and sleep better.
Catch shiny Mega Lucario today.
Tinker with ‘Phi Beta Files’ when waiting for school to start.
Make packing list for Oswego.
Finish ‘Devil is a Part-Timer’ and start watching a new show.
(Before I wrote the stories, I made a poem for Ichabod Brooks. He was Ichabod Jones back then. Also, he was in a science-fiction story where Earth was toxic, except for a few people who could return to the surface. Ichabod was one of these divers who would go down for relics when paid to do so. He’s come a long way. Feel free to check out the fantasy short stories of The Life & Times of Ichabod Brooks.)
Ichabod Jones is a simple scruff
Living on the edge
Dangling his feet
Into the sickening fog
Peering up at the flying city
Humanity’s only home
Ichabod Jones remembers times
When man walked richest soil
Instead of echoing steel
Before the fog encompassed all
Forcing man into the sky
With nothing more than memories
Ichabod Jones breathes deep
Inhaling wisps of fog
Nothing more than a sour taste
Dancing on his gums
Instead of agonizing pain
To those that seek his services
Ichabod Jones is a diver
One of the lucky ones
Who can return to lands long lost
Charging all who wish to pay
For a scrap of forgotten time
Or a keepsake left behind
Ichabod Jones is a simple scruff
Content within his little life
Never wanting more than need
Or perhaps a flask of shine
Enjoying his adventures
Without wading in too deep
Slapstick or physical comedy is more of a visual medium, so it’s very difficult to have it in a book. So, some of these tips will need some ingenuity if you plan on going with this type of humor. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Just have to depend on creative description of acts and reactions as well as the reader’s imagination. If they have an even slightly immature sense of humor, you have a shot.
One of the most important factors in slapstick is that there is pain, but rarely injury or blood. Even an arrow hitting some will just be stuck in them with no spurting. The person will usually stop for a bit, look down, and then have a delayed freak out over the pain. Once you include blood and true injury, the comedy is erased because the person isn’t going to walk it off that easily. I will say the only time you can get away with this is if you’ve established that the character can regenerate or is immortal. Hence why I was able to do more violent slapstick with my vampires in War of Nytefall.
Exaggeration can help in making it clear that this is being done for comedy and not to cause real damage. Just look at any Three Stooges skit and you’ll see how cartoonish the slapstick is. Hit in the head with a hammer? That should kill Curly, but it just hurts with no visual damage. The reaction to the slapstick should be over the top as well. A great example would be Chris Farley who would throw himself into physical comedy . . . literally. His voice would become loud, sharp, and impossible to ignore, which enhanced the effect.
Physical comedy doesn’t always need two people. A person simply has to go through a painful experience, which is exaggerated. They could fall off a house, get in a fight with an automatic door, or be stuck under a bus. Again, the whole concept revolves around ridiculousness even if a situation is totally believable.
Surprise can be an important factor here. Shock of seeing someone hit in the groin without warning or falling off a cliff even you didn’t see means your guard was down at the time. People are more likely to laugh when they aren’t guarded. Of course, there needs to be some hint that this is possible. Can’t have a cliff in the middle of a big city, but you could have an open manhole. Surprsie to the character also makes the exaggerated reaction more believable.
Slapstick from one character to another loses some of the humor when hatred is involved. Sudden anger is one thing because it means the character has lost their temper like Moe Howard. If there is true hatred behind the violence then the tone is much different. It means true damage is intended.
THE TONE OF YOUR STORY NEEDS TO MATCH PHYSICAL COMEDY FOR IT TO WORK! Seriously, it doesn’t really match with anything serious. Those kinds of tones put the readers in a different mindset, so they’ll be thrown off and maybe even horrified by the incident. It won’t appear comical. Just painful.
Groin shots . . . For some reason, they still get laughs.
Legends of Windemere 