Amazon has a device called the Echo. Are you familiar with it? Basically it’s like Siri … but for your house. It has a nice, pleasant feminine voice, but it’s a product that’s not for me.
I don’t need another woman in my house telling me how I’m wrong.
© 2016 – 2017, Joseph K Little. All rights reserved.
One of the things I tend to do with this whole writing business is to make decisions based on the level of fear it invokes in me. The more terrifying I find the potential for something, the harder I dig into myself to actually do it. So as I mentioned in my previous post, I mentioned writing a short story for the Writer’s Symposium at GenCon in 2014. What I didn’t mention is how close I came to not doing it in the first place.
The idea of writing something and reading it in front of a group of unknown people was terrifying. I remember looking over the schedule of events for the symposium and wondering if I could do that. No, no I’d never be able to do that. I was certain of it, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it.
At the time I didn’t know any other writers closely enough to feel confident to ask them to read my stuff, so I mostly asked friends and family who historically gave me high praise. But I knew I needed more. I needed someone to tear me down – in a good way. I needed someone who would be able to separate the bullshit from the Shinola and help me become better in my craft.
I don’t want to be overly critical of my alpha readers, they’ve been wonderful in helping me grow and develop. They’ve encouraged me and pointed out some fatal flaws. For all of that I’m desperately grateful. But they weren’t industry insiders. They weren’t people who did this for a living or even as a hobby. I needed that next step in critique, and that’s why I kept coming back to the idea of writing something and having it critiqued by actual strangers.
It was terrifying to consider. I shook visibly as I reached for the button to reserve my spot. My guts twisted, pushing acid into my stomach higher and higher until I could almost taste it. I salivated nervously and licked my lips before swallowing several times.
Then I pressed the button.
Instantly I felt relief. My guts unwound, and my salivation returned to normal. I still trembled slightly, but it was over. Finished. Complete.
Except it wasn’t. Now I had to write something to read in front of four editors. Fuck.
I went with an idea I had about a young lady being led through a tunnel and into a room where ghouls dined. I didn’t have much more than that, and I wrote it up pretty quickly. That first version was around twelve hundred words. I revised it four or five times after getting input from my readers and ended up with something I’m rather proud of.
When I attended the event at GenCon I was trembling once again. The panelists were really funny and interesting people. They all seemed to know each other and talked and talked and talked and OH MY GOD STOP TALKING I’M DYING HERE!
And talked.
Ooo! I found my notes. The panelists were Jason Schmetzer, Kerrie L Hughes, Dylan Birtolo, and John Helfers. They seemed really cool in all honesty. But I was full of anxiety and ready to go. I mean that literally and figuratively. I wanted to flee, to give up my spot at the table I had secured for myself and go away. It was a terrible idea in the first place. Why did I even consider doing this very, very bad thing?
AND THEY’RE STILL TALKING! HA! HA! HA! HA! THAT WAS FUNNY CAN I DO THIS THING NOW?! AAGH! STILL THE TALKING!
It may not seem like it, but I knew it was only my anxiety being a dick, and it was on point with its dickishness too. I had made a pact with myself, however. I’d worked hard to polish my turd into something I thought was good or at least good enough, and damn it, I was going to see the ordeal through to the end.
Once they FINALLY started, they asked for volunteers. I didn’t want to be first, but I did want to get things over quickly, so I ended up going second or third. They were pretty nice to me I think. They had a range of items with my piece including: The pacing was wrong for someone who’s nervous. Who was this person escorting her? Surely they knew each other somehow for her to go with him. Apparently I gave too many details (sight, sound, texture) too often.
There was more, but I forgot half the things they said almost as soon as my turn was over. All in all, it was a good experience for me. I mean, I wrote a horror story – something I don’t even read very often – and they didn’t laugh me out of the building. Well, maybe they would have had they been assholes, but they didn’t which told me the writing world has some good guys in it. It also told me to keep trying, to keep going, and to get better because there may one day be a place for me – eventually, maybe.
So that has become my model. If I consider doing something and it scares me, I do it.
My latest adventure is to take the Writer’s Digest University class “Worldbuilding in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing” taught by Philip Athans. I haven’t done an online class like this before, and I’m really interested in how it goes. I really didn’t want to spend the money, but so far every time I’ve considered something and did it despite the cost in time and money, I’ve later looked back on the experience and thanked myself and God that I did it. Each thing I have done has helped me grow in my craft, and I am thankful for it all.
So I implore you. If there’s something scary about your art – not dangerous scary, but stupid anxiety scary – and you hear yourself saying “if only …” please, please, please make that jump. Do it. Swallow that stomach acid. Take slow and steady breaths. And press the button. You’ll be glad you did, because at the very least you won’t be sitting around one day and think “if only …”
© 2016, Joseph K Little. All rights reserved.
I have a new schedule. My assistant/manager/wife and I worked it out recently, and right before I was to start the schedule, I got sick. I think what I had was allergy related, but while I didn’t feel horrible, I felt terrible. I couldn’t focus, and I slept an inordinate amount of time. I didn’t write a lick. I’m just not that disciplined yet. On my new schedule, Tuesdays are supposed to be when one of two blog posts per week drop. The post that I would have posted today should have been written written last week and edited yesterday, but that didn’t happen because … well the schedule wasn’t yet in place.
So I’m going throw something together really quickly and call it done. Congratulations, you’re here for my version of a flashback episode.
WEAVING A DREAM or HOW I GOT STARTED AND WHERE I LANGUISHED
Several years ago, around 2010, I attempted NaNoWriMo for the first time. It was a staggering flop. I wrote maybe 15,000 words. I didn’t have any idea what I was doing or where I was going to go with what I wanted to do with the writing. Plus I have to admit that I’m just not as disciplined as one really needs to be to complete 50,000 words in thirty days. Plus I’m ridiculed with self doubt and a really negative inner voice. “You always sucked in English class.” “You have a hard time sitting down to read for more than a minute.” “You are untrained and unskilled.” Honestly, I’m a fucking asshole to myself.
I tried NaNoWriMo again in 2011 or 2012 with an even worse record, so I shelved the idea, the dream. I mean really? Who was I to think I could write a book? If I did, it certainly wouldn’t be any good.
But I’m a glutton for punishment.
I am usually the DM for my D&D games, and I love coming up with complex scenarios and interesting and unexpected surprises for my players. So I always kept looking for helpful hints and perhaps classes that could teach me the fine art of creative writing if for no other reason to help me with my gaming, but honestly I wanted to “legitimately” ‘learn’ how to be an effective writer. Nothing ever fit however. Every option was too formal, or too intimidating, or too … whatever. Then I stumbled upon writeaboutdragons.com, a website constructed by a student of Brandon Sanderson’s 2013 creative writing class at Brigham Young University. The student recorded the entire lecture, and I watched the complete set of videos multiple times – often while playing Minecraft.
For me the class was everything I was looking for because frankly, I fucking love Brandon Sanderson. And the cool thing is he’s a giant nerd too. He plays Magic the Gathering and writes really neat fiction. He’s kind of goofy and really nice. He was in the band in high school. I like to think of him as ME if I hadn’t let anyone tell me what to do in college on my first go around. Sorry. You have to forgive my grandiose dreams. I do love my fiction, but the similarities between him and me are pretty convincing. I mean I *do* play Magic (well used to). And I *am* kind of goofy (No qualifiers, it’s true). And I *am* a really nice guy (even if I am a real asshole to myself and have a horrible sense of what one should and should not say in polite conversation). And I was even in my high school band. The similarities are almost endless!
So I started to write again, but this time I tried to do some of the things that Brandon outlined in his class that I had never done, namely come up with a full plot first. I wasn’t successful with my next attempt – well not at completing the book … yet, but I did craft a pretty nice little story for myself. It was the first thing that I’ve written that people asked for more of. I finally thought, “Hey I might actually be able to do this. Some. Maybe.” My friends and family were there pushing me on, and that was really nice, but what do they know?
SITTING DOWN TO SEW FOR THE FIRST TIME or WHERE AND WHEN I REALLY STARTED
In 2014 I wrote a short story to be read at the Writer’s Symposium being held at GenCon 2014. My fabulous friends and family were encouraging me to write more. So being both horrified at the idea and delightedly giddy, I wrote a short story, revised it several times, and read a portion of it in front of four complete strangers, all accomplished editors. It scared the crap out of me. They gave me honest if lengthy critiques, and I was happy for it, but I wanted to go further than just that. I needed a full review of the work by someone in the know, not just friends and family.
The San Antonio Writer’s Guild short story competition was accepting entries shortly after my GenCon adventure. I took my short story, applied the critique I received at the panel, and revised it once more. I submitted the story. The first round of judging was performed by two separate individuals. These two judges were very different. The first really liked what I had done and gave me very high marks across the board. I think this individual was exactly the kind of person for whom I should write horror. The second judge … well based on the second judge’s grading, I felt like I had re-encountered my most stringent grammarian high school teacher. Not the one who “got me” and wanted to encourage my creativity, but the one who wore a mask of WTF while reading my work. Most of the marks were high, but a few were very low. Regardless, the two combined scores were enough to get my entry into the second round of judging. (Yay, thank you judge who got me!).
The second round of judging in the horror category was done by Joe McKinney. He said some very nice things about my ability to creep a reader out, which was my goal, but suggested that my story fell short in that because the story was told by a dead protagonist and the ending suggested that there was more after, it could really only end up being a revenge tale. I disagreed, but if I didn’t get across what I intended to get across, then I didn’t do my job as a writer. So it doesn’t matter if I disagreed or not. I framed Mr. McKinney’s judgement and I have it hanging above my writing desk. I count it as a win, even if I lost the contest.
After receiving my scores and review for the short story, I was delighted because I knew that I could do this writing thing. I had only written a couple partial novel attempts, and I canned them all while I wrote the short story. They remain canned for the time being as I started a novel based on my short story which was a diary entry of a young French woman living in 19th century Paris – who gets killed by ghouls. My novel would include additional diary entries which would be discovered and translated by a man in the 1980s. I have almost a dozen rough, first drafts of novel entries of this young woman / ghoul as she tries to pass as normal while fighting off her hunger and discovering her supernatural powers. It’s fun.
Since the contest, I’ve attended several day and half-day long writing classes through The Writers’ League of Texas. I’ve watched many Writer’s Digest Tutorial videos. I’ve been on a week long retreat in Alpine, Texas, and I even took a two day class in Houston under Dave Wolverton. Without that one short story, I wouldn’t have had the courage to do any of those things. It is almost sad in a way that I could have missed all those wonder opportunities had I never gone to GenCon or had my story been judged differently in the contest, so I’m very grateful for that success.
SEAMS PULL LOOSE or SHIT HAPPENS
One thing I really desire as a writer is a writing group, a group of people going through the same process as me and needing the same kind of encouragement that I need. That would be cool. I almost had an online group, but people started dropping out pretty quickly. I am now a member of a couple different Facebook groups, but that’s not the same. Not having someone that can read my stuff, knows what I’m struggling with, and holding me accountable when I slack off has been frustrating. In San Antonio there is the San Antonio Writer’s Guild (SAWG) which seems awesome … in the same way that the Library of Congress is awesome. I’m certain that there’s a metric shit ton of talented writers with a plethora of experience in SAWG, but I doubt (logically and emotionally) that my style or genre of writing and my neophyte status would be properly appreciated. And I have to admit, I’m not a big group kind of guy … not for this kind of thing. I want a dedicated group of about 4 to 8 writers who all love fantasy and horror. I want it. I want it. I want it. [babycrying.gif] Anyway, I don’t feel comfortable at the SAWG meetings. I feel … like an angry pimple, ugly and unwanted, ready to burst. I may not be true, but truth is irrelevant here. To make matters worse, SAWG seems to swallow up any smaller groups that are lacking leadership or structure in the San Antonio area. This may be for the best for those groups, but in my mind it already makes a monolithic group that’s already too big for me just that much larger.
Since I couldn’t have my complete way with writing groups, and since Destiny (the video game – don’t play it, it’s too good even when it is bad) has dominated most of my time, I haven’t written more than about ten thousand words in the last several months. I did cross the threshold of actual novel in my word count, which delights me, but I’ve been sitting on that spot for weeks. Longer even. My writing habit has been pulling apart at the seams, and I was simply letting it.
Have you ever simply sat back and watched a facet of your life crumble knowing you had the power, but not the drive, to change it? Well if you haven’t then let me tell you this. It sucks. In situations like this I often feel like if I cannot fix this thing that is falling apart, and fix it perfectly, then I shouldn’t even bother trying. THIS IS BULLSHIT! and I know it, but sometimes that’s not enough. So I sit and watch. Then occasionally I think to myself, “Hey jackass! Why not just pull the seam strings a little and at least slow things down a bit?” Occasionally I actually get off my ass and do exactly that. Sometimes I do more. I’m now trying to do more.
PULLING THINGS BACK TOGETHER or PULLING THINGS BACK TOGETHER
There’s something about this time of year, after all the hectic holidays are over, that makes me want to write. Plus Lent is upon us, and I am tasked with trying to come up with things I can do or things I can give up that will help make me a better person and the world a better place. I haven’t figured out the world so much, so I usually work on the ‘me’ part. Maybe one day, my example will help the world in some small way. Who knows? But it does bring me to now, the schedule, and my determination to make myself a more disciplined person, a more skilled person, and a more successful person who, perhaps, isn’t such a dick to himself.
I’ve written one short story and posted it to my site, “Draug Counts to Ten.” My first draft was over two thousand words. I cut it down to under fifteen hundred, but honestly I think some of the revisions took out a lot of the soul of the story. Lesson learned. I have couple more short stories about Draug coming in the future. I have another short story that everyone wants to think was inspired by American Gods except that I haven’t read that work yet. I’m currently revising that one. I just need to ensure I don’t lose the soul of the story in the process. Finally I have a fantasy story that involves another monk, though this one is a lizard man. I’m trying to go with a pulp fiction style of story with him. We’ll see how that goes.
So basically when it all comes down to it, it seems like I’m actually making some progress. I sure hope so. I just have to be sure to continue without quitting forever. I started blogging years ago. I didn’t post often though. If I had maybe I’d be further down the road, but I can tell that my writing in general continues to improve. If you are like me, if you doubt your very dream, if you don’t think you are worthy of the very goal you are attempting to pursue, then join me in standing up and saying, “Ya know, maybe all this self doubt is pointless … and maybe, just maybe, that little voice in my head should just go fuck off.”
And you know what? Even if you can’t say that right here and right now. That’s OK. Tomorrow is a new day. While you’re waiting on tomorrow to come though, why don’t you go ahead and just jot some ideas down in a notebook? Perhaps one day you’ll look back and inspire yourself with the genius hiding inside.
© 2016, Joseph K Little. All rights reserved.
Hello.
My name is Draug. I’m a student of Master Rue of the Vengeful Wardens Monastery in … um … some place warm? I forget the name of the land. I don’t remember a lot of things very well. Big Brother Otimo says I’m stupid. Master said that might be true, but he also said I was wise which means I can see the truth of things without having to look hard. Big Brother is wise too, but he has to look harder than me. Hehe.
Big Brother isn’t bigger than me. He’s actually smaller. That’s because I’m half of a ogre and half of a human. Otimo is half of a giant but his other half is half of a dwarf. I don’t even want to know how it was possible for me to be made so you can guess I really don’t want to know how he was made. I imagine a lot of screaming was involved.
People usually laugh at that part of the story.
I don’t know why. It sounds horrible.
Anyway, I guess the dwarf in Big Brother makes him smaller than me. He’s strong like me though, just smaller. Believe it or not I’m faster with my hands though, which is weird because my hands are really big compared to everyone else’s.
My fists are really big too. Scary big.
I wanted to tell you about a time when everyone was making fun of me. I think it is important that people hear this story because at first it made me really mad, but now it’s funny. So now when I get mad, I think about this story, and it makes me smile a little.
Big Brother and our friends were all on a boat. A big boat. It had huge sails and a bunch of people on board. It was fun to watch them run around and do all sorts of things like climbing ropes, pulling ropes, tying ropes, coiling ropes, cutting ropes … they really loved ropes.
There was one lady, she wore blue pants and a white shirt. Well when she wore a shirt, it was white. She was really nice to me. She would climb the middle pole of the ship to a bucket at the top. She would climb in and looked all around the sea. I don’t know for what, but I bet it was pretty. I really wanted to climb up there and sit with the lady, but Big Brother said I was too heavy and I might break something.
When Big Brother said he found us a ship to take us to the new place, I was surprised. Me and Big Brother are usually told to go away with very colorful words made serious by the pointing of swords and bows. So when the captain said he will take us and our friends on board, I was surprised. When I saw the captain for the first time, I figured out why. The captain was a monkey.
“No,” Big Brother said, “Captain Blu was an ape. Monkeys have tails.”
Captain Blu didn’t have a tail, but he did have four arms. One arm had no hair because of a fire or something, but Captain Blu covered the hairless arm in tattoos. He said something about turning cut rope into string or something. I think it meant to turn a bad thing into something better. It would have been easier to just say that though. Not everything has to be said all fancy.
Captain Blu was really smart, and he seemed to like to pick on people less smart than him, the stupid ape.
OK, I might still be a little mad.
Anyway, one day we were close to a city when he was talking to his crew. I laughed at something he said, and he looked at me like I punched him or something. It wasn’t my fault. He was the one that said ‘duty’ and made it sound like ‘doody’. How could I not laugh?
He looked at me and said that he doesn’t have room for idiots on his ship. I said I was a little slow, but I wasn’t a dummy. So then he asks if I could count.
I sighed, because counting is hard for me. Master tried to teach me once. I know two full hands are supposed to be ten, and once you run out of fingers you are supposed to start again with eleven. Next time is twenty or something. I know these things, but I can only get to eight, one number for each finger. Big brother has one more finger on each hand, so he could get to ten, but I never really figured it out. He always counted for me so I just stopped trying to learn it.
But now this big smart monkey, sorry … ape, was challenging me to count. I couldn’t run away. We were close to shore, but I didn’t want to swim for a mile to the city that we were going, and I didn’t want to look like a coward. Master always said trying was most important, so I tried.
But I sighed again too.
I used my fingers, “Thumb is one, two, three, and … um four.”
Captain Blu said, “Further than I expected. Good, good.”
Everyone else was quiet.
I looked up to see everyone was staring at me, so I quickly looked back down. I started to sweat a little and switched hands.
“Um five, six, seven, and um thumb is …”
But then I got really nervous. What was the next number? Ten because two hands is ten. But what about eight? I know I have eight fingers not ten. Isn’t there another number too?
I just stood there looking at my big stupid hands.
“T-eight-en?” I asked.
Captain Blu and everyone laughed at me, even the nice lady with blue pants and sometimes shirt. I got really mad and sad all at once. I went and sat where I wasn’t in the way and just wanted to break something. And scream. And maybe cry a little too. Mostly I wanted to run away and punch something for a long time.
Stupid monkey.
I still felt bad when we approached the dock at the city. Big Brother said the city was a good place for people like me and him. We wouldn’t scare anyone if we didn’t do anything bad, and people would treat us close to normal. Right then, I didn’t care either way. I just wanted to be away from the captain.
As soon as the boat got close enough, I got up and started running to the side of the ship nearest the dock.
Captain Blu yelled at me, “First one off the boat has to pay the fee.”
I smiled. I was happy to pay just to get away from him.
I can jump a long way so it was easy to reach the pier. Despite being big, I landed softly and started walking toward the city as fast as I could without running.
That’s when a little man stepped in front of me. He had tiny squinty eyes, a pointed nose, and scruffy hair everywhere. His teeth were long in front too. I stopped in front of him and wondered if it was possible to be half of a squirrel. He held a big open book and stared at me like he wasn’t smaller than me at all.
“You. You there. That boat is docking, and I don’t care if it’s still a dozen feet from the pier yet, nobody and nothing gets into the city until the fee is paid. Ten silver. You got that big man?”
I told the little man that yeah I had that. I started to go for my coins, but the little squirrel man had to keep talking.
“Can you even count to ten, fella?”
I don’t remember the rest.
—-
When Big Brother found me in the woods outside of the city later that night, I had knocked over three big trees by punching them over and over again, and I was working on a fourth. When I knocked over that one I stopped for a rest. Big Brother told me that he saw what happened from the ship. I said I couldn’t remember so he told me. He said that I was talking to the little man and then turned bright red. Then I held both of my big beefy fists in front of the little squirrel man’s face and I yelled, “TEN!”
Big Brother then said that the man fainted, and I walked over him and disappeared into the city.When the squirrel man woke up, he said he was really sorry for insulting me and our fee was waived. Big Brother even said Captain Blu was impressed with my quick thinking. He said that even though I couldn’t count to ten right, I knew how to use my numbers. He invited us for drinks at the pub if Big Brother could find me.
It seems I wasn’t a idiot after all.
© 2016, Joseph K Little. All rights reserved.
Recently I wrote a short story that ended up being just over two thousand words. I wrote the story as a potential post for my site thinking that I should post more content here. I mean obviously I need more content if I ever want to attract people, but I struggle with what kind of content to post. I don’t do politics or religion because you people don’t need to know any of that about me. If you want to know, I’ll tell you in person so I can punch you when you start to correct me. I’d really want this site to be about my progress from dreamer to not-quite-a-dreamer to writer, but I have to write more to do that. Maybe I should post about having no discipline. I’m an expert on that.
The next day I edited the story down to just under 1500 words which seems to be the magic number for contest submissions. I was thinking I might enter the story in the most recent Writer’s Digest short story competition, but I didn’t. Part of me says that I don’t want to be the kind of writer that just writes stuff for competitions, but another part of me asks why not? Mostly I think I’m scared and unsure of myself. I’m unsure of what I want to do and where I want to go. What do I want to do with this craft? Really?
I’m not scared of rejection so much as I’m scared I’ll make the wrong choice and screw up the rest of my journey because I took the low road instead of the high road. Or Hell, what if I think I’m taking one of those roads, but in reality I’m taking the other? To say it frustrates and tires me to run in these circles is an understatement.
Ok so it’s has been a few days since I started this post, AND I have to say I’m slightly tipsy again, almost drunk. It might be that I like bourbon, and it might be that I like being tipsy. Regardless, I feel like, “You know what? F’k how things are usually done. I’m going to do things MY way. And that means giving away some cool stuff for a while at least. So what if I lose out on first publication rights to some of my stuff? I’m a new writer with some (I think) interesting stories. So if people find them for free on my website verses some contest I (probably didn’t) won, then so be it. Screw you Dave Farland! I’m doing my own thing!” (Not really Dave. I love you. I really enjoyed the class I’ve taken from you and I hope to do it again. But in reality. I have NO confidence in myself. So I’m going to build a readership for free first. Then maybe I’ll do a collection of short stories … maybe in a Kickstarter … maybe as a vanity thing, who knows?!)
So anyway, there I am. I make the BEST decisions while tipsy or drunk. OK, that’s not necessarily true, but I do make decisions, which is something I do NOT do sober. So almost immediately following this post, I’ll schedule for release on Saturday a post about my half ogre monk, Draug. He has trouble counting. It’s a fun fantasy story told from the point of view of someone with a slightly less than average IQ. Then later, I’m going to post a story about Tenten, a Lizardman monk (I like monks) in a different fantasy world, who helps a peck (halfling – kinder – hobbit) find her baby. “River gods stole my baby!”
Hahahaha. As indicated, that made me laugh. I crack me up, luckily I’m not made of ceramic.
I REALLY have to stop drinking and do something else.
Thanks folks, this has been fun.
~Joe
© 2016 – 2017, Joseph K Little. All rights reserved.
Several years ago, the ex-husband of a friend of mine, let’s just call him X, mentioned that he hung out once with The Enigma. You may have seen him referenced as The Human Jigsaw. I’d seen images of The Enigma before so I knew who X was describing. For those that were not aware, X explained the detail of The Enigma’s tattoos as well as the various body modifications he has had. My only comment was, “that’s weird.”
I can’t say exactly why, but X was inclined to defend The Enigma and stated how he was a real nice and interesting guy, as if “weird” were a negative adjective. For some, maybe it is, but not for me.
Let’s set some groundwork before I continue. The Enigma is weird. The Merrian-Webster dictionary (online edition) defines weird as “of strange or extraordinary character : odd, fantastic.” There are other definitions, but this is the one that I think is most used in American culture and certainly my intent when describing The Enigma. To this day I think the description is spot on. I mean his appearance and the lengths he went to achieve them are certainly “odd” and possess “strange or extraordinary character.”
So The Enigma is weird.
But I don’t count weird as a pejorative. It may not be as neutral as “tall” or “red,” but without going into how even those simple adjectives could be described as insulting by some, I group weird as a part of a set of word that are not negative in connotation. After all, I count myself as weird (though not as weird as The Enigma).
I grew up in a small town in North Mississippi. I was a Roman Catholic born in Ohio. So I spoke funny, looked a little funny (due to my Portuguese heritage and squinty eyes), was the wrong religion, didn’t like or follow sports or hunting, and was apparently from a family of carpetbaggers. I started off weird. My natural shyness didn’t help, nor did my gregarious dual nature once I was comfortable with a group. Then add on top of that my love of all thing monsters, and I just got weirder. THEN add on top of that my later discovery and love of all things magical … and well let’s just say I really didn’t fit in. I was weird. I didn’t look terribly weird – assuming I wasn’t wearing bell bottom jeans, or sweat pants pulled up to my chest, or really, really big hair. OK, maybe I looked a little out of place too.
Eventually I just got used to being different, then I came to embrace it. Weird is cool. Weird is good. Weird is individual, unique, and different. Weird people do things that other people don’t even imagine doing until years later. Weird people create art and games. Weird people design things that set other people to scratching their heads in wonder. Weird people are awesome.
If I ever call you or someone you know as weird, just know it isn’t a pejorative. It isn’t an insult. Hell if anything it’s a complement. Now if I call you normal …
© 2015, Joseph K Little. All rights reserved.
