I was sitting in the dark with a cup of coffee enjoying 5
a.m. on the Blanco. I was rolling over in my mind a recent comment I heard.
My Sweet Al rolled out of bed, turned on the light and said,
“Okay. Now what are you up to?”
“Only people over fifty read my articles.”
“So.”
“I didn’t want to believe it, but when my friend told me
that, he planted a seed in my mind. Maybe, that’s my niche’, writing articles to
an old people’s magazine about old people.
Do you think it’s come to that?”
“It’s too early to think.”
He didn’t need to think, my mind had been thinking for three
hours. “Well, if that’s the case, what if I move your little sandbox on the
Blanco to a bigger audience. I could develop a story and series around our fifty,
sixty and seventy year old friends. A. A. Milne wrote Winnie the Pooh and he
turned his one acre yard into a hundred acre forest. His little boy’s toys
became his characters.”
“Let me get a cup of coffee, I don’t know if I want to hear
this.”
“My writer friend says I’ve got to change my characters. If
they’re fat, make them skinny, if they’re tall, make them short, if their red
headed, make them blond. Otherwise I might get sued.”
Al choked on his coffee. “Betty, listen to her, you could
get us sued.”
“Don’t call me Betty anymore, I am now Sophia Marie. In the
Greek it means continuous wisdom. Call
me Sophy.”
“I said goodnight to Betty and got up this morning with
Sophia Marie and a Greek lesson. Who is this woman I married?”
“Sophy! That’s my character’s name for my new series. Sophy
is now a wild dyed redhead, whose hair turns purple in the sun. She’s a
washed-up artist turned writer. She wants all her artist and writer friends
around her and Sweet Al tolerates them. She’s had a few bouts with the church
ladies and wants to live out her last days writing stories and learning Greek.
When she meets Jesus she’ll speak Greek to him.”
“Sounds about right.”
“I’ll keep your name Sweet Al since I’ve already made you
famous on Google. In my mind I was casting my characters this morning when you
turned on the light.
I think better in the dark when I’m alone.” I poured myself
another cup of coffee, and looked at Al’s half-full cup. He was resting his
head on the back of the chair, with his eyes closed and his mouth open. “I’ve
already talked to an artist friend, but she gave me all these stipulations. She
warned me, if I write anything mean about her she will sic her husband on me.”
“You don’t need someone’s husband mad at you.”
“I know. I killed that character in a hurry. The most
colorful person in my life is my friend, Jubilee. She’s got to be in the story.
I can’t disguise her. She’s perfect just the way she is. She’s bigger than life,
has a generous smile and gigantic personality. She’s the new fifty who’s sixty,
single, and fun. She definitely has to be one of the characters.”
Al raised his head and looked at me, “You wear me out. Things
you think are funny aren’t that funny to a lot of people. You have to be
careful, you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”
“But people are funny. I’ll go easy on your friends. The two
main characters will be you and Zoom. He reminds me of Winnie-the-Pooh, and you
two are the best of friends in the whole wide world. You live next door to each
other, retired, one wants to play all the time, and the other only knows how to
work. You play with your tractors and mowers in your
twenty-five acre sandbox. He sings to
you in the evenings from his back porch. But, not on Fridays, he plays at the
local pizza restaurant.
I talked to him the other day. He said he trusts me and I
could write anything about him. I’ll pepper in some of our other friends, like
our go-to-Joe friend. I’ll end the articles with one of your thoughts. The
story will be about…
I heard snoring. I looked over. My Sweet Al had fallen asleep in his chair holding his
empty cup. I guess that’s his thought about it all. I’ll have to work on my short stories.
The day started with thinking about colorful characters,
funny stories and a query letter I need to write to the different senior
citizens magazines. It evolved into the afternoon and a phone call. Al’s eighty-one
year old brother called. His gruff voice came over the phone, “Where’s Al?”
“He’s up in his garage.”
“When’s he coming to the house?”
“When I ring the bell for lunch.”
“Poor Al.”
“It’s kinda like you, when you walk into a club, a bell goes
off in these silly girls’ heads, they come running for a free lunch. If it’s
the dinner hour, they get a free dinner and a glass of wine. I hadn’t thought about it, but you’d be
perfect for one of my characters. I’ll have to change your name because of all
your girlfriends. I’ll call you Conrad. Conrad sounds expensive. I’ll nickname you
Con. Con will be whatever we want it to be. How’s that?
“Whatever? I need to talk to Al.”
“I haven’t rung the bell yet. For now you can call me
Sophy.”
“I dated a Sophy once. She was twenty-three…”
“Hold that thought. Tell me later. If you want to talk to
your brother I’ve got to ring the bell.”
Final Brushstroke! Some people love telling their stories,
some don’t. My daughter sent a quote to me, “A bad chapter doesn’t mean the whole
book is bad.” We all have a few bad chapters and we’ve all learned to laugh at
ourselves. But, by the end of our days we’ve written our story, and some of our
lives make unbelievable funny award-winning stories. I might have found my
niche’.
No comments:
Post a Comment