How many of you have eaten a vegetable before?
(Watches people raise hands.)
You cannibalistic bastards.
Nah, I’m just messing with you. I don’t think you’re cannibals, though
I don’t mind if you are. Just remember that I am small and gamey and not good
for eating. And, aside from the cannibal joke I wanted to make I don’t have a
reason for naming this post Vegetables.
I don’t have a reason for much of anything I do. I like to watch
peoples reactions, which is probably why
I do a lot of the stupid shit I do. And, I would like to do more stupid
shit to see more reactions. I don’t know why.
I guess I might just be childish, or play a game with myself to see if
I can guess what a person’s reaction is going to be. Like eating vanilla pudding
out of a mayonnaise jar. Most people, I
believe, would be disgusted by it. I mean, mayo is good for sandwiches, but not
on everything, and not straight from the bottle. (I had a friend once who
thought all food was merely a device to get mayo into his system. It was weird
watching him eat.)
And, there are other things that are interesting to see. Even from
myself. I’ve written stories that terrified me, but I’ve read just about every
Stephen King novel on the market, and not a single one has scared me. Hell, I
wrote a novel just because I knew it would scare my wife. (It did scare her.
Gave her nightmares in fact. And, it did the same to my mentor.) But, during
the writing I was never scared by it. I don’t know if that means I’m not afraid
of zombies or if I was just writing the novels wrong the whole time. (It needs
to go through another draft before I worry about getting it critiqued.)
Anyway, since this has turned into a writing post, I guess I would say
that a lot of what I write is to see how people react to it. I like getting my
work critiqued because I like to see how people react to it, whether they love
it or they hate it, and all the shades of grey between.
And, I use reaction in my writing all the time. (I’m sure everybody who
writes does.) I like to drop something into my character’s path just to see how
they’ll react to it. Will they stand against the mighty vampire? Cower in fear?
Worship him like he’s some dark god? Those reactions I can often guess, since
said character’s are an extension of myself, they’ll pretty much react the way
I think I would react in that situation. And, I’m sorry, but if a vampire pops
up out of nowhere, I’m running like hell.
I had something else I wanted to say, but it went away.
So, in closing, leave the vegetable eating up to Hannibal and I’ll see
you kids later.