Monday, July 30, 2012

Vegetables


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.

2 comments:

  1. My stepdad eats Miracle Whip on bananas. It's pretty disturbing.

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  2. Stephen King is my writing hero! I was scared while reading just a few of them - more due to circumstance than the actual novel. But they are usually pretty sinister.

    I find it interesting to read people's first post. I wonder if vegetables laugh at the rabbits that break into their garden and then get trapped and eaten.

    ........dhole

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