I have been told that I have a face for radio! I am pretty sure they meant voice instead of face. But it was a photographer that said it. No I'm sure they meant voice. Yeah, that's what I'm pinning my hopes to. I had officially stopped trying to get people to pay me millions of dollars for writing all of this nonsense...for a while. As I was driving home I realized that I have entirely something else to offer! When the book comes out I will be able to read it into the books on tape myself (actually CD - but I wanted to give a hint into my age). So that is something to consider everyone who has millions for me...value added!
Anyway, I have always been terribly shy. All during school I would just dread times when a teacher, an adult, another student, my mirror...would pay attention to me. Also, I was not the most confident reader in the world. I pretty much stuck with Richie Rich comics and Mad Magazines. Not a lot of challenging text there. I did, however, learn how to spell many sound effects! Schlorrrp! For example, is the sound of your foot stepping into a giant mud puddle. My least favorite days in school were the round robin days where everyone read a paragraph or two, OUT LOUD, so the teacher was sure that everyone had at least been exposed to the words in the book. I was exposed all right, I spent a large portion of my time counting first people, then paragraphs, then minutes to see if I would really need to do it today! If yes (DRAT) then I would read my section a few times so I wouldn't turn beet red while reading because I stumbled on a word. It was a great system! Great, that is, until the teacher gave out tests that didn't pertain to my particular paragraph! I didn't realize until much later that no one cared about me, not being mean, they were just equally worried that THEY would make a mistake and get embarrassed. So that pretty much sums up what I experienced in high school.
After I decided to go back to college, and had a few successes under my ever lengthening belt, I was far more mature and far less likely to get embarrassed if I made a mistake. Something else happened too. I got to choose the classes I wanted to take! I decided to take a few creative writing courses (I'll wait for the screams of "Go Back!" and "Get your money back!" to die down)...and the teacher insisted that we become published. To her, publishing meant for other people to read and/or hear your writing. Three things happened. I got more comfortable reading out loud, people wanted me to read their papers to the class (apparently they thought I had a soothing voice), and the other students laughed when I read papers about my life. Talk about an ego boost! Now they couldn't shut me up. In fact, the teacher implored me to keep a journal of all the funny things that happened around my life.
Fast forward many, many years later and I am finally getting around to it. I think my teacher may have had the first idea for a BLOG back before there was anything like this. At this time you could keep a record of your work on only two or three disks that were 5 inches wide and it took only a little over a day to download a large picture. And heaven forbid if you got a phone call in the middle of anything. I suppose this will be my generations equivalent to walking 5 miles in the snow to get to school. "Why when I was a boy, our game system had only two options! Large paddle, small paddle!" You see youngsters, when PONG came out ... Commodore 64... Pacman... Record player... 8 Track?!! Sorry about that, I got stuck in a time warp.
So here I am, keeping a record for my kids that they, hopefully, will laugh at in the distant future. Telling stories of little pieces of what is happening and what was happening in our lives. Also, when it comes down to them wanting to have me committed I will have proof that I have always been like this! Hah! Take that judge!
OK, so I apologize for not starting sooner (or starting at all -depending on your point of view) in keeping track of the things in our lives. I am a bit of a procrastinator. I will write a blog about it someday...when I get around to it.
Playing with words is fun. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do writing them!
You do know the story of the GPS, don't you? It NEVER asks you where you've been, nor why haven't you done something different, etc. It only wants to know where do you want to go! Brilliant little miracle of a device, I am thinking!!
ReplyDeleteJust keep going! As long as where you want to go is to write and keep me amused! :)