my family weighs in on my book

Tonight I was talking to my mom about a new sub-plot idea I had (which produced good results - my mom suggested that the croco-diamond develop a new product with the Italiani because it really bothered her that I didn't write anything about him getting paid for the squished termaters). I said "I think this could be like shrek" (full disclosure - I've watched about 10 minutes of shrek, which was the most I could stand before being insanely bored, but I've heard it's popular and it seems to be about a bunch of made up shit, like my book). And my mom said "this is better than shrek". Hee.

Then, in procrastination mode, trying to finish my next chapter, I sent an email to my brother Bob:

I've just put the kangawrong, who injured his feet robbing the ton-o-tap, in an adjustable zippy shoe skate with a paddle to propel it.

Am I going insane?

He responded:

probably.  but it was scientifically interesting to me to watch the Hindenburg burn.  Some of us are kinda weird.

I would have put the kangawrong in a position where it stepped in the glue and something large and heavy stuck to its feet.  Something that would have been funny in the context of the plot, like spare tires or palates of produce or something ridiculous.  Then, the croc might have to use the crutches for something like dragging the kanga inadvertently to a soap box race, where tires from the truck (stuck somehow to the kanga) made the contraption work and they won the derby.

Bizarre, yeah.  Engineering, no.  But I still think it would be funny.

Perhaps I should write my next book with my brother. For the record, I will not be gluing tires to the kangawrong.

madly writing!!!! chapter 6

I don't know if it will be possible but I'm really going to try to finish my book so I can enter it in the children's book contest in 8 days. No pressure!!!!

But I'm working away.

Chapter 6:  The Croco-diamond Behaves Badly

After finishing breakfast that morning, the giant man suggested that all go out to the barn to get the cringle crisps ready to be loaded into the ton-o-tap.

“But that’s quite impossible,” said the croco-diamond. “I’ve just had my nails done.”

“You could wear your gloves.” The giant man was surprised at the croco-diamond’s response. Usually he wanted nothing more than to be around cringle crisps.

“No, no I’m afraid that won’t work because…they’ve gone…missing.”

And the giant man saw that they were missing, as well as his new bandana, a pair of his shoes, a pot of cactar jam, the kitchen towel, and a spatula. “What would a cloud possibly want with a spatula?” he muttered to himself.

Then he noticed, that while he had been looking around, that the kangawrong and croco-diamond had gone missing too.

“I hope the clouds haven’t gotten you two!” He called out. But there was no response.

An hour later the ton-o-tap driver was leaving the giant man’s farm when he saw a curious sight. It appeared to be…a walking bandana? With very large shoes that didn’t fit?? On crutches??? And the, well, he guessed it was the head though it was covered up with the bandana, seemed to be wearing…

…a fedora????

As he slowed to get a better look, the walking bandana flagged him down with a crutch. The driver stopped and opened the door to the ton-o-tap. Just then a…sticky kitchen towel? Wielding a giant spatula?? in its gloved hands commanded “Unlock the ton-o-tap! Or I shall spat you with my spatula!”

Speechless, and, certainly confused, the driver walked to the back of the ton-o-tap. The kitchen towel waved the spatula threateningly behind him, or perhaps it was adjusting itself. The bandana clomped behind, tripping over its shoes and making a quiet HIP HIP noise as it walked.

The driver unlocked the ton-o-tap and in a sudden move the kitchen towel threw itself over the driver’s head. Due to the stickiness of the towel the driver could not get it unstuck from his head. Though, it did smell pleasantly of cactar jam, which the driver often put on his morning toast.

A ruckus seemed to be going on inside the truck. He could hear frantic munching and chaotic crunching. The driver yelled out “Help me! Help me! I’ve been attacked by a towel and now I’m all sticky!”

Well of course the giant man came. And was surprised to find his missing shoes and spatula. And puzzled to find the driver with a towel on his head. And curious as to why the tip of his bandana was hanging out of the back of the ton-o-tap. And intrigued to know what, exactly, was going on in there.

Gently swinging open the doors, he discovered…

What he had been worried to discover.

The croco-diamond was laying on baskets in a cringle crisp coma. His eyes were half shut, his mouth full of uneaten crisps, and his entire body was covered in crumbs. The fur of the kangawrong had dusty purple patches from the crushed cringle crisps, and it had nervously hopped with its extraordinarily large feet all over the back of the ton-o-tap, crushing baskets and crisps until all that now remained were teeny tiny pieces.

The giant man knew he should say something.

So he said the first thing that came to mind.

“Oh dear.”

chapter 5 of the cringle crisp book

Just finished chapter 5. A guy in my writer's group recommended I enter a children's book contest sponsored by NAESP. Which means I have to finish this book by 28 February because the submission deadline is 1 March. Yikes!

Chapter 5:  The Giant Man Makes an Announcement Which Displeases the Croco-diamond

With the three working together the production of the giant man’s farm increased tremendously. All were very happy to work and all enjoyed the evenings when they ate dinner together. The croco-diamond would often tell stories of his jewels, the kangawrong would show a new hopping step just invented, and the giant man would lecture on cultivation when the other two performers had exhausted their shows.

But, strange things still continued to happen. As an example, one morning the croco-diamond woke up to find someOne or someThing had devised a jewel cleaner from a discarded toothbrush of the giant man. The bristles had been cut perfectly to get into the crevices between the jewels and the handle was just such a length as to make sure not a single spot on the croco-diamond’s sparkling spine was missed.

Also, the cringle crisps continued to go missing. With the discovery of each empty basket the croco-diamond would stare up at sky.

“They are becoming more devious,” he would say to the giant man. “Today there was not one cloud to be seen. Yet…” He pointed to the five empty baskets of cringle crisps. “It’s quite easy for them to be sneaky because it’s so hard to catch a cloud.”

And while those were the normal strange things, one more thing was observed by the giant man. Though the kangawrong was given plates and plates of cringle crisps, it still seemed a bit underweight. And though the croco-diamond worked almost every day in the field, he was, and this is not said unkindly, getting a bit fat.

But mostly the giant man was not consumed with strange things. Instead he thought of his new plan which, when the time was right, on the evening of a day that had been particularly productive regarding the making of cringle crisps, he revealed to the kangawrong and the croco-diamond.

“I have some very exciting news!” he said as all relaxed in the courtyard. The croco-diamond stirred in his hammock and the kangawrong stopped polishing the croco-diamond’s nails. They looked at the giant man expectantly.

“Tomorrow you shall sit for a portrait,” said the giant man to the croco-diamond, who happily began to floss his teeth. “We are getting boxes for the cringle crisps.”

“Why that’s splendid!” said the croco-diamond. Finished flossing, he stretched himself out in the hammock to see how flat he could make his belly. “Success is about marketing. With pictures of me.”

“And then a ton-oh-tap-tap will come here, to the farm.”

“A ton-oh-tap-tap?”

“Yes! You see all these cringle crisps?” The giant man pointed to the baskets in the courtyard, there must have been at least 40, and then the baskets in the barn, which must have been hundreds. “They will be taken by a ton-oh-tap-tap to a distributor.”

At this news the kangawrong stopped squishing buggallies and did a celebratory hop hop where its feet slapped mid-air, making a clap. The croco-diamond, however, frowned.

“And sold in stores!” The giant man was so happy he threw his hands in the air, hitting his umbrell-ears and causing them to go askew.

“But, what do you mean…stores?” The croco-diamond asked angrily.

“Well, stores. Like the stores you shopped in. Fancy stores. With…with comestibles.”

“But, but stores are expensive.” The croco-diamond raised himself up in the hammock. “Do you propose to take cringle crisps away from the common people? I do not think we should give our supply of cringle crisps, the dietary staple of the common people, to stores.”

“But I…I thought you would be happy. Your…your picture next to other fine comestibles…” The giant man was puzzled, and the croco-diamond’s reaction to his wonderful announcement made him sad.

As for the croco-diamond, he was confused. He wanted his picture on cringle crisp boxes next to all the other fine comestibles, such as Pear-a-mon Raincoat Cookies, Heritage Nutter Sticks, and Creamy Candy Moos. But he also heard a quiet voice inside his head chanting keepy cringle crispies! Keepy cringle crispies!

“I just wonder are we being too hasty. Really, is it necessary to give away all the cringle crisps? Should we not save some for the common people? The people at the market? Whose entire life, perhaps, will be upended and, most probably, destroyed without an affordable cringle crisp?”

The giant man suddenly felt unsure of his plan. “Well, we can make more for the market. And I can’t cancel the ton-oh-tap-tap for tomorrow. It’s already paid for. We…we’ll come up with a solution.”

The croco-diamond did not seem to be listening to the giant man at all. Instead he picked up his jewel cleaner and began to polish his spine for the next day’s portrait. Though he didn’t seem to be paying attention to the polishing. And was repeating something under his breath that sounded, to the giant man, like keepy cringle crispies. Keepy cringle crispies.

Unsure what to do about the croco-diamond’s mood, the giant man asked the kangawrong to help him move the baskets in the courtyard to the barn. He locked the barn door, something rarely, to be honest never, done, just in case there were clouds nearby, waiting to steal the cringle crisps after all had gone to sleep.

But not all slept. That night, in his hammock, the croco-diamond muttered many things which made no sense to the kangawrong, who curled uneasily under the frequently shifting hammock. It did hear something like “plan, a plan, must…make…plan” and a bit later “perhaps, perhaps with crutches, oh, but where will I ever find crutches” before it fell asleep.

The next morning, on waking, the croco-diamond was surprised to find, next to his hammock, a pair of crutches fashioned out of oakal boughs cut the year before by the giant man. They were carefully wrapped with twine and by all appearances looked like official crutches.

The croco-diamond quietly hid them in the bramble shrubs at the edge of the courtyard, careful not to wake the kangawrong. Then he looked up into the sky.

“Clouds?”

The clouds, if they were listening, didn’t answer.

“It’s the only possible explanation. Yes. It must be the clouds.” A solitary tear developed in the croco-diamond’s eye. “I thank you.”

Then he stood at the edge of the courtyard, sketching something in the dirt that, to a keen observer, appeared to be a plan.

I am not a role model

My niece and nephew, turning to the dark side like me, have fallen under the spell of sharks.

Rock on sharks!

I've looked at clouds from both sides now

My brother Bob's literary criticism of my 4th chapter:

"Please don't let the croc turn into Al-Assad".

Also he included this:

don't shoot

Yesterday after my screen writing class I went to a writer's group meeting. Some of us are really starting to gel as a group and the meetings are nice when it's just us.

But, for some reason riff raff always show up to spoil the fun. There's an older guy in our group who occasionally shows up who doesn't seem to have any comprehension of what he's read. He makes the weirdest suggestions. Like:

guy: In this sentence you say croco-diamonds don't show fear. And then a few paragraphs later you say he's afraid.
me: The point being he's afraid even though he doesn't show it.
guy: Really? Because I find that contradictory. How can you be afraid if you aren't showing it?

Ummmmm...What?

Then there's a new crazy woman who just joined the group. She's writing a book/porn piece about a woman who becomes the first Navy SEAL (endearingly, she wrote "Seal") and then proceeds to kill all of her ex-boyfriends (oh, also, the protagonist is an amazing race car driver - she races a Porsche - on a military salary - riiiight - and she travels in ME countries in a burka assassinating people - when I pointed out to her that women in burkas are not allowed to travel around alone in Saudi Arabia she was like "but it's a book" - guess she never heard the rule that an author can bend reality after gaining credibility with her audience - but if I say Denver is the capital of Utah most people won't read my book). Besides being factually insane her reading included a scene recounting oral sex (soon to be dead boyfriend going down on the female protagonist, with stilted and painful conversation following the scene with lines like "how did I taste?" - I'll spare you the rest because it was disgusting and poorly written).

Besides the disturbing topic of her book, she also said 3 times that she would like to assassinate Obama. I didn't say anything as I figured, based on her book, she didn't know jack shit about guns. I just ignored everything she said, including all her stupid comments to people who had their stuff read (to me she said "page numbers are your friends!" - what????).

And then the last reading of the meeting we read my friend Kev's screen play about a kid who finds out his mom was in playboy. The crazy woman flipped out. She said, based on Kev's target audience (boys 14 - 18) that she thought he was destroying the US's morality and that his screen play represented everything wrong with the US. And then she said "I may write porn, but I write it for adults" (note: the section of Kev's screen play that we read had a boner joke and a tampon joke - in these days, who would consider that porn?). I wanted to say "can you ensure your book won't get into the hands of a 14 year old boy?" but thought she was too stupid to argue with.

After her crazy tirade, and another threat from her to shoot the president, the group broke up. I hope she doesn't come back.

chapter 4

Finally got off my lazy ass and wrote chapter 4 of the cringle crisp caper:

Chapter 4:  In Two Strange Events Things Appear and Things Disappear

Soon they arrived home and the kangawrong stepped out of the ticky tap tap with a PLOINK and a BOINK. The croco-diamond decided it needed a bath immediately so as to make the kangawrong look very nice as the croco-diamond liked all things to look nice. And, more importantly, so it would not dirty the future cringle crisps that would be made the next day. Which would be twice as many as had ever been made for the croco-diamond surely could eat a lot of cringle crisps. If they were made by hands that were clean.

The giant man lifted the kangawrong into the kitchen sink and the croco-diamond set to giving it a thorough scrub. Its soft brown fur lost tangles and mats as the croco-diamond gently washed the kangawrong. With a pile of soap bubbles on its head between its drooping wet ears it looked especially cute so the croco-diamond was moved to sing the kangawrong a song:

Oh cringle crisp, oh cringle crisp

You are so very munchy!

Oh cringle crisp, oh cringle crisp

For dinner and for lunchy!

I could eat a bunchy!

Because they are so crunchy!

At bedtime the croco-diamond climbed into the hammock and the kangawrong curled up underneath, its head resting on its enormous tail. It didn’t stir the whole night though the croco-diamond snored –

BZZZ ZZZZ HUCH ZZZZ

The next morning all awoke to find something strange had happened.

First, the old apron of the giant man (which was replaced recently with a new apron) had been made into gloves. The gloves, all agreed, fit the croco-diamond perfectly. He was immensely pleased and ticked his nails in a clicky clap of happiness.

Second, a discarded sun shade stored in the giant man’s closet for years had been transformed into a pair of umbrell-ears. The umbrella-ears fitted to the giant man’s head and would protect him from exposure to the sun.

Lastly, a felt table cloth that had sat with dust in its original packaging for a long, long time, in a drawer in the kitchen next to a rubber band ball, had been fashioned into a fedora that could be worn by the kangawrong. Seemingly it had been designed for its oversized auricles. The fedora looked quite jaunty and stylish so even the croco-diamond admired the kangawrong’s appearance.

But, none knew from where the gifts had come. It was, as said before, very strange.

Donning their new items, they set out to the field after a breakfast of bakey cakes. The croco-diamond began to fill a basket with cringle roots and to instruct the kangawrong on the fine art of picking.

However. There was a problem. The kangawrong’s arms were too short. It couldn’t bend down past its little belly to reach the earth. Its fingers went wriggle wriggle but it couldn’t grab a cringle root.

“This…this is a cringle catastrophe!” cried the croco-diamond. And in an aside to the giant man: “If it can’t do work…perhaps…we have to…eat it.”

At this the kangawrong’s overly large ears pricked up with a toink and a boink. The croco-diamond possibly did not know that kangawrongs have a highly developed sense of hearing.

“We are NOT going to eat the kangawrong,” the giant man said. “I think instead it will be perfect at peeling the cringle roots. And I will do the baking.” At this, quietly inside his head, the croco-diamond now thought crunchy cringle crummies. Cringly crispy yummy. His mouth watered and his teeth felt happier than they had ever been.

So the day went on, the croco-diamond feverishly picking and the giant man cooking with assistance from the kangawrong. The smell of freshly made cringle crisps drying in the sun carried out to the field on a mild wind and made the croco-diamond delirious with joy and anticipation for the end of his work when he could have a snack.

Which makes what happened next another strange thing.

When the croco-diamond returned from the field, delicately removing his gloves and placing them neatly next to his hammock, and polishing quickly his jeweled spine before entering the house for dinner, he found…

Mostly empty cringle crisp baskets.

And a very puzzled giant man.

And a very protective kangawrong. Which was still in its fedora.

The kangawrong hopped in place near the remaining full baskets, fists cocked as if to punch something. Occasionally it would stop hopping to stretch out one enormous foot and squish a curious buggally coming too close to the baskets.

“I don’t know what happened,” said the giant man. “I came out to get the baskets and more than half were empty. Maybe…they were stolen. I put the kangawrong on guard to protect what’s left.”

Which made the kangawrong do a few extra high hop hops. It was very proud to be a guard.

“It is quite odd. Maybe the oddest thing in all of the worlds. Who would steal the cringle crisps?”

The giant man looked at the croco-diamond. “Honestly, I can’t imagine who.”

The croco-diamond lowered its snout towards the earth, deep in thought.

“Then the question should perhaps be “what”. What could steal the cringle crisps.” The croco-diamond pondered for a moment.

“Bird monkeys? Swarming beezles?”

The giant man shook his head.

“A…a teradactalsaurus?”

“I believe those have been extinct. For quite a long time.”

The croco-diamond looked up at the sky, as if searching intently for the culprit.

“There is only one answer then. Yes, the only answer possible.”

The croco-diamond gathered himself up on his hind legs, clasped his hands in front of his belly, and looked at the giant man with such conviction as can only come from knowing an answer is the truth.

“It must have been…the clouds.”

“Clouds.”

“Yes. I believe so.” The croco-diamond began to pace back and forth, a look of serious concern on his face. “We should prepare. We need to prepare. There will surely be some odd precipitation later in the evening. When, ahem, the crisps have been…digested.”

And the croco-diamond did prepare, and prepare the kangawrong, by insisting they eat their before bedtime snack of cringle crisps under the hammock, where the giant man could not see what they were doing.

“My dear, dear creature,” said the croco-diamond, patting the kangawrong’s head and then smoothing down its recently cleaned and shiny ears so that they turned inside out and flopped down, “I would hate for anything to happen to you. You are the most beloved thing to me in all of the worlds.”

The kangawrong’s eyes went wink wink and its little muzzle twitched. It looked adoringly at the croco-diamond.

“Which is why I must tell you something. Very important.”

At this the kangawrong’s ears shot up with a poink and the plate of cringle crisps clutched in its too short arms rattled against its chest.

“You are aware, of course, about the matter regarding your stomach?”

The kangawrong, now a bit frightened, shook its head. Its ears went flap flap.

“I have studied, as you may be aware, the stomachs of many species, as I find them interesting. You are from the family Marsup Awry, genus Marsupal Oops, also, in other regions, called a jack-a-miss and boom-a-whups, first believed to have come into existence as the Phalangeri Doh!, from whom you evolved, during the mid-MioceNeu period. Other members of your family include the Eastern Goof, the Askew-lopine, the Red Unright…”

The droning voice of the croco-diamond made the kangawrong very sleepy. Its eyelids went plonk plonk and its little muzzle drooped downward. The croco-diamond whispered “I’ll just help you with this” and took the plate of cringle crisps from the kangawrong.

“You see, your species has chambers, chambers in the stomach,” continued the croco-diamond in an even more quiet, more boring tone. The kangawrong slumped into a curl next to him so the croco-diamond could more easily scratch its back. With his back foot the croco-diamond carefully pulled the plate of cringle crisps away from the about-to-be-asleep kangawrong.

“And so you see, though you have wide molars, quite nice molars, that can chop and grind, chop, grind…”

Suh. Shuh. The kangawrong was almost asleep.

“I’m just not sure, given your origins, genus, family, appearance and existence based on this period of history, the chambers, the chambers of your stomach, I just can’t be sure…”

Tock. The kangawrong’s eyes fell shut.

“…that cringle crisps are right for you.”

And though some may have thought it awful, selfish, or greedy, the croco-diamond had to eat the kangawrong’s cringle crisps.

So he ate them. Very quietly.