Hell and Wheels

“Pennywise Office Supply, they all float down here.”

That’s how I was tempted to answer the phone the entire three months I worked as a telephone customer service representative at Pennywise Office Supply when I was twenty. It was a depressing job — think along the lines of The Office, but with less lighting, more mildew, and a lot sketchier neighborhood. Even better were the Saturdays I was required to work ten-to-six, fielding maybe three phone calls the entire day while the warehouse below me loomed vast and dark (they didn’t turn those lights on, despite the fact that it was a solo shift, and no other workers were ever in the labyrinth-like building the long hours I sat there). The only breaks in the monotony were bouts of violence from the packs of junior thugs outside who’d, on occasion, beat the snot out of someone passing by — which only reminded me that I would have to take my chances with them in another few hours, as well.

Like I said, it was a great gig.

All this comes up because on the way back from Hershey Park on Saturday, my brother-in-law played It on the DVD player in his spaceship/car for his three kids — none of whom were impressed. I’d forgotten how bad that movie was. The only redeeming factor was Tim Curry playing Pennywise, but even my favorite line, “They all float down here,” was beaten to death by the end. And the big space turtle, well, we won’t even go there.

There’s something about Stephen King’s stories that just don’t translate well to celluloid. I think it has to do with his style, how he can make the most ridiculous things seem terrifying. But, when someone attempts to translate that imagery to film, it all falls apart. I think his exact words, his exact descriptions are necessary — which, of course, can’t happen when turning a manuscript into a film script. Even my favorite, The Shining wouldn’t have been very good if not for Jack Nicholson’s plastic face and rasping voice. The special effects were marginal, at best, and the essence of the story was mostly lost. This is especially true of Danny’s gift, and his relationship with the caretaker. There was just enough of his Shining mentioned in the movie to enable them to wrap up the ending. The real feel for what his gift was and what it meant to Danny was gone. By the time Hollywood was done with it, there wasn’t much Shine left to it at all.

Still, this reunion with Pennywise left me nostalgic for my teenage years when I plowed through every one of King’s books with a zealot’s fervor. I think I might have to find my old copy of It once more. After all, that’s the book that confirmed my long-held belief that clowns are seriously messed up.

As for Pennywise the office supply store, I don’t know of its fate. Maybe the entire building finally succumbed to dampness and gravity. Maybe Staples ran them out of business. Or, maybe there’s an unfortunate twenty year-old sitting in my former desk right now, suppressing with every shrill ring of the phone the urge to pick up and say, “Pennywise Office Supply, they all float down here.”

My web-hunting friend, X, has managed once again to surface with a winner. From the good people over at Something Awful comes a review for a movie that insists — and I quote — “Where Buffy leaves off, Avia Richards the vampire huntress begins.” This is just about the funniest review ever. It’s so damn amusing, I even feel compelled to procure this video and see for myself.

The review is three pages long, but well worth it, I assure you. My favorite quotes are, in order of hilarity:

1) “Passing by this nefarious killer’s Titanic poster, the detectives head up into the attic in search of their suspect.“

2) “Nothing like seeing two virtual strangers dry hump while their teeth glow Chernobyl blue.”

3) “Vampires are the misplaced keys of the monster world.”

4) And the best of all, a direct quote from the film itself. “Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m killing innocent people. But the fact is that I am Avia, Vampire Hunter, and I will not stop until all vampires are dead.”

That last one sets the tone nicely, doesn’t it?

So without further ado, Ben ‘Greasnin” Platt’s Review of Avia Vampire Hunter

Oh. And a video of the trailer. God bless YouTube.

…it’s out there. Three years after I started this novel, my first query package has left my desk and zipped through cyberspace to the first agent’s inbox. Knowing that it’s there right now, waiting to be opened, makes me feel–quite honestly–violently ill.

Have you ever seen the movie Office Space? There’s a part where an employee who’d been embezzling funds from his company puts a letter admitting his guilt under his boss’ door. The letter slips from his hands and slides far into the room. He stands, enjoying a brief instant of satisfaction, and then dives back down in a panic, stretching his fingers under the door crack in a vain attempt to retrieve it. That’s how I felt when I hit the ‘Send’ button. Like I’d have done anything at that moment to pull it back. It’s not that I didn’t do my best, or feel that it wasn’t ready, it was just a knee-jerk reaction to finally stepping up and letting someone who could possibly alter my future have a look at it. It’s pretty scary, and I admire those of you who’ve already done it.

I’m having mini-daymares about the possible mistakes I overlooked. Earlier, when I went to make a minor correction and tried to write, ‘its,’ I ended up writing, ‘tits.’ Now I’m sitting here imagining an entire document peppered with the word ‘tits’ in random places. Very professional.

Since this is a firm that takes only online submissions placed in the body of an e-mail, I had to grapple with the loss of formatting, as well. I nagged a tech friend, I e-mailed him drafts saved in HTML, RTF, DOC and TXT. None would save my indents or my line spacing. At least TXT got rid of the strange line breaks. Then again, who knows what has happened to the submission on their end? Green text? A mishmash of lines without any breaks at all? Gibberish symbols in the place of em-dashes? I really cringe to think about what happened the minute my Mac tried to play nice with a PC. Then again, if online submissions are all they’ll accept, then they must have seen pretty much everything go wrong with formatting before, anyway.

As soon as I banish this bout of queasiness, I think I’ll go ahead and write up the full plot outlines of my next two books. It’ll take my mind off of things, and prepare me for my future — which now hangs in the hands of someone other than myself (Did you hear that? It was my stomach rumbling again). Plus, the final Harry Potter will be out next month — a welcome distraction for my obsessive mind.

It’s a weird feeling, this is. One that’s both elating and panic-inducing. But, at least I did it. I took my novel-in-progress, and, with a click, turned it into a novel under consideration.

That’s got to be worth something, right?

Even we writers — who are by trade a blessedly reclusive lot — are forced at times to get out there in society, clink glasses and make polite chitchat. Many of us, however, are so used to directing our little worlds and making conversations go the way we want them that we sometimes drop the ball when speaking to someone who didn’t spring from our own frenzied minds. We not only forget the social world isn’t ours to control, but oftentimes forget there is another world out there, at all.

If at social events you sit in the farthest corner and pray to become invisible, or if you circulate parties like a shark, knowing with deep and unwavering certainty the moment you pause by the chip bowl that inevitable annoying person will corner you and proceed to fire all sorts of boring, nonsensical, or offensive small talk your way, then I have a few tools to help you survive (and maybe even enjoy) your next event.

PLAYING NICE 101***

Before getting to the Do’s, I’d like to address a few amateur tactics that fall under the widely accepted category of ‘Don’ts.’

1) Don’t stare at the floor, ceiling or a thousand yards ahead of you without proper eye-disguise (detailed below). People are largely of the opinion that writers are a spacey lot. We don’t need to give them fuel for the fire.

2) Don’t run in the opposite direction when someone approaches. It makes you appear cowardly, and a fitting target for later on when the party kicks in and that individual makes his way back around to you.

3) Don’t act like you’ve got major attitude, unless you do. In which case, no one will want to talk to you, anyway.

4) Don’t drown in alcohol. It’ll take the edge off the social discomfort, but will also take the edge off your mind, and you’ll suddenly find yourself in a circle of people talking at great lengths about the newest adventures of Paris Hilton. And you don’t want that, do you?

Okay. Now that we’ve dispelled some of the wrong ways to survive a party, we’ll move on to the right ones.

TO AVOID SPEAKING TO ANYONE AT ALL:

1) HOLD COURT. You’ll need to find a chair, preferably one that’s higher than all the others. Position it under a light source — spotlights are great, recessed lighting will do (fluorescents should be avoided; you’re trying to look regal, not like death incarnate). Make sure your back is to the wall. If you can manage it so that all available aisle-space leads directly to you, all the better. Sit upon your new throne with a rigid back and an expression of apathy. The darker your overall look, the better this technique works. Do not hunch! If you have a drink, hold it away from you as if the condensation droplets are unfitting to touch your royal skin. No one will come near, because approaching you will be like approaching someone of a higher rank, and you’re just that dipshit writer who’s not all that interesting, anyway.

2) CRAZY GUY. This one is a little more reputation destroying, and shouldn’t be used if you care at all about what those in attendance will think of you. My father took me to the shooting range last year. One of the other shooters was this old guy who was alternating firing off rounds from an assault rifle with eating Fudge Stripe cookies. When he approached me, the last thing I wanted to do was talk to him. It wasn’t the fact that he was in possession of a high-powered firearm, or even that he was pretty damn good at hitting the center of the target from many yards away. It was the twin lines of chocolately cookie drool etched into the corners of his mouth that he seemed blissfully oblivious to that told me conversing with this man would be the equivalent of having hot nails inserted into my eye. I was right. So, if you don’t care that you look like crazy-cookie-gunman to everyone in attendance, chomp away on whatever brightly hued snacks are available and let the drool machine go to work.

TO GET OUT OF SPEAKING WITH SOMEONE WHO HAS ALREADY CORNERED YOU:

1) BE NEEDY. Ask the person to get you a drink. When they return, ask them to hold it for you while you dig in your pockets or purse. If you’re a man, empty your pockets in the person’s free hand while muttering about, “It has to be here somewhere.” If you’re a woman, even better. Make the person hold your purse while you dig in it for some random object. If the individual that approached you is a man, he’s guaranteed to split.

2) BE AGGRESSIVE. I don’t want you to be mean, just — proactive. For every one stupid question asked of you, fire back ten in return. But, be careful of your target. If the person is an egomaniac, he won’t care how idiotic your queries are, just as long as they’re aimed at — and are all about — him. If that unfortunate event does transpire, immediately switch to talking about yourself. Make sure the topics are inane and boring — such as why you prefer opening your cereal packages with scissors rather than by hand and how much fresher that cereal tastes if a rubber band is used to secure it again, rather than one of those pedestrian chip clips. Then, proceed to detail every cereal in your pantry, and every cereal you’ve ever eaten. Be sure to include key specifics about the texture of generic corn flakes versus the brand name, and the subtle changes in hue you’ve noted in the red colored Fruit Loops in the past twelve to fifteen months. Stand back and enjoy the glazed look in your prey’s eyes.

WHEN YOU JUST HAVE TO PLAY NICE:

We all know the people — bosses, higher-ups, distinguished members of the community, and your spouses’ co-workers. No matter what a dullard, fool or jackass they may be, sometimes you just have to suck it up and prepare for twenty minutes of PLAYING NICE. But, don’t worry; you can still have some fun doing it:

1) DARK SUNGLASSES. No one can tell you’re rolling your eyes or staring at the ceiling if you’re wearing these puppies (cyber goggles are an excellent choice for this situation). However, I cannot emphasize enough the need for advance preparation when employing this method. Before attempting the sunglasses technique in a dreaded social setting, it is crucial that you take them into a room with the brightest light possible and examine your eye movements in the mirror. If you can see your irises take a circuitous trip around your sockets, you can be damn sure everyone else can, too. But, if your glasses pass the bright light test, slap ’em on and feel free to cross, roll, and even shut your eyes during that insanely interesting conversation about the merits of owning a Lexus SUV.

2) ‘HOW NICE.’ The joke goes: Two southern women are talking. The first is bragging about the various expensive gifts her husband has bestowed upon her. The second responds to each boastful claim with, “How nice.” Finally finished detailing her recent acquisitions, the first lady asks the second what her husband bought for her. The second woman replies, “Charm school lessons.” The first blinks incredulously and repeats, “Charm school lessons? Why on earth would you need charm school lessons?” The second lady responds to the question without pause, saying, “I used to say, ‘Fuck you,’ but now I say, ‘How nice.'” And that, my friend, is the entirety of the ‘How Nice’ technique. They act like a self-possessed jerk, you reply, “How nice.” Try and leave out the southern drawl, though. I know it’s tempting, but it’ll give you away a lot faster.

AND, IF THE CONVERSATION TAKES A TURN FOR THE WORST (which it shouldn’t, if you’ve followed my above techniques):

3) BE ULTRA NICE. No. Matter. What. If they disagree with you, smile. If they call you every name in the book, blink benignly and keep smiling. If they insist you’re the most uneducated person they’ve ever had the misfortune to lay eyes upon, agree with them. They’ll get angrier, and you’ll get a big ol’ helpin’ of fiendish satisfaction.

So, the next time the spouse insists that the outside is better than the in, and that if you don’t move from your computer chair it will root to your backside, just go along. It’ll make the one you love happy, and you’ll be more than prepared to deal with whatever comes your way.

***Disclaimer — Avery is, in all manner of speaking, a socially maladjusted individual not certified, qualified or even bright enough to give anyone advice on how to survive in a social situation. Use the above techniques at your own peril.

I was having major problems with writing my plot synopsis. Major–Problems. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the structure. And it seemed the more sources I turned to for help, the more confounded I became. Every book, every article, every writer told me a different approach, a different layout. They all told me what to do and what not to do, and every single one of their rules conflicted with someone else’s. Apparently, there’s no blueprint for one of these things, no set way of doing it. And, to make matters worse, agents and publishers appear to have their own undisclosed preferences for how it’s done.

Every time I valiantly sat down to hammer it out, a clamor of voices arose in my head, telling me, “Don’t forget this!” or “You don’t need that in there!” All the while another, much more irritating voice chimed in, bemoaning the lack of interesting content. This voice is my constant companion when I write, the one that absolutely refuses to let me get out a rough draft before starting in on me, the one that gets its rocks off by making me feel short even next to a grain of sand. Six times I started the summary. Six times I threw it all away. In between disastrous attempts, I ran back to the internet and to my pile of books, wondering what in the world I did wrong this time.

Yesterday, in utter desperation, I cast aside all of that hard-earned, shared knowledge and turned off my brain. Yep. Shut down the whole operation. I turned myself on auto pilot and didn’t let my consciousness come back online until about thirty minutes ago. And, you know what? The rough draft of my outline is done. It seems I work best when I listen to no one — not even myself. Now, before I begin the self-congratulations, I have to admit I haven’t read over it, yet. There is still a small chance that I was speaking in tongues, or channeling some dead housewife who’s afraid her husband is letting her mink stole go to the moths, or that I was engaging in some sort of Jack Torrence-esque tirade. But, barring any of those, I think I just might have enough decent material to make the agents not want to use my pitch package as fuel for their next beach bonfire.

I was four, maybe five, and it was May 30. Not only was it memorial day back in the seventies, but it was my birthday. The memories of the entire day have hazed, most likely the truest, clearest parts have been woven into my memories with the aid of our family photo album. But, I do remember waking up very early and very excited. I must have bugged my sister, because she went into my parents room and asked if there was something she could give me — presumably to shut me up for another hour or so. She came back with an oddly shaped package in thin tissue paper. I tore it apart, breathless with anticipation. It was a sandbox play set, complete with sifter, rake, shovel, and a bucket with eyes on it. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t go out to play in my sandbox for hours, or that there was little to do with it other than comb the shag carpeting with the rake; I was happy — for a while.

The day wore on and my impatience grew. We had to wait for my grandmother to walk the mere distance of two houses to join the celebration, and I guess for the neighbor kid who was my sister’s friend to come over (he’s in the photos, but I don’t really remember him being there). I can’t recall what we had to eat, or what kind of cake I had. I don’t even remember (parents and Mom Mom forgive my poor memory) any of the other gifts. I only remember one. The One. It was the most perfect, amazing present a kid could ever have —

The Weeble Tree House.

I tore off the paper and it was as if angels had suddenly burst into song and rolled back the thick gray clouds to let the golden rays of the sun beam down upon me. Along with the two, properly choking-sized (hey, it was the seventies, man), hippie Weebles, the tree house came with a yellow basket swing hooked to a wench, a picnic table, a hidden door in the tree’s trunk, and — silly seeming to my preschooler brain — an orange window set smack in the sunshine yellow roof. It wasn’t particularly large, or elaborate. There were no batteries, and very few moving parts. But, man, it was cool.

I played with that thing all day, and for many days after. It is the gift that immediately comes to mind even now when I think of my birthday. It is the one that, despite my young age and underdeveloped memory-retention skills at the time, has managed to stick in my mind as the present of all presents. And it is the day that all other birthdays must hold their own against in comparison. Every year I move farther away from that day, from being that elated kid with the incredible new toy. But, there will always be something inside me that hopes to have just one more birthday like that, one more Weeble Tree House day.

It’s beautiful out, finally. I have all the windows open and a cool breeze is blowing in. The birds are chirping and — for a short period of time — I have to pay for neither heat nor air conditioning. It’s really wonderful, except for one thing. Neighbors.

I live in a small historic district where graceful Victorians with secret doors and turreted rooms lord over the smaller, more economical boxes of the nineteen twenties and thirties. The yards range from reasonably large to postage stamp. Many people with the latter have chosen to sacrifice their sole patch of green for a driveway. Our own house is long and narrow. The front yard barely qualifies as such and the side yards are barely ten feet each. There is no backyard, only our garage and then a small gravel driveway leading to the next house. We’re on a corner, so a long sidewalk extends down one side of our yard, passing over the brick driveway, and on to the next two houses that are so tiny and close together they look like a single structure. The quarters can be tight sometimes, and with a window on each side of every room, I generally feel like a fish in a bowl on days like these.

Charles wrote a good post yesterday on distractions, and it was as if everyone in the neighborhood came out to remind me of my omission of them in my comment on his page. Picture me here, diligently writing with a window at my back and a screen door to my face. In front of me, two kids are playing on their scooters, too busy looking at my cats in the window to mind where they’re going. Of course, one plows directly into the side of someone’s car, and the screaming of bloody murder ensues. At my back are two tiny yapping dogs. Their owners, also outside, are yelling at one another. One has a voice with a pitch that will grate down your spine like steel talons. The other is deaf. Or mostly deaf. So the yelling is not just loud, it’s supersonic. And all the while, “Bark, bark, bark. Bark, bark, bark, bark. Bark-bark-bark.” Pause. “Barkbarkbarkbarkbark.” There are three big churches one street over (two of which are pictured above), and each has it’s own electronic chime. The dogs finally stop, but it’s now six, and the bells start. I’m hit with a cacophony of “Nearer My God to Thee,” “Holy, Holy, Holy,” and some other song unidentifiable to me because of my stellar lack of participation in church. That gets the dogs going again. And I head for the nearest, biggest glass of wine.

I dream of a big modern house with a Japanese style interior courtyard, secluded gardens of gnarled trees and mossy rocks, and a water feature that edges the foundation like a mini-moat. I dream of sitting outside and not having someone see my movement through the fence and start talking to me. I dream of people not addressing me in my house just because they’re walking by and — by virtue of the ridiculously short distance between my door and the sidewalk — can see me sitting inside. Still, I know when I leave here, I’ll miss it. Maybe not the distraction level, but the nice peace that manages to settle in when the kids are at school, the neighbors are at work and the dogs are sleeping happily in the sun. Then, I can hear the birds chirping in the trees and the seagulls crying high overhead. Sometimes I can even hear the wind rushing through the massive pine tree in the side yard. Then, it’s actually pretty nice.

God’s a funny, funny dude.

The transmission in the truck is now shot.

Can you hear me laughing?

I’ve been reading Inkheart, the young people’s book by Cornelia Funke. It’s a tale about a man who can read characters out of the pages of books. The story seems to be heading in the direction that his young daughter can do this, too, and is at some point probably going to have to do it to save her dad (that’s all speculation; I’m not very far into it).

This led me to wonder just who would I want to conjure out of the pages of a book if I had the talent. Below is my short list, and the reasons for doing so:

1) Merlin. I mean, hey, it’s Merlin. How could I not want to spend some time getting to know the wizard responsible for King Arthur’s ascent to greatness? I’d have to pick two of him, though, from both The Once and Future King (fun Merlin) and The Mists of Avalon (cool, Druid Merlin).

2) Castle Rock sheriff, Alan Pangborn. That man could chill the blood of legions of partygoers with his stories. Plus, why not hang with the guy who’s seen it all? He’s got to have nerves of steel by now.

3) Hamlet. Although I’m sure I’d regret almost immediately. “Jeez, would you just shut up for two seconds, Hamlet? Just two? No? Oh, okay. Then just do it! Just go kill yourself, already.”

4) Elphaba from Gregory MacGuire’s Wicked. That much attitude shouldn’t be restricted to the pages of a book.

5) Aragorn, but only if I could read him out of the book earlier than when the book started, when he was a Ranger. I want to know what all that was about, how one became a Ranger and what the job entailed. I’m fairly certain it wasn’t checking fishing licenses and stopping people from getting their freak on in the woods.

6) Jules, the Fat White Vampire of Andrew Fox. He’s a vampire — cool. He’s also morbidly obese (aiding in my ability to run away) and doesn’t like the taste of blood from people outside New Orleans. So, the whole meet-the-vampire-but-don’t-get-eaten thing is a lot easier with him.

7) Rumpelstiltskin. It’s a old, childhood thing.

I’m tempted to list some of the Big Bads like Pennywise, Voldemort, or Randall Flagg (The Walkin’ Dude), but, they’d smear me all over the wall before I’d get my chance to play twenty questions. They’re better off where they are. And so am I.

Now for the list of who I don’t want to come out, ever:

1) Laurell Hamilton’s Anita Blake. That woman has magic-related issues where she just has to have sex with whoever is at hand. Don’t want to be standing there when it’s just me and some Quasimodo pizza guy.

2) Hannibal Lecter. I really don’t think I need to explain. I think I’ll chuck Buffalo Bill/Jame Gumb in there for good measure, too.

3) Carrie’s mother. She’s not the one with the telekinetic power, I know, but she’s waaay scarier in her own right. You just can’t reason with people like that.

4) Dracula. For all the opposite reasons of wanting to meet Jules Duchon (above).

5) Any of Poppy Z. Brite’s characters. I’ve seen enough goths, thanks, and Chartreuse is totally overrated.

What about you? What character would you dare draw from the pages of your favorite text? For fun’s sake, I’ll also allow movies, TV shows and video games.

Since we’re doing that, I’d like to add Sidney Bristow and Julian Sark from Alias. They’d be my own private Rock’em Sock’em Robots.

It’s a movie star!

Yep. My Explorer (before the dented hood) was in Tuck Everlasting.

Okay. Watch the boring preview for the movie that’s already been out for years. Wait until almost the end, after they show the title. The horse drawn carriages start to fade to cars. Coming up the street, straight towards the camera, just as it starts to fade away — is my truck. Ahh, the fame and glory.

The location was Berlin, Maryland, a small town here on the eastern shore also known as the location of The Runaway Bride. Because of a contact in the movie industry, The Architect and I got to sit on the set on one of the hottest days on the planet and watch a car-load of teens drive our truck in circles around the block as they filmed shot after shot. We got to see one set hand call another a “Primadonna prick,” and that was the highlight of excitement for the day — well, that and getting to eat from the craft services table (Twizzlers taste so much better when they’re intended for famous people). Sadly, the only person anywhere a near celebrity was the stunt double, who drove the hero’s motorcycle while having a spectacularly bad wig planted on his head. At the prompting of barked orders over a megaphone, sweaty extras walked the street acting casual and then went back to walk again. Cars were lined up and sent down the road via my most excellent car wrangling contact only to later loop around the block and repeat the tedious process.

By the end of the day, I was hovering near heat stroke and wondering what would drive any sane person into the movie business. So much work went into shooting a tiny scene that the audience would see for only a second or two. And the repetition! It was like a bad re-enactment of Groundhog Day (now that I think of it, that movie must have been horrible, shooting over and over the already repetitive scenes). Still, it was a unique experience, and one that fixed my little Explorer onto the timeless glory of celluloid.