posting

I am trying to find out how to rearrange or edit this blog to put the story all together, or some way to make it easy to read. Right now I have a note at the end of each chapter pointing to the next entry/chapter. Please bear with me as I try to improve this site. Any suggestions would be appreciated. In the meantime I have been doing some research and will make some changes to chapter three as a result.

new post

Well, it has been a long time since my last post. Since then, I have had back surgery to fix two damaged disks. In the interim, I lost both of my jobs. So...today after much thinking, have decided that the door of opportunity is still open for my writing. I am going to attempt to do writing fulltime. It will be difficult as I am not self-motivated. I am a people person. But succeed or fail, this is where I want to go. The novel is so consuming it needs the time put into it to get it finished. In the meantime, I am also pursuing other writing ventures. I have come up with an idea and have started another short book of teen fantasy. With the 35 years of watching and working with teens, i have alot of characters to draw from. So today I will review where I left off and go from there and hopefully won't get overwhelmed.

Epos Exposed

When I was in highschool I don't think I fit into one of those groups. Y'know the guys who were into sports were "jocks". The ones carrying slide rules were "Nerds". Today they are called "geeks" as well. Then you have the "freaks". And in the 70's we had the combo freak-jocks. I called them "frocks". I din't fit in. In fact I fit out most of the time. My Junior year was spent trying to justify suicide. Then they brought out the trampoline in gym class and put it up on the stage. Our first attemptes were saefty-belted and i found quite fun. although I couldn't climb a rope or do an iron cross on the rings, I could jump and flip. I thought I was really good at doing the backflip. It gave me a sense of confidence that would later, in the locker room, be taken away. One of the boys put a punctured can of Right Guard down my gymshorts. But I could do a backflip. Maybe I could let my hair grow more and become a frock. . . and belong? Then one day, feeling mighty powerfu, I jumped high and in mid-air couldn't decide. Front flip or back? Before I could do anything, gravity took hold and I came down off center-- near the edge of the tramploine. Hitting the edge on my feet with a half turn momentum sent my body shooting out into space, away from and facing the gang of other boys standing in their white gym clothes, making fun of me. I wondered if it was a good thing to hear laughter just before you died when all of a sudden I came down. . . right into the arms of the biggest kid in gym class--Phil Vineyard. When I looked up at him, although he didn't say a thing, I knew he was there for me. somehow having a jockstrap put over your head doesn't matter so much when you have a friend. On non-gym days we sat in Choir together and sang deep bass. We even joined the men's glee club and joked about the group being full of Tuna, 2nd Tuna, Barracudas and Bass. We sang "for the Hallibut". We sang Cole Porters "I'm nuts about you" and changed the words a little in adolescent innocence. We sang a song from the movie, "2,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and got a solo part-- about Harpoon Hannah, "Had a look that spelled out danger" and attributed the words to different girls in the class. It was a great year. I did let my hair grow, but didn't really join a group. We made our own. "The Nards". A nard, our choir teacher told us, was the most costly of all flowers. It was ugly and terribly hard to find. But from this flower, if squeezed, came the most beatiful of aromas. Priceless.

From this friend came the character of Epos.

Thanks for visiting me the other day, Phil. It has been 35 years, but I have never forgotten. You are such a Nard.