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Play All Up in Your Box: Yes, Mattycakes, This Title's For You
The day I was brought home from the hospital, much to the surprise and chagrin of my older-generation parents, they belatedly realized they’d neglected to prepare for my immenient arrival and thus did not have a crib. (In their defense, I was supposedly two months early, even though I weighed eight pounds.) I spent my first week in a cardboard box.
But even after I outgrew the box and was given a crib, I never outgrew my fascination for boxes. I’d sit in the smaller ones and “drive”, usually some fast sporty car. I loved to put clothespins on the edges and zoom-zoom. I would play in my box-car all day long. I’m telling you, the X-box generation does not know what it’s missing.
I also loved big refrigerator boxes. And the ones that stoves came in. I would turn these monster cardboard dreams into playhouses and castles. I’d cut out windows—or I’d get mom or dad to do so—and I’d color them. I’d hang my blankets off them for privacy and hide in them. Yes, I learned early there is a lot of stuff you can do with a box if you just look at it for a while and figure out the possibilities inside it.
After awhile, I outgrew boxes and the imagination that comes with having them. I probably discovered boys. That seems most likely. And I never met any really cool ones who wanted to play in my box with me. *droll look* So I moved onto other hobbies. Like watching TV.
Now, I’m not a huge watcher of Sponge Bob Squarepants (though I can sing the words to the theme song and have been known to do this in grocery stores if I walk past the pineapple section. “Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Sponge Bob Squarepants!”) Though the few times I’ve caught episodes, it has the sheer stupidity of The Three Stooges with a moral or theme that’s more profound than the Dalai Lama. The absolute best episode I watched featured Sponge Bob receiving his TV by express order. He was so excited—it was a huge TV—and Squidward, the cranky neighbor, wasn’t a bit excited. He never is, but you can’t blame him. If I had a perky neighbor like Sponge Bob, I think I’d have the same look on my face.
Sponge Bob takes out his TV from the box, tosses it aside like so much garbage, and proceeds to crawl into the now-empty box with Patrick. It was the box, you see, that he found to be the most important. Squidward thinks Sponge Bob is a headcase, but since this is not news to anyone, he merely asks Sponge Bob if he can have the TV. Sponge Bob says, “Take it!” Squidward practically skips home with his free dumpster diving prize. He sets it up in his living room; admires the large screen and high-definition; and starts to watch a show. He is interrupted by surround sound noise coming from outside: from Sponge Bob’s empty box. What is going on?
Squidward, being unable to help himself, investigates. He’s hearing gunshots, cowboys, Indians, war whoops. There’s a battle going on. He pulls up the lid to the box, and nothing. Sponge Bob and Patrick blink up at him in innocent confusion, looking exactly like two cartoon characters sitting in a plain cardboard box like a couple of idiots. Squidward even makes himself say, “I thought I heard a fight going on. What are you doing?” And Sponge Bob gladly tells Squidward that he’s using his IMAGINATION. He makes a gesture with his hands like a rainbow. (I only explain that because my friend Holly and I like this episode so much, sometimes we greet each other by quoting this line, complete with gesture and vapid Sponge Bob expression.)
Squidward doesn’t believe in ridiculous things like IMAGINATION. He stomps off in a huff; but the sounds and such continue, and each time he investigates, Sponge Bob gives the IMAGINATION speech. Finally Patrick and Sponge Bob stop playing for the day and go home to go to bed. They leave the box outside; and Squidward, again unable to help himself, crawls in the box to give IMAGINATION a try. He’s very pleased and shocked when he finds out it works. Though unfortunately it’s really a garbage truck carting him off to the city dump—but whatever.
Now I only tell you this story because you’re undoubtedly surrounded by Squidwards. Everyone has a Squidward in their life. Your inner critic is a Squidward; your mother is probably a Squidward; Ms. Yount, my beloved high school teacher, is a Squidward. Most mean well; they’re only trying to keep your dreams lodged in reality, which as you and I know is the last place dreams need or should be. But don’t worry. You’re Sponge Bob. You believe in the cardboard box; and you see all the possibilities in it. You bring the cardboard box to life every day you go and make your mark in it. You have plenty of IMAGINATION.
Squidward will probably point out that cardboard boxes are generic and formulaic…and anybody can make a playhouse out of a cardboard box. Yes, but not everyone sees a playhouse in a cardboard box and therefore creates one. And yes, all playhouses start out with the same structure—that’s not a crime—that’s just structure. Your playhouse is uniquely you, even if it has the same four walls as the playhouse next door, because only you know where the windows go and how many rooms it has. Only you know what color to paint the walls and the curtains to hang. There is a supreme difference between basic structure and formulas even a kindergartener could do. After all, if anyone could truly write one of those formulaic, fill-in-the-blank MadLibs Romance Novels, then anyone would; but the fact remains only a small percentage ever finish writing any novel, formula or literary, because writing is hard. You have to be willing to put your trust in IMAGINATION. You have to be able to see the possibilities inside a cardboard box and turn it into a place somebody else would want to live in.
I bet you guys never thought you could learn anything from Sponge Bob and cardboard boxes, did you?
Okay, question time. Hopefully we all know I meant that although many romance writers use the ‘formula’ of Beauty & the Beast, or Cinderella, or the Ugly Duckling, et al, it’s our creative imprint that makes the structure our own story. What unique imprint do you bring to your cardboard box (i.e. what’s your writing strengths? Your writing voice?)? What cardboard box are you currently playing in? Are you having as much fun as Sponge Bob--or are you being more like Squidward?
Books by the Crew
55 comments:
Ah, I suddenly understand the Cap'n so much better! No wonder Jack finds ya so irresitable... I give up me plans of lurin' 'im away...
Fer me it was forts. Blanket forts, tree forts, shrub forts... The good old days.
What be my unique imprint? I tell good stories. The writin' ain't always up ta snuff...but I tell good stories... And Sponge Bob, sorry ta say, ain't got nothin' on how much fun I be havin'!
Squidward be there, too. Tied up and gagged.
Great blog Sin! My cardboard box is currently out of control. It's turned into a two-story monster that's leaning slightly to the left and has so many nooks and crannies I can never remember where I left anything. But, though it may never shape up exactly like I want, I'm having a wonderful time playing in it.
I completely agree that no matter what formula (if any) you start with, writing is still hard. And the next person who tells me that "romance novels are so easy", I'm actually going to start demanding pages. It's that easy? Let's see it. lol
2nd: I was ALWAYS using my mother's clean sheets to make forts/tents in the livingroom. I'd tack them in the walls and ceilings...and it drove my mother NUTS. Mainly because we did our laundry at the laundrymat--so the money and time factors did not endear me to her with this propensity to waste sheets. This was after they stopped giving me boxes though.
*LOL* You tell a good yarn! Good! Which means, you probably have a good grip on PACING and CONFLICT and the dramatic effect of cliffhangers. You know, like by dropping California into the ocean or something. *grins*
Sorry, Hal, for the confusion. I'm the blogger. I just referenced Mattycakes in the title--NOT because we share him, I like living thank you--but because while having a writing meeting with Sin and we were discussing the blog, Matt suggested we talk about our BOXES. As it were. And how we like to play in them...and how he likes to play in them...and on and on and on. Only he said everything in such a way, it was complete innuendo, though you had no doubt what he was actually talking about.
This conversation was probably almost a year ago, so this blog was a long time coming to me...but when it did, I knew I had to give Matty credit for it.
Hal, your box sounds a bit like the Tower of Pisa--and people are still going to see that. It's a MASTERPIECE!!! *ROTF* Good idea! I love it...I'll try to remember to do the same. I have anger issues though. When people make me that angry, my brain actually shuts down and I have no verbal responses. I end up flipping you both birds and stomping out of the room.
I loved this blog! Hellie, you outdo yourself.
I loved the cardboard boxes too. My dad was in construction and he would bring home the refridgerator boxes or the stove boxes about every other week. My brother, sister, and I had a blast. And when we wrecked em up too bad, mom'd take em out back and burn them and then we'd have to wait for Dad to bring another one home.
Writing strengths and weaknesses? I think I know my weaknesses better than my strengths (thanks inner critic). Right now I'm really working on POV (though I have an incredibly awesome CP who's really helping me out), and I guess by devault I'm working on characterization as well.
As far as what I'm bringing to my box, I think I'm tentatively using the Ugly Duckling box with a sort of Beauty and the Beast twist. Except my ugly duckling is a prophet and my beast is sort of an angel.
hmmmm....
Ahh, see it was the title that threw me. Then, when I read the part about Mrs. Yount, I even though "I thought she was Hellion's teacher. Maybe they both had her." Wow, sorry about that. I've even had coffee so I don't have an excuse.
I feel like the next time I'm in Columbia, I need to meet Mattycakes, just so I can better appreciate these blogs *g*
Yes, actually Sin and I both had Ms. Yount, since we also went to the same school. Six years apart. But Sin was the one who broke Ms. Yount. *LOL* I think she retired like right after that. *LOL*
P.S. I have a feeling if you got to meet Mattycakes, you wouldn't get the full effect in one meeting. He can be extremely well behaved and normal in the first meet. I honestly didn't know anything was wrong with him until about the third or fourth time we were hanging out at the gym. And I got the whole "Hells is Amish" joke gag running...and there you go.
No, if you just meet Matty once, you'd have the same look as the people in the cartoon for Michigan J. Frog--you know from Looney Tunes, the one the guy finds at the construction site that can sing the ragtime song and dances? Only every time he pulls the curtain back to show the audience the frog just ribbets at the audience and doesn't do any of the wild tricks he was doing in private. That's Matty.
I'm a total Squidward. It's just my nature. Very little imagination. Play like a child? Are you smoking something? I don't do that.
Now, when I was a child, I did make the forts in the livingroom. Grew up in my grandmother's house and though she was a very practical woman, she never minded us messing up the place, as long as we cleaned it back up.
Unfortunately, my strengths in writing are in seeing the errors in what's on the page. However, that doesn't do me much good when there's nothing on the page yet.
*high fives Marnee* Another box-player! *pauses* That probably didn't sound right. Oh, well. I love that your father brought home boxes--and the whole family had fun, because part of me is thinking if I had three rambunctious kids in the house all day, it'd be kinda fun just to set something on fire in the backyard every once in a while.
I should never have kids.
Marn, you have great characterization! You don't overburden your readers with too much detail--but just enough to let us really build them in our heads. Your action, dialogue, and pacing is great--and you're also good about keeping secrets but making them seem really important, where we want to keep turning the page to see what's revealed, what will happen. You bring plenty to your box.
*blushes* Thanks Hells. :) I really needed that pat on the back. My characters were acting up this weekend. *sighs*
And I don't know if I ever watched Mom burn the boxes. But she would be the type to stand there lighting a match in glee. LOL!
Terri, that opens a philosophical debate. Do you subconsciously keep from dirtying up a blank page because you don't have the time or inclination to clean up the errors?
Even Squidward had some IMAGINATION at the end--and he was quite happy. You can do the same. *LOL* Just pretend you're building a fort then. I'm flexible. It doesn't have to be a box.
I used to leap from living room sofa to living room chair to the stove (it was summer and thus not in use) to keep from touching the floor--because the floor had sharks and alligators that would eat me. I'd probably do it now--but I only have the couch. And I'm pretty sure I'm too heavy to stand on my coffeetable.
Hm, I've always loved boxes.
And I know you're going to tell him I said that.
LMAO
LMAO
Much to Matty's credit, he is hilarious and much like a kid, if you laugh at him once for doing it he just keeps doing it because he thinks it's now "funny". But that description of the Frog in the Looney Tunes that is SO spot on. LOL I started laughing wildly when I read it. It's so him.
We're watching the second season of the Tudors and the other night Anne is having one of her parties and the King walks in. And I swear to God, Matt turns to me, hops out of his chair and says, "Dance OFF!" And he starts dancing around like a rooster and this jig he made up... LMFAO
I'm still laughing over it. It's his face. It's the look on his face when he's acting like a goofball. LMAO
Nah, I won't tell him that--he knows that. I think I'll go in and say, "DANCE OFF!" for no reason to see what he does.
I grew up with construction working parents. So I always had the best boxes to play with. *g* They were houses and with a sheetrock knife, I'd cut windows on the sides of my "house" or chop my finger off and smear blood all on the walls. I'd read and let a book take me away.
Note to mention- having construction working parents allows for great eye candy. Would you believe that once upon a time Matty was a framer? It's even hard for me to believe since he has a hard time wielding a hammer, but it's true.
My current "box" is urban fantasy land. Where alternate universes and humans aren't the one only counted among the living. I like living in a world that's not my own. Where things may look the same on the outside but there is an entirely different feel and vibe. Since dark tones suit my voice, maybe I'll be able to finish this.
Well, I remember losing interest in the forts rather quickly. I mean, there was nothing in there. And they'd never stay up the way I wanted. It's a wonder I enjoy books as much as I do when they take so much imagination. LOL!
I know the exact look he will give you if you say it. And he's going to say something to you too. If he can remember. We were watching Married with Children last night and the episode was about a Pirate Fantasy..
Now you can just imagine what he's going to say. LOL
I can't imagine my hubby ever jumping up and saying, "DANCE OFF!" LOL!
And Sin, the sheetrock knives were the best for the windows and door. I'm surprised we didn't cut our hands off.
For me, it was backyards--mine and my best friend's--that we turned into Western towns where the cowgirls on broomstick horses always outwitted the bad guys or exotic jungles where the Amazon princesses crossed raging rivers and fought ferocious beasts to find the hidden treasure (our mothers' castoff costume jewelry).
I have too many weaknesses to count, but the most troublesome is plot. Last night I cut another perfectly lovely chapter about a mother-daughter shopping trip because it really did nothing to advance the plot, such as it is. Sigh! Maybe I should try writing about Amazon princesses. Those stories had plot. :)
Okay, Terri, you win, you will henceforth be known as Squidward. *LOL*
Sheetrock knives ARE the best for cutting out windows in cardboard boxes. Dad would usually use his pocket knife.
Dad did make a playhouse out of a round metal/iron thing. He welded out a couple windows and a little door to crawl through--and we could play house in it. However, since it was metal, it got rather hot in the summer. It didn't quite have the same appeal as the cardboard houses did. Probably because it didn't suck up space in the living room and bother my mother like the cardboard ones did. I mean, it was convenient to be living in the house and be able to watch TV at the same time. You couldn't do that in the metal place.
*grins* I know the exact look I'll be getting if I say that to him as well. *LOL* The look that says, "I'd thump you if it wouldn't get me fired."
GREAT. A Married With Children Pirate Fantasy...lovely. *sighs* I can only imagine...and I don't want to.
*LOL* Janga, your childhood escapades sound like a blast. I would have loved playing cowgirls--I had the broomstick horse and everything. (I had two or three of them as a kid actually, when one got worn out it was usually replaced. Usually white plastic stuffed head with black markings, and mop string mane.)
Though knowing me, I would have tried to marry the bad guy. *LOL* I remember riding the train in Silver Dollar City with my dad--and the robbers stopped the train, and I tried to give the robbers my Dad's wallet. I thought the robber was going to crack up. And I wasn't giving it to him because I was scared of him. I was trying to give it to him because I thought he needed it.
Oh, I was watching Ace of Cakes yesterday and they made this awesome pirate ship wedding cake. It was for a couple who were pirate re-enactors. It was awesome! I can totally see Hellie having a wedding cake like that.
Or a birthday cake. Or just...a no-special-occasion cake.
I love Ace of Cakes. A no-occasion cake works for me. My birthday is too close to ask for one now; and weddings make me break out in hives.
I'm totally on an Elizabeth Gilbert kick (thank you, Squidward)--and I found this on her website:
http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/writing.htm
I think we're all doing this--or parts of this at the moment--and you guys should read it.
Yeah, I thought the idea of you and a wedding cake would be too much for you this early in the morning. LOL!
Hellion, one thing that cracks me up to remember is that our teetotaling mothers gave us sweet tea in Dixie cups for our "saloon." I once snitched one of my dad's unfiltered Camel cigarettes too. I still shudder to think how sick I was. I didn't smoke another cigarette until I had graduated from college and was living my version of the wild life (pretty tame actually) in the big city.
Nice topic Helli!
Couldn't understand a word of it, but it sounded very good. *g*
Who or what are Squidward and Spongebob?? Are they equivalents of Enid Blyton's Little Noddy with the box corresponding to Toy Town?
Looking from a different perspective,I think we all live in boxes. The rules governing your life and thoughts constitute the walls and some boxes are bigger than others. Often a quantum leap of imagination is necessary to take one 'out of the box' into the whole universe of potential thought and action.
By contrast it's sometimes vital to prevent that Quantum leap, and keep yourself within the box. For example I spent the morning on an X-ray table having my abdomen photographed. The radiographer was this gorgeous strawberry blond and my surgical gown offered little in the way of protection as her gaze and hands went lower and lower and......
Fortunately my super man powers kept me in the box, but I swear that I was perspiring with the effort!
I'm having to rest at home this afternoon :lol:
I want to clarify it's not the idea of being married that breaks me out in hives--though maybe that kinda does, I mean, the living by myself thing is really growing on me--but it's the wedding day crap that breaks me out in hives. Spending that sort of money on...crap...for ONE DAY--and I can't tell you the number of women who say, "It was the best day of my life!" Woman, it shouldn't have been the BEST day of your life. That's just depressing. The ones that follow should have the potential to be that good, at least.
Maybe I don't get the point of brides or something. But all that effort spent so you can be fawned over for about 12 hours--when you spent 50,000 man hours making sure everyone in your wedding and wedding party is HAPPY--I mean, it's no wonder brides are insane. *shudders* I just want to throw up thinking about it. ELOPE, people, ELOPE.
*ROTFLMAO* I love it, Janga! The Saloon is hilarious! And you know, serving "alcohol" in Dixie cups is a standard tradition in these parts. And the cigarette is such a childhood "have to", just so you don't touch them again. *LOL*
My grandmother smoked non-filtered camels for YEARS. Likely why she spent the last several years of her life on an oxygen machine.
*LOL* Poor Q! Tested! But I'm glad you presevered!
SpongeBob Squarepants is an American cartoon about a sponge who lives in the sea (specifically in a pineapple under the sea.) He is friends with a starfish named Patrick; and his neighbor is a cranky squid named Squidward. Spongebob works at The Crab Shack (if I'm not mistaken), making crab patties. He also has a friend who is a squirrel, who apparently lives underwater, but wears a suit that has an oxygen tank so she can breathe.
The cartoons are silly as cartoons are, but they usually have a little moral theme. Like IMAGINATION should never be discounted over the boob tube. *LOL*
I agree: sometimes it is important we think outside the box as well. And perhaps we do spend a lot of our time in self-imposed boxes of routine, beliefs, et al, which need to be shook up now and again.
Ah, thats clarified it for me. Thanks. :lol:
Do carry on playing....its great fun to watch.
I can just see Janga huffing and spluttering over that cigy!
I once smoked a pipe, but it seemed to fumigate the house so it got banned.
Its easy to give up if you don't breath the smoke into your lungs.
So, if I understand the serious points, the idea is to construct your plot within a 'box' which represents the 'universe for the story.
It would be interesting to have details of the construction in a prologue so that rules are defined at the beginning. I reckon that y'all make um up as you go along though!
*assuming mystic expression* Q, the box is however you see it. But for me, the box is the framework of any story. For George Lucas, it'd be the Hero's Journey; for me, it's a sort of Pride & Prejudice/Romeo & Juliet framework. (i.e. the characters hate each other but are destined to be together.) Clearly that story has been done a thousand times--but that's just because that box is a good one. How I make the box my own, how I make my box "special" is what I bring as a writer, with my IMAGINATION. I need to trust my IMAGINATION, like SpongeBob does.
Hel! What a great blog to find...that Elizabeth Gilbert one. Certainly gave me food for thought... Where do you find this stuff? You wade through page after page of junk before you stumble on such smarts? Or you have a magical compass...?
Yeah, I loved the couch cushion and blanket forts. Later, used to love to crawl into the middle of a hedge, or center of a shrub, where there was just room to hide from the king's guards...
Q? I remember working in the bookstore and grandmoms would come in asking about Sponge Bob. Not understanding it, but having been told by their kids that the grandkids loved Sponge Bob. Find a book. I'd sing the song for them...they'd look at me like I was nuts.. but buy the books. Because the kids said so!
Same with Captain Underpants. Though there wasn't a song for that one!
So I'm the only person who played with a ball and glove? Really? I'm starting to wonder if I was ever a child....
Sin probably played with a ball and glove. She played basketball early too. I built forts and houses and castles because I liked, God forgive me, to "keep house."
I also played wiffleball as a kid, if that counts. And hula hoops. I also played in the junked out cars parked in the lower pasture and pretended to drive, basically like a kid version of American Graffitti--that was a FAVORITE game. We fought over who got to drive the blue '68 Impala. (It was MINE.)
BTW, thanks, Hel! Pacing and conflict.. I feel all squishy that ya can phrase it so much better than I. Cliffhangers? hee, hee. Ya think?
I do love my state, I do, I do, I do...
I started playing BB when I was barely able to dribble the ball. I started playing baseball before I was in kindergarten. I played all the time. I never played inside. I had too much energy for all that. LOL
It's a generational thing. We never played inside unless it rained. And then I was next to my record player or the radio. Or reading. We played wiffleball and all the other neighborhood games like Kick the Can and Freeze Tag. But the best is when we all (must have been nearly 20 of us at one time) to play softball or baseball. Oh, and we played flag football every now and then. I was the youngest and the smallest so I have no idea why they made me the center. Hmmmm.....
Arrr. We be bicycle kids. We mapped out the entire neighborhood...spent hours on the bikes. Or in the field at the top of the street, playing with tree forts. I love tree forts...
Lived on a dead end street. In the fall, played these massive hide-and-seek games as the light faded. About 30 kids... No one ever found everybody! LOL!
Chance - I forgot about the bikes!! We were ALWAYS on our bikes. And that hide & seek sounds just like us except out neighborhood was a circle. There were no boundaries and parents never seemed to care when you were out well past dark.
Good times.
I lived in the BOON-FREAKING-DOCKS, people. All these games Terri described required BODIES. I was the only kid in about a five mile radius. Which is why I had a lot of forts...you can play fort by yourself. You're skitzophenic, perhaps, but you can do it. It's not as rewarding to play wiffle ball by yourself.
I did have a bike (borrowed from my niece) when I was about 10. We both rode up and down our gravel roads on it...but we didn't get to go too far. *LOL* No ice cream trucks either.
We played in the barn a lot. Sliding on the hay and stuff.
The ice cream truck. *sigh* This is really taking me back. LOL! But I had no barn or livestock to play with, so you've got us there. LOL!
We had the neatest thing...a bread truck! Just like the ice cream guy, but he parked and sold fresh bread and the absolutely best fresh donuts! My dream donuts, to say the least.
I go on periodic donut hunts, looking for the donut I remembered from the truck...
Matt thought it was the funniest thing to see me running to the window a few years ago when the ice cream truck came around. I heard those tinkling bells and I ran to the window and he said my eyes lit up like Christmas tree lights. Every summer he says, "Why don't you go out there and get some ice cream?"
But I don't.
Like Hellie, there was no ice cream truck trolling the streets. I was lucky though because my GP's lived in the middle of our ghost town and I roamed everywhere.
Dude! You don't get ICE CREAM from the ICE CREAM truck? Are you mad? I don't care if I was a 100, if I heard those bells, you bet your sweet ass I'd be out there with my $5, getting my ice cream.
I played softball and dodgeball with the pack too. In the summers we played until we could no longer see the ball. We played all those group games too like Red Rover and Bum Bum Bum that you're all probably too young to remember. We rode our bikes and ran races and played hide-and seek all over the neighborhood. No parent worried because everybody in the neighborhood, even cross old Mr. Walt, looked after all the kids.
We had an ice-cream truck, but even better we had mothers who made ice cream in those old-fashioned churns that had to be turned by hand. Being allowed to turn was a treat and a test of strength because as the mixture turned from liquid to ice cream, it grew more and more difficult to turn the handle. Everybody had a dish and the little kids fell asleep and the big ones caught lightning bugs or listened to the adults tell stories.
Looking back, I see it as idyllic. Then, it was just life.
I just got home from work and wanted to check in. I came into the office (adjacent to our family room) and sat down at the computer. As I was pulling up your site, "Who lives in a pineapple under the sea" was playing in the other room!! LOL
I built forts out of couch cushions, blankets and sheets (much to my mother's chagrin) and when I could be convinced there were no spiders inside I did play in big appliance boxes! I also rode bikes, played kick the can and flag football - lots of kids in our neighborhood. We were almost never allowed ice cream from the ice cream truck. It was a special occasion when that happened. Hence, the reason my kids usually get ice cream from the ice cream truck!! (I'm such a bad parent sometimes) I don't think my kids realize how much my deprivation as a kid has benefited them!! LOL
I had a pretty active imagination but stifled it! So I guess I was more Squidward than Spongebob. I was too serious and grown-up to be silly. I'm not really sure what my strengths are right now. It's definitely not getting words on the page!
Janga, I loved Red Rover as a kid. I don't know Bum Bum Bum.
That does sound completely idyllic.
Irish, you need to scroll back up through the comments to the Elizabeth Gilbert link. About forgiving yourself for not writing as much as you think you should. It's a good article.
It's okay to be a Squidward instead of Spongebob. *LOL* We understand. It's sometimes hard to be Spongebob, you know. More than for reasons of it's hard to imagine such wild fantasy...*LOL*
And what a rebel you are, buying your kids ice cream from the truck! *LOL*
The only phrase more repeated more in my childhood than "red rover, red rover, send Jimmy right over" was "ALL-Y, ALL-Y IN COME FREE!"
LOL!
We'll be Squidwards together, Irish. Are you sure you're not a Capricorn?
Like to watch Stargate Atlantis episodes and also Lost. I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
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