Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Shadow Student

Shadow Student

This blog of mine makes absolutely no sense. It goes up and down. One day there is six hits, the next 50 and one day there was over 150. Then overnight the number of WDC members doubled. Anyway fame is not the reason I write it…. I write it because journaling is one of the keys to becoming a better writer and since I don’t care who reads my journal why not use a blog for this purpose?

Yesterday, my friend Mark and I cut about a semi load of wood. I cut and he loaded. For an old man a chainsaw after eight hours becomes a real ass kicker. I am sore but we got it all out. Today there is snow on the ground and the roads are icy. Glad we didn’t quit early yesterday.

I think I will write six Manny Hardin vignettes when I shadow take my course, The Exploratory Writing Workshop. Tomorrow signups begin and I suspect there will be no shortage of writers to sign up. On the other hand it is a lot of work to mentor a writer along and if we get no takers the course has still been a good exercise for me. If the interest isn’t great I will have more time to devote to my mystery novel.

As some of my readers might know Manny Hardin is a character I became interested in when I was writing flash fiction sensual prose for the Quickie Contest. Nobody liked my material until I wrote “Pageant” and that went off the charts. Anyway what I was trying to learn was how to write it effectively and I tried everything under the sun I could think of. I wrote about gay men, lesbian women, bisexuals and mild BDSM. In every instance I learned something new, and I mostly got panned for my efforts. Ironically when Pageant garnered so much interest I was left scratching my head. This was a story about a man that exploited young women and I figured the ladies at WDC would tar and feather me. Nothing of the sort happened and it went on to get more views than anything I have written here. It’s one of those huge mysteries like the day I got 150 blog views.

More importantly though I seem to have learned some things which are included in my essay on writing sensual prose that is on my port… That too has been an extremely popular static item. I know I am all over the screen this morning and no doubt everybody thinks I am recovering form a hangover… Last night I drank no alcohol and went to bed when Linda turned off the light at ten O’clock. By the way HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody and I hope you do well on your resolutions.

From time to time I get questions as to what Manny Hardin is up to with his “Interns.“ At first answering was easy because I hadn’t really gotten to that point in my thinking. I was trying to learn how to write sensual prose in a manner that would push the envelope but not cause my mainstream readers to throw up their hands in dismay.

I am thinking about combing some of the strong aspects of “Enchantment” with the style of some of the essay monologues in Andromache. The central character will be an enigmatic girl who he at last finds perfect for the instrument he is looking for. What is that you ask….what is Manny angling for anyway with these interns of his…Sorry… there will be clues in some of the vignettes but anyone interested in learning more will have to either figure out what lurks in Percy’s weird mind or eventually read the novel. I have no delusions about how big the circle is of those who have the silghtest interest. Still for illustrative purposes those who take the course will get to see examples of my work that parallels their own vignettes in the course.