I am being photographed as I type these words. It’s a photo shoot for some local magazine. I have honestly forgotten the name. I was writing up until a few minutes ago, but I came to a natural end.
The tour hasn’t even started yet, and the 2-W day — writing, working out — is already a challenge. In Chicago on Tuesday, I managed to write about 1,800 words on the flight, but was too tired at day’s end to — excuse me, I need to sit up straighter and suck my stomach in, Bettie Page’s immortal advice — to exercise. I got up early Wednesday, managed 45 minutes in the hotel gym and tried to write on the flight home, but the man next to me was reading over my shoulder, which was unnerving. I got about 800 words done and then he asked: “Are you writing a novel?” I should have said, “No, just some fan fic.” (I did write fan fic, in fact, as a teenager, but I challenge anyone to figure out what group of fictional characters inspired me. I’ll tell you this much — almost no one knows them from books.)
Oh, lord, now I have to look full into the camera. Excuse me. But I have gotten my writing done and I have an appointment at the gym today, so I will get the 2 W’s in . Also a stint at the soup kitchen and an interview and, I hope, several errands essential to next week’s road trip.
ETA: For your reading pleasure:<a href=”http://jezebel.com/364567/toy-story “_blank”> More evidence</a> that I’m a boy. I had one of the greatest Lego sets of all time, one that came with windows, doors, and wheels.
I don’t know. Between this and my love of Will Ferrell films, I feel seriously conflicted. I also had Tinker Toys and some weird Mattel would-be Lego competitor. I just regret that I didn’t have Lincoln Logs. Meanwhile, I pretty much beat the crap out of my Madame Alexander dolls. Your toy stories welcome, in the comments.
Trixie Beldon?
Cherry Ames?
Unguessable!
Three Stooges? Laurel and Hardy? The Bowery Boys? Charlie Chan and Number One Son? (or Number Two for that matter)?
Maxwell Smart and Agent 99.
It’s my guess because I vividly remember a paperback tie-in called “Max Smart and the Perilous Pellets” (I resisted the temptation to Google to see if I got the title exactly right).
Done!
And the folks at Spoons were pretty nice about it, all things considered.
What is “fan fic”?
And remember, don’t say “cheese” but “queso”!
“Fan fic” is short for fan fiction and it’s when you a) use other people’s characters as an outlet to find you way toward your own mode of self-expression or, b) blatantly disregard someone else’s intellectual property rights, or c) both. Opnion is split among those three camps.
I just brought home two largish canisters of Tinker Toy knockoffs.
Metal canisters.
Cylindrical metal canisters.
Two of them.
With sticks and knobby wooden things in them.
The praise I’d expected to dole out wasn’t “Very good, sweetheart! You made a drum mallet!”
We’re now out of Tylenol.
Well, Keith, they come by their creative/musical natures pretty naturally.
And their disregard for authority, I know, I know…
When I was really small, I loved playing cowboys and Indians with my older brother and sister. We had little plastic horses, cows, sheep, bowlegged cowboys and Indians who could ride the horses, standing cowboys (with guns) and Indians (with bow and arrows), fences to corral the animals. Under the dining room table was a favorite spot to play. Giddy-up!
Unguessable!
My favorite was my “digger” a toy steam shovel, just like Mary Ann. I redistributed the entire sandbox several times over the course of the years. My Dad had a slot car track the I loved but I only got to play with that on special occasions. Otherwise, I loved my dolls.
My guess for your fan fic subject: Oz (and not the prison). Just a hunch.
When I was little I loved playing with my brother’s GI Joe. He was Barbie’s main man. Unfortunately, Barbie didn’t have a car in my world so she drove the Tonka truck! Oh yeah, how about a ferris wheel made from an erector set? You know, for when Barbie and GI Joe wanted to go to the carnival?
Nope, on the fan fic guess. Really, it’s unguessable. Bear in mind that I can’t even remember the name of the writer I was ripping off (in the privacy of my looseleaf notebook.)
I never had Barbie. I had Betsy McCall and when Betsy’s arms and legs came off- I would fix her. I dreaded that my parents would buy me a replacement Betsy. On my birthday in 3rd grade, they did but I consoled the older Betsy that the new Betsy was her daughter- because I truly thought my dolls had feeling and thoughts. I still have my Betsy McCalls- the older one almost 50. I sent them off to a doll hospital in NYC(not easy to get hard plastic dolls fixed) a few years ago to get a better repair for the legs- that were broken – the repairs cost 10 times the price of the dolls.
By the way, people who write Jane Austen fan fic should be arrested and summarily executed.
Is that the doll hospital on the Upper East Side? I’ve walked past it several times and thought it would make a great feature story. Probably been done over and over again, though.
So, are you going to tell us, Laura? It’s time.
No, this is a carry-to-the-grave secret. Too embarrassing.
Shucks.
I mailed the dolls off- I don’t know the address- like so much else- there could be several excellent doll hospitals in NYC.