(This old picture paffooney won a blue ribbon at the Wright County Fair in 1979.)
I am repeatedly told by people willing to tell me all the many things I am doing totally wrong in social media marketing that I should be creating fresh new content every day for blogs and Facebook. Ooftah! I don’t work hard enough as a teacher and a writer already? I have to imitate George Takei and master the internet just to make headway as a writer? It makes me wonder why I am actually doing what I am doing.
So why am I doing what I am doing?
First of all, I am an artist. I have always been one no matter what else was going on in my life. Arthritis limits my drawing time. Teacher work-time limits it more. Still, I like to blog and I like to post Paffoonies. Now, I know perfectly well you are saying, “What the heck is a Paffooney?” I also know you are probably using stronger language than “heck”. A Paffooney is a piece of full-color art that I have created matched with a silly little essay. It takes a lot of work unless I do like today and re-post old pictures with new flubbergraphy. (What’s flubbergraphy, you say? Oh, don’t start!)
Secondly, I do have important things to say. I have a somewhat rough road as a parent, the thing that led me to write Catch a Falling Star, a YA Sci-fi novel about an intelligent alien invader race that eat their own young. You can tell it’s a comedy just by that, right? Just because my kids always do the opposite of what they should do and never listen to my hard-won wisdom, it doesn’t mean I’m thinking about cooking and eating them. That would require a whole lot of ketchup, right?
My contest-submission novel, Snow Babies, is about loneliness and loss, about dealing with mental disorders like being bi-polar, and how you help people who are lost in the metaphorical snow. It is a hilarious comedy about freezing to death and suicidal thoughts. Dang, I have such humorous themes, huh?
Now, when I have the chance to write my newest novel, The Bicycle-Wheel Genius, it will be about lonely old men befriending young boys, murder, government agents, and time-travel. It also has a parallel subplot about a little boy who thinks he is a girl. Cross-gender angst and goofy stuff like that. I am making comedy out of suffering, fantasy out of science, and hoo-hah out of oh, no!
So, now I have made the complete mistake of telling you all my goofy plans as a writer. Unrealistic and impossible fictionary goals from a foo-bah who really believes that stories can change the world and ideas can save humanity from itself. If you have an ounce of sense, you will forget every last word of mine you have ever read and swear to delete me from the internet at every possible opportunity. But I am counting on you not having any sense.