Humorosity #38 by Honeydew Zubari

CICADAS & FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION*:

Clearing the decks for Nanowrimo

(Humorosity #38)

By Honeydew Zubari

* (n) An act or instance of judging something to be worthless or trivial.

For those of you who read and remember this monthly blather, two years ago I wrote about the invasion of the cicadas, ending with my relief that the unnatural freaks of nature had gone underground for another thirteen years. Yeah, that’s the swamp acreage the lying media sold us, lulling us into wasting our time on consumerism. Well, this June I heard a mysterious noise that sounded mysteriously like a lawn mower that got stuck in the air conditioner.

“Oh yikes,” I screamed, throwing in some creative cussing that has been edited out since this is a family e-zine, “They’re baaaack!”

And back is an understatement. The mutant gnats overflowed the trees and started lurking on anything painted green. The unnatural bugs even took a chomp or two on my plastic Boston fern. The power washer took care of those. When I tried the same on the oak in the yard, it blew the leaves off and deluging me with wet cicadas. I did the “ugh-ugh” dance and ran inside for a boiling shower. But my skin still gets bumpy and creepy at the memory.

And don’t think they aren’t vengeful little (In relation to my neighbor’s size 14 shoe) faux-locusts. The wet ones spread the word to their dry relatives in the front yard, and both groups lurked about, training their ginormous bulging eyes on my windows, waiting…waiting…waiting. No sooner had I stepped with great caution onto the front porch than one of the flying bugasaurs buzzed my head, sending me into a screaming panic that caused me to fall off the porch and into a yew bush. The yew wasn’t happy having a flailing human in its midst, so it sent up a herd of angry cicadas to rid itself of me. And let me tell you, the ploy worked a treat. I was gone from that bush and jogging down the highway faster than a twig can snap.

I’m currently lurking in an Internet café, trying to calm my nerves with bucket-sized mocha skinny lattes and waiting until the first frost scares the cicadas back to wherever they come from.

Thank goodness for coffee stirrers! My fingers have taken to twitching with such enthusiasm that I needed to fold one in half and hold the end between my teeth to type, one letter at a time. Tedious, but I’m safe.

Without a segue I’ll jump right into allergies:

During ragweed season my post nasal drip goes into overdrive, filling my stomach with slimy gunk. Having tons of bacteria-filled goop dripping down my throat usually gives me a cold, too, so I stay hoarse and coughy for a month or so.

Getting to the meat of the tale…There’s some law on THE BOOKS OF LIFE that states, “But it could always be worse.” So true!

In elementary school/junior high, I had a friend who (hilariously) fainted at the sight of ragweed; she was SOOOOO allergic to it. Once, on a weekend hike with the Girl Scouts, to my great satisfaction, she fainted face-first into a patch of poison oak. That ended her allergy--a most amazing cure!

Even though I had to listen to her whine for a million years about itching, and how ugly she looked with a Calamine-lotion-face, replaying memories of the hike in my mind or reenacting it for other friends, made the minor irritation worthwhile. Too bad said event happened in the olden days before Camcorders were invented. But on that 27” flat screen I call a brain, I still see her clearly; falling in slow motion as I stand, hand over mouth, preventing the shout that could have saved her from disaster. Another fine example of karma at work.

And what does any of that have to do with writing, you ask each other. Well, I wrote it down, didn’t I? Hmpf.

For the rest of you, some junk that I jotted down and now have no idea why:

What’s the latest deal in illiteracy these days, you might wonder. Honeydew has the answers! My endless battle against adverbs has taken on newcomers: I’ve noticed a disturbing trend of sticking “ly” onto the end of anything, coming up with non-words like “lowly” and “uncertaintly.” The latter might be a hybrid of “uncertainly” and “uncertainty,” but the panel is still discussing that over apple martinis, and we shouldn’t expect anything from them for a long time yet.

Another unsettling event taking over the Net is the use of more than one exclamation mark (!!!) or question mark (???), and lately I’ve come across triple sets of ellipses. What’s up with dat? Apparently the misguided (and mostly twelve-year-old) writers think it isn’t enough to use mere words when showing extreme surprise or wonderment or confusion, and tossing in a few extra punctuation marks will get the point across oh, so much better. Well, they are oh, so WRONG!!!!!!

What we now can find on any personal web page or fanfic site are sentences like:

“I am sorry. .. … …Do you accept my apology???”… He said lowly, his voice filled with uncertaintlyness.

“Don’t you try and charm me with those triple ellipses, you dirty dog!!!” she exclaimed threely times.

“Why stop there?” Honeydew asks, the cogs in her brain turning with creaks and clanks. “A bonus section of writing blather!”

Eyes. Unfortunately most non-alien characters have them, and most authors struggle to describe them. I have to wonder why. What I mean is, why is it that the author (not every author, but the guilty ones know who they are) thinks I can’t remember the hunky hero has dark hair and intense black eyes? A gentle reminder once or twice is enough, should a senior moment set in as I peruse the book/story. Like:

The corners of his dark eyes crinkled in a welcoming way

The light reflected in his dark eyes

One of his dark eyes popped out and splatted on the floor as he morphed back into an alien.

Following that general direction for other descriptions you get:

“Whassa doin’, hunka-munka?” Sherry drawled in a whiskey voice as her brandy eyes flashed and drool the color of vodka ran down her chin.

Or:

Drake lounged in the lounger across the lounge from Sherry and gazed at her through obsidian eyes. He admired her clingy lingerie, and the brilliant smile, revealing a flash of “Chiclet” teeth, but decided he could do without her tone, which had the hard brilliance of diamonds to it.

One more, since I’m having fun:

“Holy cow, now there’s a babe!!!” Drake exclaimed as his endlessly black eyes met with the vibrant yet unrevealing emerald orbs of Jenna. What she thought of Drake is unknown.

For my finale…a bit of conversation!

“What’s the point,” my support team asked as he read over my shoulder. I might have gotten snippy as I kicked him out of my office.

“Read it in the e-zine,” I grumped. “Besides, you aren’t a writer, so it’s not moot.”

“Moot?”

Oh, he’s not a brain either.

Anyway, back to business.

Only one smoky/husky voice allowed per piece of work. Even if said piece is a novel as long as clan of the cave bear.

Remember those books? Weren’t they great? I just rediscovered them. And FYI, Ms. Aul doesn’t have a smokey voice in the entire thing. Now that’s writing!

Those cave people sure weren’t shy, were they? When nature called, they stopped and took care of the problem—no matter if it was a full bladder or a full uterus. Call me a snob, but reading about half-monkey men with BO “doing it” didn’t do anything for my libido. You’d think they didn’t know about soap and water way back then.

But I seem to have digressed yet again. A normal state of being, just pointing out that I realize it and am rectifying the problem. After this diet Coke break.

And now for a public message of notice:

Join the writers who are brave enough to brave the yearly month-long Nanowrimo contest! It’s fun and tiring and a great way to rid yourself of all emotion. Trust me, by November 30th, you’ll be a zombie. But you’ll also have a novel written by your wonderful self. Now, that’s something to be proud of, right? Go to Nanowrimo.org and sign up. Read all their wonderful information. Write a book. Easy breezy! This will be my third year; the previous two novels are in various stages of editing completion right now. G’head, do it for your heirs or your cat. You’ll be glad you did. When else during the busy year will you get motivated by thousands of other writers, all gathered in one place? Since I lead a lonely and misunderstood existence, being the only writer in my huddle, the Internet is my saving grace and the Nanowrimo chats reviving like a cup of coffee on a rainy morning. (I’m not a coffee drinker, so that’s really saying something.) You can find me under “Scottie_chick,” mostly in the time-wasters section. No surprise there!