Sunday 30 March 2008

how about mel blanc ...

F12 time here, as the zombies approach their big scene. I'm beavering away at the book and making not much sense of anything else. I know I should be paying attention to the rest of my life, but somehow the book seems bigger. My larger children's essays, my smaller children's dinners, the hygiene of my person and my apartment (I'd love to call it a flat, which sounds British in a cool way, but it's really the upstairs of a house) --- all of these are crammed into the back pocket of my mental pants. My speeding ticket is on the back burner of my mental stove. My blog is in the back forty, my workout schedule is in the backwoods, my love life is knocking on the back door ... well, you get the idea.

Hey, maybe you can help. What's happening in the book is this: the town is on its way to being overrun, and our heroine is about to realize that she has been the cause of it all ... but she has no idea how to save the day from the consequences of her own meddling. The place needs a saviour. It needs Hugh Jackman or Jack Nicholson or Nicole Kidman (gee, that was fun. Where can we go with this? Kid Rock, Rocky Balboa, Bilbo Baggins ... okay, now we're stretching) --- in short, a hero for perilous times.


But I have no hero. That's my problem. I want to finish the book and return to the rest of my life, but I can't see my way out of my hero-less state. My cast of characters includes Ryan the misunderstood zombie, Marlee the lonely girl, her Uncle Ted the preacher, Dr Malik the worried hospital exec, assorted bullies who are due to get eaten, Granny Griselda, and her son Mr Grassmore the fifth-grade teacher and part-time Ninja. I don't see a hero there. Do you? (Yes, the picture's title is Part-time Ninja.) I don't see any of those roles played by Samuel L Jackson, or Jack Johnson or John Cougar Melloncamp ....

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think the part time ninja should be the hero or even the lonely girl.

Richard Scrimger said...

I'll bear the lonely girl in mind. But the part time ninja teaches Grade 5 -- a hero? Really? RS

Anonymous said...

Ahhh Richard -- it's Granny Griselda. Turns out that she is the secret ninja master who trained her p/t ninja son. Ninja support hiding under the support hose.

80 is the new 50.

Susan

Anonymous said...

P.S. To be inspired, you should have been here in Belleville this weekend witnessing the Zombie Walk along past the Quinte Mall (with a side order of zombies slithering past A&W on the other side of the road). what's with all the zombies of late --- a zombie renaissance, perhaps? Scheduled to be an annual event - maybe you can tie it in with your book launch.

Susan

Richard Scrimger said...

Zombies are part of my mall experience too. Sometimes they are in the checkout line, sometimes the food court. And zombie parking lot run-ins are common. RS

Anonymous said...

Maybe the Sun King? Probably not Austin Powers...
Sand

Richard Scrimger said...

Had not thought of the Sun King. Not bad. Not bad at all.
RS

Anonymous said...

Uncle Ted gives Marlee some sort of family heirloom
that gives her power. And it can be a goofy heirloom
like a soap dish. Maybe he is about to throw it away
and she grabs it. He's cleaning out his attic. The soap dish or whatever is the key to fighting off the zombies.
Somebody in the family used it two hundred years ago to do the same thing in the last zombie uprising.

Anonymous said...

There's some neat stuff in the "Man, Myth and Magic" encylopedia. I particularly like the case where a Voodoo priest bewitches a woman and used her as a zombie until "the Catholic anit-superstition campaign" people caused the priest to set her loose. Maybe you could have a secret society enter the picture?

Or, according to this source, drinking salt water is an "instant cure for zombification". Apparently, salted biscuits might work too.

It's a good two page article. Would you like a copy?

Cath

Richard Scrimger said...

Hey, Cath/Anon -- I'll take all the help I can get. Thanks. RS

Anonymous said...

So the ninja is too busy being a teacher, his students must be in danger for him help to save the day.

I think the zombie needs to be
taught the ways of the ninja.

I guess the lonely girl will kind of understand the zombie after he saves her from assorted bullies by injesting their brains. If she were to then find out about the ninja teacher, she could ask him for help. He would say no. Then she would suggest that he could train the zombie.

It could be something corny like "I'm only a part-time ninja, but you're a full-time zombie... I will teach you my ways"

class: "Teach us the way of the ninja too!"

No!

I will only teach what is in the gr.5 curriculum. No more no less. I have to save time for ninja related business as well.

P.S. Your site is a perfect break from studying.

Richard Scrimger said...

Dammit A-bomb, I am not here to distract you. This is important stuff, man. Engineering dilemmas come and go, but zombies and ninjas are always with us. RS
ps -- the ninja is going to make it. The bully is doomed. The lonely girl is going to say farewell to the hero-zombie at the end, like the feral boy at the end of The Road Warrior.

Anonymous said...

Who said anything about distraction? Breaks can be constructive and important. Furthermore. I never joke when it comes to zombies and ninjas. I have to take them into account on every engineering assigment and project(or I lose marks). Wouldn't my face be red if my bridge is destroyed by zombies and everyone screams "What kind of naive fool builds a bridge that can`t stand up to a few zombies?"

I try to push for ninja-zombie and now I don't think I feel welcome here amymore.

P.S Do you really need a hero? Couldn't everyone be like "Don't worry about it. Everything will be fine." ?

Anonymous said...

There was a rabbit when we came to this topic before. Velveteen.

Sand

Anonymous said...

I Think it should be full-time ninja and he shoud let the lonley girl get in on some of the action!!!