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What the….cluck, cluck, Maaaa is that?

Here’s a kid-rule in my house!  If any music or video uses a bad word, they can’t listen anymore. A few weeks ago Charlie heard me listening to Billy Joel and told me I had to turn it off because he sang a bad word. I missed it….but ugh!  Sure enough – my buddy Billy really did sing a cussword!

A few weeks later, on a road trip to Alabama Susan and I are playing Josh Groban and singing. Charlie is NOT a Josh G. fan and he starts complaining and insisting we need to turn the song off.

Charlie: Mom, you have to turn it off he’s using bad words.
Me: Charlie, he’s singing in Italian! He’s not saying bad words.
Charlie: Yes, I searched it up and it says, (pretending to read off his phone) “Does Josh Groban use bad words? Yes, in his Italian songs every word that starts with a ‘D’ is a swear word. Josh Groban swears all the time!”
Susan: Let me see that!
Charlie: No, I’m still reading it….Oh Mom, this is bad, we can’t listen to it.

Susan and I ignored Charlie and kept listening to Josh Groban music. A few moments later I hear a bird tweeting sound.

Me: Whats that?!!! (A little freaked because on a road trip, EVERY bizarre sound is something wrong with my car!!!)
Susan: It’s Charlie.
Me: Charlie! What are you doing? (The sound has now changed to louder various chicken noises.)
Charlie: I’m using this to ‘beep’ out all the cussing – so we don’t hear the bad words… bro, this is a lot of work. (talking to Christian who was just enjoying the whole thing.)

Josh Groban with some chickens is annoying and Charlie almost lost his phone but later he switched to goat sounds and I have to admit that was pretty funny. I tried to be stern, but Susan was sitting next to me, caught me laughing and ratted me out.

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Introducing…

One of the challenges I have in my story telling as a new writer, is keeping track of my characters and which ones have met and when. I accidentally introduced two characters twice, and another time I had an apparently ‘omniscient’ character who knew stuff about a person he hadn’t met yet. In novel plotting it gets hard to keep track of all the details.

As you read this, I don’t know if you are someone who already knows me really well, someone who kinda knows me and is getting to know me, or someone who just stumbled across my path. So let’s have fun! You get to be like a character in my book, my confidant, my dear friend – sometimes you might get mad at me. I’m pretty sure some of my characters are really ticked off at me right now, especially because I’ve been leaving them stew in their own plot soup a bit long.   Please know, I do not mean to offend so let’s agree to graciously give each other the benefit of the doubt! I’ve noticed that many online opinions are brandished about with the violence of a barbaric sword-fight and sometimes one is emboldened by the anonymous online-not-face-to-face interactions.

I will do my best to imagine your best self, and as I lay things out and I imagine you reading it – remember I cannot see your face. I cannot tailor my words to smooth the questioning look on your brow.  I can’t expand or rephrase my thought when your lips pursed or your eyes glaze over. I will do my best, to imagine you where you are and I so appreciate and cherish your thoughts, comments, questions. I joke around, but I never mean to personally offend anyone – it’s just not the type of humor I do. I’ll make fun of myself first.

When you comment, all I ask is that we keep content and language rated ‘G’ or ‘PG’ (maybe). I have 3 children who all read this and since they feature prominently in many of my stories, they are fascinated.

Thank you so much! I’m looking forward to getting to know you better too, my friend!