Hi, my name is David, thank you for letting me in your group for Amateur Authors (AA). I’ve been a friend of Bill (Shakespeare) for a little over 5 years (I know he’s actually a playwright, but I had to read him in high school and I’ve used algebra more than I’ve used his obscure rhymes that sound like Dr. Seuss had a stroke, so I’m going to self-allow it). During that time I’ve written a trilogy of middle grade, action/adventure books with light sci-fi that gets a smidge heavier with each volume. They’re centered around highly fictionalized versions of my son 13 and stepdaughter 15. Other character are fictionalized versions of my best friends, family and Army buddies (basically all my heroes). I’ve been at it for years, relearning everything I assume some professor taught me in my one class of college level creative writing in 1982. (You know; show, don’t tell, adverbs aren’t your friend, avoid passive voice, only Satan doesn’t use the oxford comma). Now, with the help of a critique partner, I’d like to get them publisher-ready, even if it ends up I’m the only person who reads them (to future grandchildren probably). My hobby is making people laugh. Be it the cousin who tells me he showed up because he needed a laugh, the commander who made me the only private ever volun-told to put together the company’s skit for battalion dining-in, the thousands of strangers who voted me the only straight, male, non-drinking Sausage Queen at a German Beer Festival or friends who message me to make sure I’m coming to their party to lovingly roast them in front of their friends and family. Hopefully my sense of humor comes through in my writing, but at the very least I can die happy knowing I worked, “Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program.” into a book. Since I’m closer to 60 than 50, my only other hobbies are; complaining about millennials and the weather, watching blurry Matlock reruns on an 80 inch hi def TV and going to Denny’s for their “early bird specials”.
I like warmhearted humor, sci-fi, adventure, action. Let’s call it Chicken Soup for the Funnybone Instead of the Soul. Weirdly, I like moments that are so cringeworthy I have to skip them and come back later. I like good triumphing over bad coming of age books. I love bad characters getting redemption.
Erotica, the Cleveland Browns, poetry, the Cleveland Indians, self help, The Cleveland Cavaliers, to a lesser extent straight up romance, (romance subplot is fine), The Cleveland Gutter Ballers Semi Professional Bowlers and Light Engine Repair Team, as for LGBTQ+, I bought a rainbow romper right before Covid cancelled the 2020 Cincinnati Pride Festival and saved it for this year (cancelled) but having me read your LGBTQ+ book is a little like going to a bald barber.
Cameron Morgan led a sheltered life to be sure. Sheltered from bullies by being homeschooled. Sheltered from bad influences of society by living so far off the beaten path the Google Street View of his house is a No Trespassing sign. All Cameron wanted to be a normal kid doing normal kid stuff. Normal is a relative term and the relatives he didn’t know about are light years away from any semblance of normal. Ironically, it was a trip to a different kind of shelter that started Cameron on his journey of discovering how epically unnormal he is.
Cameron sat behind his dad in the family van. His thumbs resting on release buttons for the padded seat belts crisscrossing his chest and bolted to the floor and ceiling. His parents’ overprotection made him feel more like an astronaut about to be shot into space than a new teen going to an animal shelter to adopt a dog. Cameron did not want a tiny safe dog, he wanted one big enough to play fetch with logs and use old tires as chew toys. “Can I adopt any dog there, for my birthday, Dad?” Cameron hoped adding birthday to the same question he asked four times since his family piled in their minivan might guilt his family into canine carte blanche. He craned his neck from his immobilized body to check the sincerity in his dad’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“Any dog you want.” David answered without reservation. “Right Jen?”
“Within reason,” Cameron’s mom clarified for the fifth time.
Cameron’s sister caressed a gray tabby dozing on her lap. “It has to like Jane, and not for dinner.” If Megan wasn’t as protective of Jane as she was of Cameron, she came in a close second. Megan had a way with animals. In petting zoos, they followed her around like she was the Pied Piper even when she didn’t have food.
Dad pulled into a gravel lot devoid of competing adopters. When the van stopped, Cameron hit the releases on his excessive safety restraints and bailed out the door like a paratrooper over the drop zone.
Dad’s coworker and who volunteered at the shelter on weekends met Cameron at the front door. He stood taller and slimmer than Dad, neither of which was an easy feat. Kenny glanced at his phone. “It’s one o’clock. We opened at noon.”
“Hey, Mr. Greis. I could have been here earlier, but Mom made us change out of our church clothes. Are there many dogs left?”
“Sadly, yes.” In the shelter business, more does not make it merrier. Kenny bent down to Cameron’s ear level. “Do you think you can talk your mom and dad into taking two or three home?”
Um, other projects? I’m currently running 220 to the garage to be able to fast charge our electric car fro our solar panels. Does that count?
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