Odd as heck

 

bolt spinner Gadant

Bruno Heckmeier

Chris Cable, P.I.

Kyle Marshall and Jimmy Becker

Judge Harry Faraday

Dr. Archie Kellogg (an alias)

Gerry Ralston, Hugh Whitehorse, Morton Disley

elderly poet Blane Ballard

Jake, God, and Lucifer

Max Turpentine

Mollusk P. Molever

 

The women were wonderful, but my main character was always a leading man who had to suffer and triumph. Some went out with a bang.

I wrote a lot of personal memoir, never triumphant, never heroic, too easily seduced. That's why I liked fictional heroes, especially the supporting cast of bravehearts. Malik, Springer, and Jimmy Blue. Lt. Col. Terry Beane and industrialist Ralph Smugg. Asshole Lyle Mefford. Gunnery Sgt. Art Flores. Private banker Phillip Argonne and Lance Corporal Tom Hoffman. Admiral 'Skip' Williamson and Col. Gerry Green, MI-5. Nick Narcourt, Barry Mintz, Ben Bryer. Black ops director Mr. Brown, Billy Crane, and cousin Orville. No two alike, every man individual and distinct. The villains were heartless and clever. Gerhardt Arbuster. Clinton Spurls and Big John Corrigan. 'Binky' Balfour. Danny Stephanopolis. Colonel Bauer.

The job of creative writing is odd as heck. I don't know where characters come from, no idea how stories seem to evolve by themselves. The women were always difficult to control, too many moving parts in the feminine psyche. Female readers are impossible to please. I don't care what LGBT thinks.

Unhappily, I've painted myself into a corner, socially shunned for who I am, what I know about life, and my willingness to talk about it publicly. Erik has been almost unique in supporting me, a literary lifeline thrown by a very capable author. I don't know what my future will be, whether a new idea will emerge with enough clarity to write another story — another year of sweat equity, bad food, coffee, cigarettes, and progressive decline, to do signature art for art's sake, in celebration of heroic men and hot babes drawn to each other by irresistible natural right.