Playing Detective

I think the office is haunted.

The working title for my childrens book is Toe Tag You're It!  It's a murder mystery set on an elementary school's playground with a Sam Spade like fourth grade detective leading the investigation.  No hookers or bookies because that's just creepy and possibly a flag for law enforcement.  We're not anti-law enforcement around here, they've been quite polite when chasing me out of parks and playgrounds.  Working on the art program requires me to wander around parks and playgrounds with a camera and the untrusting think me perverted.  Yeah yeah yeah I need a vicious dog to chase the tykes and moms back to their vans and out of my shots, but a frothing dog is tough to find and harder to train.  I don't even want to get into what happens to the upholstery.

Norma, sweet Norma is working in her garden and not with me right now.  High-strung artsy folk and their moods.  I wish I could lure her out with a carrot, but right now I'm the mule.  You know what's ironic? I used to think my former bosses were asses.

The haunted thing?  Last night I went into the bathroom, lit a candle and called forth Mary Worth.  I didn't see her appear, but this morning there was toothpaste all over the mirror.  Any other explanation?  I think not and then there've been mysterious fires.  I started the one and the second one I started too, but the third started  itself with little more than a match.  I'm not afraid and I will never give up lighting with candles and reflectors.

I'm moving on to working with fog.  I bought a fog machine that spews 1200 cubic yards of fog every 30 seconds and you know there's fun in that.  But what?  But what?!  Perhaps a card and you know what that means.  Yeah baby.

There's Safety in Numbers--IF the Other Numbers are Smaller and Slower

Right now I'm staring at a cannibal bunny Easter card and wishing the idea had been mine. Not the cannibalism part because people taste funny (it's true look it up if you don't believe me), but the bunny gone bad part.  I can imagine hundreds of bad bunny themed cards filling the shelves of the supermarket.  "Move over bread," the manager shouts, "a whole new line of bunnies in bustiers has arrived."  I wouldn't use real rabbits only stuffed ones.  Anyone who has ever tried to take a picture of their pet knows they all become divas with "artistic demands" as soon as they see a camera.  Yep, make your life easier and stick with stuffed animals.  Not that shooting a real bear wasn't fun, but the salmon bill was outrageous. 

The Props Wing

It's been a shooting week with very little writing being done.  It just felt like a good week to try and knock out some of the art program and let the writing age a little.  Writing is always better when it's allowed to age.  Not too much aging or they don't get finished, but just enough aging to gain a little perspective to see what's working and what's not working.  You know what's not working?  Sentences bumping into the picture after like six words.  I'll do it differently next time.

You know what else I'll do differently next time?  Use non-flammable glue.  Do you see the white can on the small table in the middle of the room?  It contains sticky, highly flammable stuff that turns hours of work into ash.  It has potential for fun in imaginative hands (I'm thinking a flaming fire hydrant would make a great picture or a flaming chocolate bunny).

Did you notice how easy I've made it for you to follow me on Twitter?  You're now just a click away from minute-by-minute Jotsalot updates.  Still don't think you're getting enough of us?  You can now like Jotsalot Media LLC on Facebook.  Cool, right?

Learning Which Itch to Scratch

Hi, come on in.  It's so nice of you to drop by my humble blog.

Yea or nay on folksy?  I was watching Deliverance when a sudden yearning for homemade folksy fun filled my thoughts.  Please vote in your comments.

So many of you ask about my creative process.  It's usually phrased something like “They know you're out, right?" so I'll assume it's about my creative process.  Simple, I make it up as I go along. I sit down, without a clue, let my mind go completely blank and override spell check.  Pretty cool, huh?  The less I think the better I work.  Thinking has killed a lot of great ideas around here and I'm working to make sure that never happens again.

Beer helps. 

There are only so many hours a day I can drag pencil across paper.  Did you know the pencil really isn't writing on the paper?   The texture of the paper is rubbing words from the pencil.  So needy is paper to be filled up by thoughts, it will rub a poor pencil down to nothing given the chance. I've been lucky enough to see that happen twice this week.  A collaboration between pencil, paper and me that's resulted in some interesting moments.  Like realizing the pencil isn't really writing on the paper.

Yes, the Timpkins books will contain some of her poetry.  I love her poetry, but I'm not having a lot of success getting any more from her.  I think she wants to see me publish what I have of hers now before adding more to the workload.  She's a thinker she is.  I've given myself six more weeks to have her book ready to show someone.  There's a lot of shooting to be done.  A lot of shooting.

Remember to vote.

Don't You Think Gravity Comes Off As A Little Needy?

Right now I'm battling two songs stuck in my head.  Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails and "five eight eight two three hundred Empire!"  Here's my free business idea of the week: Song Exorcist.  I'll bet it's even unregulated so you could create your own licensing body and charge others to become licensed song exorcists.  Online classes?  Exorcist kits?  800 number for tele-exorcisms?   Oh here's the crack marketing strategy, choose catchy hold music so they have to keep calling back to get rid of a different song.  I should keep this idea for myself, but I'm feeling particularly generous today.

Here's another gift for you from the pen of Timpkins.

Tongues

Your tongue tastes like my tongue

My tongue tastes like your tongue.

A tastier tongue I never did taste.

Too bad we're only six

and both eating paste. 

-Norma Timpkins

Wow! really makes you think.

Now that I've greased your palms, here's a question for you.  Is that poem kind of creepy?  I've read it and read it and read it and sometimes I think it's funny and sometimes I think there's a creepy element to it, but I cling to it still because I have a great idea for a photo illustration.

Two weeks in a row of not feeling it, it must be the resume thing getting to me or the complete lack of sunshine for six months.

When You Name the Stone in Your Shoe, You've Given Up

"An eye patch and hook looks uncoordinated, but add a parrot and you're an entrepreneur with flexible hours and wenching.  I'm not sure how that works, but it doesn't seem fair." -Norma Timpkins

"Nothing is fair until you're atop the food chain; then everything is fair." -J. Esten-Thomas

The above was a paid advertisement for Jotsalot Media.  We're a really happy group creating things that strike us as funny.  Fun is money.  Money is fun.  Fun is contagious so money is too.  Logically that works and in a real life dirt-under-the-fingernails level it works too.  It's the Fear Filter that keeps us from accepting that.

We aim to change all that.

I'm pretty sure this whole post has been an advertisement for us.  But you know how it is when you'rethisclose and can't stand it another second.  Or maybe you know what it's like when you're hungry and you just don't know what to write.

This just isn't my night.