A Lesson Learned…In The Twilight Zone

For me- as a writer– this closing scene from an Twilight Zone Episode titled

” Will The Real  Martian Please Stand Up”

taught me to not only look under the bed or into the closet to find the monster so that I could write about it

it taught me to get under the bed or into the closet and THINK like one.

Enjoy.

During a snowstorm, two state troopers are investigating a crash and are led to believe that it was a UFO. They follow footprints leading from the crash site to a diner, where a group of passengers from a bus to Boston are waiting for word that a bridge up ahead is safe to cross. Though the only patrons of the roadside eatery are bus passengers, there is one more diner than there were people on the bus. There is mutual suspicion among the stranded travelers, as the passengers each try to guess which among them is the alien. When they get permission to go across the bridge, however, they all leave.

Shortly, the businessman played by John Hoyt returns to the diner and tells the cook that the bridge collapsed and the bus and police car fell in killing all aboard the bus and the policemen. As the cook wonders how the businessman survived, he also notes that his clothes are not even wet. Soon the businessman unveils his third arm and stirs his coffee with his third hand, telling the cook that he is a Martian, and revealing that Mars plans to start a colony on Earth. Laughing, the cook tells him that he’s too late, and by taking off his paper hat and revealing his third eye, reveals that he is from Venus, which has already started a colony, and that the Martian invasion force has been intercepted.

Episode no. Season 2
Episode 64
Written by Rod Serling
Directed by Montgomery Pittman

 

Tis The Season

 Norsey Wood photo by Ian in Billericay

Norsey Wood photo by Ian in Billericay

I belong to an On-Line Writers Group and we’ve got a Christmas Blog up and running.

There’s some artwork, humor, holiday recipes and stories going up there daily.

So what is somebody like me- who just finished two stories about cannibals- doing over there?

I’ve found a way to work in Tequila and David Tennant onto a Christmas Blog.

I am So clever…

HAHAHAHAHHA

So check it out over the holidays, it’ll be something fun to read.

:::visit::::

CHRISTMAS AT RIVERSLEIGH

The Queen Of De-Composition

I had a conversation with a writer.

She said I had ‘ no business’ creating a story

that takes place in a fictional town outside of Seattle.

She said it would ‘corrupt’ the real history of Seattle.

Anita The Corrupter

the

 Queen of Decomposition.

You met her here first….

remember that.

It’s 3AM And The Phone Is Ringing…

Yesterday I surfed ALL of the cable news shows because after years of watching the Press go into  Whore Mode for the White House, for having to sit through  “News Stories” concerning Britney Spears Mental Health Issues and for the endless stories concerning anorexic starlets and stories about  crotch shots

 after all of that

I could sit back on my couch with my can of Pringles and a Wine Cooler and see one ‘news source’ after another go into meltdown mode because the Obama Campaign did to them what they have been doing to the public for ‘lo these many years.

THEY SCREWED THE PRESS.

Instead of sitting around a desk with a smarmy smile because they have ‘sources’ feeding them their stories and let’s face it, if someone else is doing the work you’re not going to be breaking a sweat are you?

Anyway.

 This time the press actually had to work for a story.

And let’s see what did they come up with?

Oh yeah.

Nothing.

I took a mean sense of pleasure from listening to one talking head after another end every comment they made with a nervous, ” but we don’t know…”

Boy did they look ticked off.

Oh here, I have to wipe this little tear of joy out of my eye.

Now.

I ask you.

 Who was there to answer the call at 3:00?

Uh.

We did…you know…

We The People.

Beauty Was A Beast

 Once Upon A Time

When I was about 6 years old my family realized I was a little girl who was fascinated with stories about Head Hunters and Zombies and a guy named ” Burke’s Hare ” who robbed graves and sold the rotting bodies to ” Franks  Stein ” who in turn made Monsters out of them.

I guess my family were more then a little disturbed by my taste in literature so they tried to balance things out by introducing me to your more traditional fairy tales…

Like

 Cinderella

At first I liked Cinderella, but it became clear to me during story time that she needed magic to be prettier then her sisters. I was not encouraged by that as I was not exactly the cutest kid on the block and unless someone showed up with a magic wand I figured I was in trouble.

In the end I was scared of the Cinderella story, it used to give me nightmares.

However I LOVED Snow White.

She got to live in the woods and she ate a poisoned apple and lived-which made perfect sense to me as I had swallowed kerosene on a dare a year before and I had lived.

So I felt a kinship with Snow White and her weird friends who looked like trolls.

She was one lucky girl I remember thinking- her friends were monsters and carried axes and in addition she had black hair too ( which wasn’t something girls in fairy tales had unless they were bad ) so I happily saw myself in that role and asked for that story a lot.

But the Fairy Tale Character who offended me to the marrow of my little girl bones and the one character I truly learned to hate was Beauty- from Beauty and the Beast.

More then halfway through the story I did whatever it is kids do during story time to be disruptive and my Grandma tossed the book into my toy box and that was the end of that.

Or so I thought.

So why did I get so upset?

Here.

Let me count the ways.

First of all her Dad ditches her in the woods and she spends all of her time wishing he would come back-had that been my Dad there would have been serious Hell to pay if he had ever shown his face around me again…

but I digress.

The only person who is nice to Beauty is an Ugly Man who almost dies when Beauty’s  kid ditching Dad shows up and takes her back.

Now that part made me cry and it was awhile before I agreed to hear the end of the story which my Grandma was glad to tell me because I had taken to drawing pictures of Beauty being visited by ” Burkes Hare ” and I was hanging them up all over the walls in my bedroom.

Well.

I was mad, but a sport so I learned that Beauty goes back to the castle the Beast and everything around the castle comes back to life and…

Beast turns into a handsome Prince “and they lived Happily Ever After” my relieved Grandmother sang out as she finished the story.

I remember telling my Grandma ” If she had eaten a poisoned apple that would have been a  very happy ending.”

” You really think so, don’t you. “

It really wasn’t a question.

I didn’t say anything but I remember my Grandmother looked at me with those wicked green eyes of hers and winked at me. I remember she said something about not winning them all…

and I was never treated to another Fairy Tale by anybody in my family again.

….And we all lived happily ever after that.

The End.

Write Here

So it’s Saturday and sunny outside and here I am reading and writing.

What can I say.

It’s a perfect day.

And here are some things I’ve looked at that I would like to share with you.

Enjoy!

A Woman, A Story, I know how it ends…

In Endless Song

There’s a post here called

Life Art and Everything…

it made me a fan

at

The Painting Lady’s Weblog

Some things just click for you when you read them…

And So I Write

Who’s Done It Best

In the two Part Doctor Who episode ” The Forest of The Dead”  and ” Silence In The Library” evil  creatures are hiding in a city that houses a computer-

a big computer, a huge computer, a living computer.

And those evil creatures that feed off of organic material ( well, human flesh ) are living in….

books.

Lots and lots of books.

Books that are made out of wood pulp.

Paper.

This made me think:

When we give kudos to the new ” Sci Fi ” stories, those kudos get tossed around like confetti because woman can now shoot big guns and sometimes even get to be Captains on actual spaceships and have ripley muscles just like their male counter parts.

But come on how is that cutting edge exactly?

Some writers just figured out that you can substitute male characters for female characters because really, they can do the same exact job.

Sort of like real life.

Anyway.

In this Doctor Who episode we did see something cutting edge, we saw something unique we saw a story that takes place in the future ( well, that’s a guess where Doctor Who is concerned-but stick with me here ) and in that future were books.

Books with pages that you can turn, pages that crackle and pop when they’re new and whisper when they get old.

How cutting edge is that?

Very.

After all.

A Science Fiction story about Time Travel had at it’s core…books…

books in a Library.

In these times when we walk around with a phone that is sort of like having a second brain that you can hold in your hand ( also a addressed in Doctor Who episode: Planet Of The Ood )

I found ” The Planet Of The Ood “episode to be more of a shot across the bow of the hi-tech ship everyone I know seems to be sailing on then then to be story a story about slavery or disease.

So I will freely admitt I thought is was a riot when my Cell Phone enslaved friends watched this and didn’t seem to see the comparison between themselves and the Ood and the guy who gets ” turned “.

I think that seeing a story about books

made me realize

how much I would miss them if they were gone.

So that must mean on some level

I must feel like they’re being taken away…made irrelevant.

When did that happen?

The funny thing is, The Doctor would know.

Doctor Who.

It has more then a real hot guy playing the lead role.

It happens to have some excellent stories too.

Enjoy…

and THINK next time you watch it.

a.m.

 

 

Write Here

It’s new ( well to me )

it’s exciting.

There a story about this giant fish and dog and…um.

Go see it for yourself here:

Searching The South

when you’re done visit

The Struggling Writer.

He shouldn’t have to Struggle

He’s THAT good.

Enjoy.

You will.

Promise

a.m

Word Up

It’s all about words today here at the Bones.

If you could banish a word from the English Language what would it be?

Me.

I would flush the word boing.

Heck.

I wouldn’t even bother to flush it, I’d take a plunger and jam it down the first toilet I could get too before I could stomp it out of existance.

Who the hell came up with that one?

Boing.

It serves no darn purpose.

Oh and while I’m at it I say we loose Awesome…I don’t hate the word Awesome I just think it would be funny to see what happens if people can’t short cut a view by heading down ‘awesome avenue’ instead of EXPLAINING why they think something is so spectacular it sucks the air out fo their lungs and makes them feel that the Universe is truly a very big place and that feeling sends a tingle up and down their spine.

So … think about it what word would you like to lose?

 

That’ll Learn Ya!

Want to know what I do when serious people start to ask me serious questions about the things I write?

I post David Tennant stuff.

Seriously.