My blog - The Mechanical Pencil

The Blog Challenge

The writing group I belong to, Writers of Kern, has a blog challenge annually and this year I decided to throw my pencil into the ring.  The goal:  26 blog posts in 13 weeks.

I’ve been blogging a long time.   My first blog post, I just checked, was April 24th, 2003.  I owned a local health food store at the time and dealing with the public can sometimes be trying.  We had many good customers, friends really, and writing the blog helped me cope with some of the more annoying aspects of running my own business.  The posts consisted of customer interactions, new product launches, or personal anecdotes.  Not knowing much about web traffic, search optimization, or blogging even, the site never attracted much of a following.  Looking at the Blogger stat page now I see it had all of 1000 page views.

I still write there, but I’ve made it private.  It’s become an experimental place, and it still holds a lot of good memories.  One of my favorite story arcs was over a 4 month period.  A neighbor had found two fledgling mockingbird chicks.  Being the resident animal lovers on our street, my wife and I adopted them.  We named them Orville and Wilbur.  Twice weekly trips to Bob’s Bait Bucket for meal worms, flying lessons in the store, Ranae taking them to Chuey’s on a Saturday lunch with the girls dominated my posts. (Is it any surprise the site had so little traffic?)  We played bird songs on the computer because we read that mockingbirds learn to sing by listening.

Wilbur took off one day and never came back.  Half of our job was done.  Orville struggled with flight and we continued to work with him.   On top of additional flying lessons I bought a bell and did a little Paplov conditioning.  We would ring the bell and Orville would fly to my hand a few feet away and eat a worm.  We kept lengthening the distance.  One day while practicing outside, Orville was strong enough to fly off on his own.  That night I rang the bell and, with worm in my hand, Orville flew down, gobbled the worm and flew away.  For the next month, morning and night Orville “answered the bell”.  I’m sure all the neighbors (and you too for that matter) must think me crazy.  I would sit in this chair in my front yard and ring the bell.  Sometimes it would take a few minutes, but when I would catch a glimpse of Orville flying toward our tree, it was magical.

After about a month, the cats (we own four) figured out that every time I rang the bell we were having a bird over for a meal.  Their meal.   After about a month, Orville had had enough of their Sylvester looking stares.  He was fully grown, did not need our meal worms anymore, and probably started looking for a Mrs. Orville.  While he has not landed in my hand for some time, every mockingbird in our neighborhood is known as Orville.

Training Jessie Blog

For my next blog adventure I thought about something that might help other people.  I bought a horse in 2007.  New to horse ownership and training I wanted to chronicle our journey.  The Training Jessie Blog featured training tips, videos, and successes and failures with the hopes of giving other horse owners ideas and inspiration that might help them with their horse.  Training Jessie was far more popular than my first blog and got me interested in video.   Launching  a YouTube Channel was much like a video blog and, while nothing I’ve done has gone viral, I’ve still managed to rack up about three quarters of a million views.

But the real challenge of blogging is “What do you actually write about?”.  Sometimes I want to write a piece of fiction.  Sometimes I want to give tips on dog or horse training.  Sometimes I want to rant about people who don’t use turn signals.  And here lies the struggle.  It’s not considered part of “best practices’ to have such diverse topics.  A blog “should” focus on one thing.  Readers “should” know what to expect when they visit my blog.  I’m horrible at that kind of stuff.  And that’s the other thing.  A blog isn’t “supposed” to expose the things I’m bad at doing.  It’s “supposed” to highlight the stuff I do well.  So, I don’t really know what you’re going to get over the next 13 weeks.  After 13 years of blogging I still struggle.  But, you’ll get 26 posts is some form or another, because, as I learned from Orville, when challenged, it’s important to answer the bell.

Editor’s Note:  I found this on an old private blog where I would experiment with writing shorts.  I had forgotten I had written it.  It was inspired by a Clem Snide song.  That’s why I used the guest author anagram.  

It’s guest writer night. I’ve probably started a tradition I’m ill-equipped to carry on. I showed a friend my blog and he wanted to write something. I told him to get his own blog. You’ll get to know yourself. “I don’t want to know me better,” he said, “Just let me write once.”

Okay fine. It probably won’t be very good, which is okay because my standards here aren’t that lofty. I asked him if he was worried that people wouldn’t like what he writes. He said “Judging from the amount of comments on your blog, it couldn’t be much worse than the shit you post.”

Thanks.

“Besides”, he says, “I don’t write for anyone else. I write for myself.”

I am compelled to point out that writing is a form of communication and doesn’t that mean, by its very nature, it’s meant for someone else? “Fuck off”, he says.

So, go ahead. Type. Hit “Publish” when you’re done. I think I’ll go listen to some music….

A Spring Night

A post by Denice Mels

It was a crazy day. At work I got these little fucking paper cuts on my hands. They bled like a sonofabitch. It still stings. Not that this is so epic and true, but I’m not going to let a few paper cuts keep me from writing this post.

My wife and I went for a walk tonight. It was a lovely evening. Walking through downtown is always an interesting experience. Our town has been hit by a few large earthquakes over the last 70 years and as a consequence the buildings are of an assorted architecture. There’s an assortment of old brick, what I like to call artistic masonry. The brick patterns are mesmerizing. And, like most towns, we have our post-modern square “boxes”. Functional I suppose, but not very attractive. This time of night some shops are sill open. As we walked by one store we could hear Hall & Oates on the radio. A Cougar was parked out front. Those cars ooze fast. Do they still make Cougars?

There was a street person in the doorway of an unoccupied building. He had long shaggy hair and a skinny build. His clothes were tattered. He kinda looked like Jesus. He was playing a guitar and singing a song about some shooting star. We both put some change in his beat up guitar case.

We talked as we walked along. The sky was clear and the moon was surprisingly brilliant in its last quarter. We were having trouble getting the conversation going. Stupidly and, because I heard a news story, I brought up Michael Jackson, O.J., Robert Blake.

“Shit,” I said, “These people get it all. Money, fame, love and they just fuck it up. How does that happened?”

“Yeah,” she replied, “celebrities. They think they’re so beautiful and should never be made to suffer.”

The conversation shifted as we walked through town. The talk about hunger, war, and death was bringing us down. We could occasionally hear crickets chirping and they would go silent as we walked by. We talked about how we met so very long ago in the California desert. Did it snow that year? We didn’t remember. We talked about growing up. I made a lot of mistakes, but everybody does. I said I wanted to be a baseball player. She rolled her eyes at me slowly. There were a lot of things I wanted to be.

We were getting hungry from the walk. “What’s at for dinner?”

“Not much at home except sunflower seeds and ready whip”. Our refrigerator is always fully stocked.

“I think it’s ‘All You Can Eat’ at Sizzler tonight”.

We made our way through the sea of taillights to the restaurant. It wasn’t very busy. The waitress brought us ice water. It was refreshing. I could see from the corner of my eye there was a Chinese family and could hear their baby crying as the ice cube slowly melted in my mouth.

We ordered. The food was, well, Sizzler food. They burned my steak. It satisfied the hunger. Afterwards, we headed back to the house. I wanted to hook up so I put on some Elvis music. The cat was sleeping near the stereo and I rubbed her belly for luck. She’s such a slut – the cat, that is.

The first move is the big move. Once you make it you’re committed. Her tongue was soft in my mouth and we kissed and held each other tight. I told her a joke as I undressed her. She didn’t laugh. She loosened my belt. I untied her knots with my lips. I ran my hands softly down her long perfect legs and she held her breath as I finished. When I got up to leave, she asked me to stay. I whispered, “No one makes me more happy than you.” She smiled whispered back, “The foot’s on the other shoe.” I closed my eyes and fell asleep right away. This must be what they mean when they talk about love.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer.  To take readers on an exciting journey somewhere.  Somewhere good.  Somewhere fun.  Somewhere insightful and clever.  Something in pencil.  I like the impermanence of pencil.  If you make a mistake, just add an eraser.  Not everything ever gets totally erased.  No matter how hard you try, there is always that little remnant of the mistake left behind to remind you.  You can write over it and perhaps forget what the mistake was, but the blemish reminds you to be more careful next time.

To be any good at writing, I need to write more.  That’s here, The Unmechanical Pencil.  Here I’ll explore some of the stuff I want to write about – life and stories.   Like many writers, I write wonderfully clever in my head.  It’s sharp and clear in that ethereal space between my ears.  Something happens when it travels down my spine, through the neurons of my shoulders, arms, and fingers.  It’s gets muddier, less clever.   Obviously, there is a need for practice.

I love a good mechanical pencil.  One with a fine lead that meets the paper softly without breaking.  That glides so all the letters – printed only, never cursive – look neat like a draftsman.  The body has to fit the hand.  Too thin and I find myself gripping tightly.  I’ve never come across a really fat one.  That’s left to pen manufacturers.  Pencil people know there’s no room for plump.

My favorite is the Parker pencil.  Affordable.  Reliable.  7mm lead.  I don’t remember the lead rating.  Could there be a more confusing system?  B, HB, and I don’t remember many others.  I think after buying three or four packs I’ve finally hit on the HB, but I could not tell you for sure.

Anyway, this is my spot to write.  Thank you internet