Joe DeMarco has invited me to write a column for this prestigious e-zine, and I have graciously accepted. Since I've never written an ongoing column before, the first thought (and e-mail to Joe) was, “What the heck do I write about?”

After much thought between short stories and work on the second novel, I came up with an idea. We'll see if it pans out or I get tossed to the lions as in days of yore.

I call it Tangents.

I wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. It started out not as a dream for glory or money, but an overwhelming desire to write better commercials than the ones that I had watched on TV. My father is probably to blame for this hyper-critical attitude. While I was growing up, my dad would literally shout at the television screen: “What the hell was that all about? What kind of idiot would try to sell cereal by having some other idiot eat a pine tree? Jesus Christ!” The habits formed at such an impressionable age are potential money makers for many a psychologist, and while I have yet to avail myself of those services, I still enjoy heckling badly written commercials.

“For cryin' out loud, didja see that? There's another commercial for male enhancement . The wife looks so freakin' happy ! And look at the envious neighbors. This is taking Keeping Up With The Joneses just a little too far, don't you think?”

Susan, my wife, doesn't say anything when I go on these rants, but I usually get a bark or two from the dogs. I'm never sure what exactly they are trying to say, but I'm ever hopeful it's something like, “Damn straight! Really dumb commercials, master! Now how ‘bout a doggie biscuit?”

From what I can recollect, I was seven or eight when I first started to lock these thoughts away in the back of my mind, holding on to them for future reference. It would be twenty five years before I put then into play. Sometimes life has a funny way of getting in the way of your dreams, and I was no exception. I was twenty eight before I went off to school for television production, and a year and a half later when I realized that it wasn't for me. Nobody ever told me when I got into that mess that you have to do an internship for a year at five bucks an hour. That might be possible for a twenty year old with no bills and no ex-wife, but impossible for me.

I put aside the writing stuff for another twelve years, working at my day job installing carpet before I had an epiphany, and decided to write again.

This time it was a novel, and by gum, I had a blast! Many writers will tell you that they outline the entire story, having a plot in mind so they have an idea where to send the characters, and know full well who killed Professor Plum in the library long before his head was caved in by the infamous candlestick.

I couldn't do that if I tried.

When I first started, the words poured out of me like water; half the time I didn't remember what I wrote until I looked back at the pages. The characters wrote the dialog, and the story unfolded before my very eyes. I had never felt anything like it before, and I still get a thrill every time it happens.

Who knew you could have fun with this stuff? And although so far the pay couldn't support a family of lemmings for a week, I'm at the happiest point of my life.

That last statement sounds like a commercial: “I'm forty one, and in the best shape of my life...and if these six-pack abs weren't enough, I'm popping eighty male enhancement pills a day! When I get home from the office, my wife looks like a deer in the headlights of an onrushing car! Hot Damn!”

And now the explanation of Tangents.

When I'm writing, and going into that zone where all I see is the story, it reminds me of that old song, One Thing Leads to Another. My ideas for stories, or just a glimmer of an idea for a story, usually come to me at night just before I go to sleep, or in the car when I don't have pen or paper. Imagine me when I get home muttering under my breath, panting, cursing the day I ever started smoking, and racing upstairs to my office to type it in to the idea page before I forget.

Some of the ideas are good; some are real pieces of crap.

The point is, when I begin actually writing the story, I rarely end up where I thought I was going to go. One thing leads to another and soon I'm miles away from where I started; sometimes ending up very good indeed, and sometimes going into the depths of crapdom.

I think that's how this column is going to be, as well. I think I'll start out in one place, and end up miles away, doing something completely different. Nothing intentional, mind you, it's just the way my mind works. This mind set causes problems as well as thrills.

Imagine me in the grocery store. I envy those people that can just stop in to grab a few groceries on the way home. I go in for a pack of cigarettes and a carton of milk to pour on my Cap'n Crunch, (with Crunch Berries, of course!) and come out with a leg of lamb, four cartons of Ben and Jerry's, and a gallon of Yak milk. Here's my thought process while in the store:

“I wonder if anyone has ever died while eating leg of lamb? Hmmm... I wonder if you could use leg of lamb for a murder weapon? The taste of lamb would probably cover the taste of arsenic. Lamb as a blunt instrument? Do we have any ice cream? Frozen ice cream, now there's a blunt instrument. Whoa! Yak milk? What the hell is that? Probably the same stuff they use to make the male enhancement pills. Yak milk instead of water for Chinese water torture? Cool!”

Then the race home to write the ideas down, and Susan saying, “What on earth did you buy? You know I hate leg of lamb!”

Me: “You're going back up to the store then?”

Her: “I guess I'm gonna have to.”

Me: “Grab me some smokes, willya?”

The path I take may not be the beaten one or may not even be a path at all, but eventually I get there. And although we may have to milk a couple Yaks along the way, I would like you, o' tolerant reader, to join me, because you just never know where we might end up.

Who knows? It might be fun.