Cal.E.'s Korner

d.: (I need to see what's in these boxes).

C.: Bazinga!

d.: Oh, hi, Cal.E., how are you?

C.: I fell asleep in this box waiting for you, but I need some advice.

d.: What kind of advice?

C.: Well, I need for you to tell me what I need to do to make my story better so that more people will read it.

d.: I can try to do that, Cal.E., but writing is almost completely subjective.

C.: Almost?

d.: Yes, most people will notice if a writer uses incorrect grammar, run-on sentences, or makes a lot of mistakes with punctuation. It is also necessary to be accurate with facts.

C.: Even if I’m writing something that is purely fiction?

d.: Yes, even if something is purely fiction. The one exception may be if you’re writing something to convince people of a conspiracy theory, but accurately checking facts is still important..

C.: Explain.

d.: Okay, I’ll use the conspiracy theory the most people believe. It would go something like this.

“In the seventh month of  the year1969, the entire world was fooled into thinking that three American astronauts had made a successful journey to the surface of the moon. The Americans have gone to great lengths to keep this fallacy alive. The astronauts have posed with pictures of an American flag that was supposedly taken on the moon’s surface but was probably taken in the desert of Arizona or New Mexico.

C.: Wouldn’t the people who live in those states notice if someone had on a space suit and was standing beside an American flag that had just been planted in the sand?

d.: No, because all the pictures lacked sunlight. The argument is that the astronauts snuck into the desert while the rest of the world was asleep and took those pictures. That argument has been raging since the pictures were taken, and many people believe them to be true.

C.: Do you believe the rumors, or NASA and the astronauts?

d.: I’ll side with NASA and the astronauts, but I was only six when this happened, so my memory of it is a little sketchy. I do remember going nest door and watching it happen with my grandmother. That may be why those memories are good ones.

Getting back to my original point, though. If these people had said that the supposed moon landing occurred in September of 1970, no one would listen to them. That’s why it’s important to be accurate with facts.

C.: Okay, so we’ve covered fiction and conspiracy theories. What about fantasy?

d.: What kind of fantasy?

C.: Well, let’s see…. Let’s say a talking cat from the Planet of the Talking Cats gets exiled from her planet, where she was queen. She was kicked out of the planet and the galaxy by the galaxy’s supreme ruler, a giant talking cat. I’ll call him Meow Z. Tongue.

Tom doesn't want to execute his wife, so he and Meow Z. Tongue come up with another plan.

The queen was banned from her home planet and galaxy because she ate the king, her husband’s, “Rodent Fit for Royalty,” the king’s lunch.

The cat crash lands in the Atlantic Ocean and swims to the nearest shore, watching her spaceship explode in the reflection on the side of a barn made of sheet metal.

She’s frightened of large earth creatures known as cows,

but a new friend, Barney the Barn Cat, befriends her and assures her that the cows are nothing to worry about. However, Barney lives in a rural setting, and the queen cat is accustomed to finer surroundings. That’s why she hops on an eighteen-wheeler headed west.

The truck stops in Houston, Texas, and she jumps off the truck and starts walking, but is caught by animal control. While she resides in The Kennel, she meets a male nurse who says that his best friend and next-door neighbor specializes in taking in stray cats and dogs, as well as human babies.

The cat and her next-door neighbor, the nurse become BFFs because he’s the only person who knows that she can talk. He warns her not to talk to anyone else, or she may become a science experiment. The nurse and the cat get even closer because the cat’s human mom and dad are always going on Yetta Nather cruises, and he’s charged with taking care of the animals for his best friends and next-door neighbors. Since they spend so much time together, the cat and the nurse decide to start writing a blog…

d.: Cal.E., I wouldn’t begin to know how to write something like that.