My Dinner with Eegore

Being Super Earthling entails many important responsibilities, including interaction with visitors from other planets. I’ve come to know some of them quite well. You may remember my conversations with the Interplanetary Dumbass, and the charming Gogee Grapula. Today I’m going to share my recent experience with Eegore (also known as Eddie) from the planet Kalanga-Bang.

My alien friend is an important dignitary on his planet. While the name Eegore is one of respect and distinction on Kalanga-Bang, unfortunately it bears similarity to the Earthly name Igor, which Earthlings connect with ugly hunchbacked laboratory helpers. So when he’s visiting our planet, Eegore likes to go by the name Eddie. Like many aliens, Eegore is a shape-shifter. This is how he looks as Eddie. The woman in the photo is his friend Irgrag (also from the planet Kalanga-Bang), who goes by Irma on Earth.

Don’t you just want to pinch their rosy little old-people cheeks? It’s truly a clever disguise, especially for a real charmer like Eegore. He’s always going on about how much he loves people. And the guy really has a way with words, often telling me how deliciously sweet I am. Anyway, this is how Eegore normally looks (Irgrag/Irma looks pretty much the same, except she has longer eyelashes and wears purple eye shadow and fuchsia lipstick):

Either way, he’s really adorable, isn’t he? Even huggable. Such kind eyes and a warm, sincere smile. Sadly, Earthlings might freak out if they saw a green creature with fangs and a horn growing out the top of his head walking the streets, so Eegore usually morphs into “Eddie” when he visits our planet. The one place he can roam around in his true alien form is here in Portland, where our town’s motto is Keep Portland Weird. Nobody even bats an eye when they see Eegore in his full green naked glory sitting at a local coffeehouse.

I’ve had the good fortune to visit with Eegore several times. Each of our visits was in a public place. You can imagine my delight when Eegore honored me with a dinner invitation to his private residence.

I was so excited! Naturally, I decided to wear my formal Super Earthling attire in honor of the momentous occasion. I had the costume made specially to hide any unsightly rolls, and I made sure to have a secret inside pocket to keep chocolate handy for emergencies.

Since Eegore spends a lot of time here on Earth, it’s necessary for him to earn money so he can afford a place to live and the necessities. When we chatted on the phone he explained his latest financial venture--his very own brand of paper dolls! Eegore feels it’s important for Earthling children to spend less time watching TV and playing video games and get back to good old fashioned fun. He was kind enough to include a sample of his fabulous new “Fun with Eegore” paper dolls. He posed for the doll himself. Isn’t he handsome?

Granted, his bloodthirsty hunchback and homicidal accessories may seem kind of gory, but Eegore figured he had to do something a bit off the wall to capture the interest of today’s zombie, vampire and monster obsessed kids. Since Eegore is such a kind, gentle soul, it made me chuckle to see all the murderous implements he included. It reminds me of The Three Stooges and all their good, clean, but often misunderstood fun. *nyuk, nyuk, nyuk*

When I got to Eegore’s house, which was decorated in bright, happy shades of pink (his favorite color), his friend Irgrag was busy in the kitchen, preparing dinner. I offered to help, of course, but she pushed me out of the kitchen, insisting that I just relax and enjoy myself. When I spotted the gigantic roasting pan I laughed and jokingly asked if we were having roast elephant for dinner. Irgrag just smiled politely. Before she got back to work she took this photo of me and Eegore so he can add it to his photo gallery.

Complimentary as ever, Eegore told me how deliciously sweet I looked. I confessed I was worried that my costume made me look fat, but he assured me I looked just right. He doesn’t understand the obsession of Earth women forever dieting to be scrawny. He said he likes plenty of meat on a woman. Then he pinched my cheek and winked.

My eyes just about popped out of my head when Eegore led me to the dining room. True to his word, dessert was served first and the table was covered with a multitude of chocolate goodness.

“We have to fatten you up,” Eegore told me with a smile, “and make you even sweeter than you already are. Eat to your heart’s content.” I gladly obliged because it would be really rude not to. As I stuffed my face, heading for a chocolate coma, I noticed Eegore and Irgrag hardly ate anything. They were just sipping from their champagne, smiling as they watched me pig out.

“We’re saving our appetite for the main course,” Irgrag told me when I asked. “Has Eegore mentioned how thrilled we are to have you for dinner? We just love people so much. Having them over for breakfast, lunch or dinner is one of our greatest joys.” She gave a gleeful little shrug. “Don’t be shy now…eat up, my dear, eat up.”

Striving to be the perfect dinner guest, I complied.

I made an absolute pig of myself--but what true chocoholic could possibly do otherwise when presented with a smorgasbord of all you can eat chocolate? Regrettably, my formalwear jeans had a zipper and snap closure rather than having a nice sensible elastic waist. The denim was cutting onto my belly. I was about to burst at the seams. Since I couldn’t start unsnapping and unzipping at the dinner table, I asked if they could direct me to the powder room. Third door on the left, Eegore said.

I excused myself from the table and headed down the hall where I mistakenly entered the door on the right instead of the left. Just as I realized my mistake and was about to leave, a sign caught my eye.

I laughed softly when I read the words. Eegore was a brilliant creature but, understandably, the English language still gave him trouble. Not usually one to snoop, I started to back out of the room when I spotted a glint of light. Feeling slightly guilty, I turned on a desk lamp in the darkened room and came face to face with this:

It…it seemed to still be alive…

My gaze went left to a framed photo on the wall…

The noose…it was just like the one in the Fun with Eegore paper dolls!

And just next to that…

I gazed to the right…

Dear God, it was the spammy Scott writer who called me a ho on Twitter! After I’d told Eegore about my unpleasant experience with him I never heard from the Scott again. The man just *poof* disappeared. Once again, an implement from Eegore’s paper dolls was inserted into the photo.

Just above the picture of Rufus was a large framed photo of Eegore.

I shuddered, uncomfortably reminded of an episode from the Twilight Zone called “To Serve Man.”

Above that ghastly photograph, I *gasp* saw this framed item:

It was me! Oh my God, I was the elephant they were roasting for dinner!

“Oh Super Earthling,” Eegore called from the dining room, startling me. “I hope everything is all right, my dear. Irgrag and I are positively salivating at the prospect of dinner. All we need now is you!”

Frozen in my tracks and unable to shift my gaze from the placeholder for my photo, I somehow managed to croak out, “Yes, I’ll be right there, Eegore.”

A moment later, I swear I shot out of that gallery of horrors like a bat out of hell. I went into the bathroom and closed and locked the door. I stared at my reflection and made ridiculous, nonsensical bargains with God, you know, things like promising I’d never touch chocolate ever again, or watch any more reality TV, if only he’d get me out of there alive. Then I saw the window…

It wasn’t easy getting my elephantine, weighed-down-by-chocolate, circus-fat-lady body out of that little window. As I squeezed my big butt through the tiny opening I felt like poor little Gretel who, along with her brother Hansel, was fed goodies by the wicked witch to fatten them up.

Luckily my cape gave me enough protection to glide down the two-story drop to safety. I rushed home and didn’t even bother taking off my formalwear costume before climbing into bed and pulling the covers over my head. I thanked God for saving me and, guilt ridden, I apologized in advance for not keeping my earlier vows of abstinence from chocolate and reality TV. I could almost hear God’s Sharpie marker putting a big black checkmark next to my name.

I learned from this experience that aliens are sometimes very much like people. They might look kind and sincere. They may be very nice to your face, maybe they lavish you with compliments, get you to believe they really like you, make you trust them…but when it comes right down to it, you have to be on your guard because they’ll gut you like a flopping fish and gobble your still pulsing entrails if the opportunity arises.

As for Eegore and Irgrag, we had a nice chat the next day and they apologized for planning to fill their bellies with me. They’re not really as bad as you might think. Sure, they eat people, but it’s not like they’re cannibals, because they don’t eat their own kind. I’ve forgiven their gruesome intentions because it’s simply their nature. It’s what they’re used to doing. To them, there’s nothing wrong with chowing down on humans.

It’s kind of like me and chocolate. I mean what if chocolate had feelings? And, for that matter, how do we know it doesn’t? Maybe there are tiny little chocolate molecules of emotion inside each piece of candy. If we could hear them, maybe they’d say something like this:

I want you to think of this the next time you’re about to feed your face with chocolate. Ask yourself what you would do if you knew chocolate had feelings.

I know what I’d do…

--Super Earthling…roger wilco, over and out

(NOTE: If you enjoyed this, PLEASE go forth, gleefully spreading the word by sharing, tweeting, facebooking, emailing, megaphoning, yelling from your back porch, and gossiping over coffee. :D Thank you!)

How to Create the Ideal Romance Novel Heroine

This tutorial is for writers as well as readers. Writers will learn how to craft a perfect heroine, thereby guaranteeing them a bestseller. Readers will learn how to distinguish a strong, captivating heroine from a boring, dumbass one. We’ll call our heroine Marsha (just as I did here). Most readers detest TSTL (too stupid to live) heroines, so Marsha must be believable and reasonably intelligent. It also helps if Marsha is somewhat flawed. There’s no greater irritation for readers than a heroine who’s perfect in every way.

While you don’t want to bog down your novel with too much backstory, it’s wise to include some intriguing information about the heroine’s past. We’ll strive to present her as being universally appealing; someone readers will readily care about. We begin our story by making Marsha relatable to the average reader by having her experience something a bit daunting at an early age. This should be something most readers have done themselves. For example:

Now that you’ve endeared Marsha to the hearts of your readers, further emphasize what she has in common with the reader by showing her achieving something happy and triumphant, yet ordinary. For example:

Readers will want Marsha to be complex enough to have experienced both joy and tragedy in her life. Nobody wants to read about a spoiled little rich bitch girl who’s had everything handed to her on a silver platter. But nobody wants to read about some wretched, pitiful, woe is me heroine who’s had one preposterous calamity after another, either. Crafting such a heroine may result in brutal…

So the key word to remember is balance.

So far we’ve shown Marsha bravely facing the unknown as she is squeezed, crushed and covered with uterine glop while propelling down the vaginal canal and out into the bright lights, noise and overwhelming sensations of the world, only to be slapped on the ass and have her umbilical feeding tube hacked off and left to dangle from the spot which will become her bellybutton. You’ve succeeded in showing the reader that even though Marsha is shocked, confused and mildly horrified, she’s truly happy to be alive.

After taking the reader through the initial ordeal of Marsha’s birth, allow the reader to take a deep breath and relax as we show Marsha experiencing some jubilant childhood memories.

Astute readers may have noticed that we’ve given Marsha her very own adorable catch phrase, or special saying: “Oh my God!” This makes her even more huggable, as does the addition of a favorite pet…

And a couple of favorite toys…

At this point in the novel, readers are feeling relaxed and tranquil, so it’s time to grab their attention with something entirely unexpected. In this case, we’ll make it a family picnic. Little Marsha is happy to the point of being gleeful because, not only does she get to spend time in the forest with her wonderful parents and darling doggie, but she’s also treated to what she perceives to be a giant version of her favorite stuffed animal who’s come to frolic with her and her beloved family.

Readers will no doubt appreciate the way we’ve deftly shown how a child’s perception can be quite different from reality. Little Marsha is really quite endearing and believable in her charming naiveté--so much so that you’ll catch your glued-to-the-page reader off guard with the subsequent events.

As you can see, we have succeeded in crafting a scene purposely designed to hook unsuspecting readers, making them sob uncontrollably. The parent/puppy-dog devouring event, while gritty and tragic, is wholly believable. Remember, it’s important to keep your characters and what happens to them based firmly in reality so readers can relate.

By cruelly and savagely ripping Marsha’s darling parents and pet from her life, we’ve provided our heroine with a sumptuous buffet of possible psychological problems, including a mortal fear of stuffed animals. Readers will delight in worrying about the orphan’s future as poor little Marsha grieves, ponders her existence, questions the fragile fabric of life, and tests her faith in God and humanity.

In search of truth and meaning, the troubled teenage Marsha justifiably experiments with marijuana and becomes a pot head.

Due to Marsha’s mental instability, the cannabis, generally considered safe and benign, becomes a gateway, leading Marsha to partake in a plethora of recreational drugs, such as magic mushrooms, ecstasy, crack, cocaine, heroin and meth. She attends rehab repeatedly only to succumb to using nonstick cooking spray as an inhalant and eating dried nail polish while in residence. Unfortunately, this really fucks up Marsha’s head, leading her into a dark and dangerous time of her life.

With Marsha’s sad descent into prostitution, we’ve cleverly managed to incorporate elements similar to the popular Pretty Woman movie with Julia Roberts, further capturing the attention and allegiance of our readers. Although Marsha sells the use of her vagina and other orifices for money, readers are still sympathetic because she has the ubiquitous heart of gold and because her pimp leaves her with so little income it’s difficult for Marsha to survive from one trick to the next.

To keep Marsha likeable and relatable to the reader, we must remove her from the harsh, sleazy world of whoring. We can accomplish this easily by making one of her johns a wayward priest who kindly, and most gratefully, counsels her while she’s busy providing him with oral satisfaction.

Thus, Marsha begins a new phase of her life.

Thankfully redeemed from sin and inequity, Marsha devotes her life to God, eschewing all worldly pleasures and possessions. She now lives a life of solitude and celibacy. Clearly, this is not an ideal situation for a romance heroine because most romance heroines are not nuns. An easy solution would be to hook Sister Marsha up with Father Peter, her former john, but a skilled romance writer should avoid opting for the obvious and predictable. Instead, we’ll use this opportunity to deepen the plot.

Still burdened with a multitude of emotional scars, Sister Marsha finds it exceedingly difficult to adhere to her vow of silence, breaking it often to gossip with the other nuns about who’s been seen sneaking into Father Peter’s room after dark. Once again, we’ve reminded the reader that Marsha is just like them, weak, flawed, sinful and in need of help. Since breaking a vow of silence isn’t enough to get Marsha kicked out of the nunnery, as skilled romance writers, we must devise a bigger, better, more delicious sin to cause Marsha’s ultimate fall from churchly grace.

Yes, just when readers who may not be former nuns are doubting they can truly relate to Marsha, we capably entice them back with the mother of all relatables: chocoholism. It’s a rare reader who can’t sympathize and relate with being a chocoholic. But the avid romance reader won’t be satisfied with chocoholism as a significant problem in itself because the love, appreciation and, yes, even idolatry of chocolate is too pleasurable to induce any measurable sympathy in the masses.

We must now saddle our heroine with a truly horrifying predicament that will leave readers on the edge of their seats at this new, unforeseen twist.

This is an ingenious twist because even naturally skinny readers, those who have never had a weight problem, those who may even be fat bigots, will still find themselves sympathetic to Marsha’s gluttony and resulting obesity because it’s clearly not Marsha’s fault. With the horrific death of her parents and dog, her slide into drugs, her career as a specialist in anatomical gratification, and her shameful fall from churchly grace, poor hapless Marsha is left with nothing else to use as a safety net in her life. So it’s perfectly understandable that she would turn to the comfort of food and become a pot-bellied blimp.

Most readers, however, won’t be drawn to an obese romance heroine, and they certainly won’t believe a hero who’s not a chubby chaser will lust after her. That means we have to remedy Marsha of her overt beefiness by turning her into a struggling yoyo dieter who eventually tries every diet on the planet, losing untold tonnage only to end up gaining it all back plus more--until she finally finds what she believes to be the perfect solution.

Caution is needed here. If we’re not careful, we could find weight-challenged readers resorting to bookwallage since they may find our heroine attaining a fashionably thin size zero a giant turn off, not to mention a ridiculously improbable result of dieting. So this is the perfect time to introduce a new, heart wrenching dilemma for the now bony-assed Marsha. The heroine’s longtime use of diet pills suits the situation perfectly.

This works perfectly because few readers feel a connection with a perfect heroine. Once Marsha’s obesity was resolved and she became scrawniliciously attractive, the average reader could no longer relate. Readers would soon forget Marsha’s previous struggles and find themselves focusing only on her skeletal perfection, which may cause them to think she’s become a conceited bitch, unworthy of finding true love with the novel’s eventual hero. Savvy readers and writers know the dire possible side effects of pharmaceuticals, so having Marsha’s liver fall out is both believable and engaging.

Since it’s unlikely that Marsha can survive without her liver, we must resolve this slight hitch. Putting her on the liver donor list could make the story drag on indefinitely so, instead, we will deviate from the conventional by employing creative medical liberties. The scene will be written to show the emergency room technicians stuffing Marsha’s liver back up into her vagina, and sewing it into place using mesh to secure the vaginal breach so the liver won’t fall out again in the future.

Because hospitals are ideal places for romantic scenarios, we’re going to build on Marsha’s regrettable liver accident by making it necessary for her to remain hospitalized during liver regeneration procedures. This includes Marsha taking a battery of liver regenerating medications that come complete with…

In Marsha’s case, she not only suffers most of the side effects, she is also stricken with a common hospital-borne flesh-eating bacteria, creating a pesky new problem.

We’ve done it! We’ve succeeded in crafting the ultimate perfect heroine! By now, readers are enthralled, gripped with suspense, eager to learn, positively dying to know, if dear, sweet, long-suffering Marsha lives or dies. If she lives, will she need a face transplant? Will the mesh repairing her vaginal breach remain in place after her first use of the bedpan? Will she ever get her well-deserved chance at love? And if so, will the mesh prevent her vagina from being accessible for sex once she meets her romance hero?

It is at this point in our story, romance writers, that the novel’s hero first enters the picture. Is he a doctor? A patient? A priest coming to give Marsha her last rites? A well-meaning visitor who makes the mistake of bringing her a stuffed teddy bear? Will the hero be shocked and horrified by Marsha’s hideous melting face? Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to make certain to keep your readers mesmerized!

Watch for the next exciting and informative installment in this course: How to Create the Ideal Romance Novel Hero

--Super Earthling…roger wilco, over and out

(NOTE: Please do your part to help every romance writer become a bestselling author! Go forth, gleefully spreading the word about the priceless nuggets of information in this post by sharing, tweeting, facebooking, emailing, megaphoning, yelling from your back porch, and gossiping over coffee. :D Thank you!)