Strange, and other Observations

The Four Year Anniversary for FFI is about to go by unobserved, so I would like to officially acknowledge to Forgers and Forger Followers and Recovering Forger Followers that Fiction Forge Indy is, strangely, still blogging on!

Despite woeful world turmoil, stateside turf wars, and Russian influence on everything from US elections to semi truck dust art (Russian artist); us Forgers have survived whatever Orange Man and ProBoyNick can throw at us. No easy task, especially when you consider that we Forgers should never be friends or even friendly towards each other at all.

We are quite strange individuals. We are even stranger to each other.

Us Forgers could not be any more different in our writing styles, our writing genres, and our writing personalities. We are four backgrounds with different people. I mean, we are four people with different backgrounds, and somehow we kept this blog fed with ideas, criticism, stories, and writing lessons without any of us knocking each other off in mysterious mall shopping incidents and hiding our heart-staked bodies in unmarked graves. Besides…

The only one among us who could get away with it is Wetlands Expert and concrete Master Mike. Not fair!

No doubt we have come close to assassinating each other. This can only be assumed as a hard fact.  I am positive the thought has crossed our strange minds whenever we four are in the same room together, As for me, I try to protect myself by picking places to meet where I know reconstituted Nestea is not served. And rhubarb pie. YET, we Forgers still see the good in all of us despite, perhaps, wanting to quicken our luncheon with St. Peter. If not the good, then we Forgers see some element among us that makes us more tolerant of each other's strangeness...allows us to get the job done and cast as few eye rolls as is humanly possible. For example…

Business tycoon and Gentleman Fisher Keith the Con(servative) is a master of the eye roll. At least when I am with him. Also, my left cheek quivers and stings as if Keith’s tightly bound fist belongs there – like the attractive forces between ultra-straight-o and extreme-gay-o magnets. Dapper Keith and his savvy jewel thief-trained feline – Mona Fuss; they both probably think I am as close to an anthropic Starbuck’s Grande Frappuccino with Liberal Froth as a Libtard could possibly be.

And Keith thinks I hate Jesus.

However, Gentleman Keith the Con(servative) lets me watch him smoke his commie cigars one after another– as if we are just good buddies hanging out like normal buds just do! His cigar smoking makes me smile…cough, gag…and smile. What’s most interesting (and you’d never know it), Keith voted for Hillary Clinton --three times. Even if he says he didn’t, he probably did, if only because the cigar smoke got in his eyes while casting his vote(s).

Regardless of his deeply-rooted hate of all things squishy, Keith is an effective storyteller. His social commentaries on FFI will get you so riled up that you’ll want to drive your SUV into the nearest Hipsterfest – and call the Indy Star from prison and set the interview for the 6 o'clock. And at that Hipsterfest, you might find another Forger…

Wetland Warlock and Outside the Mainstream of Fashion and New Lore Specialist Mike creates new worlds from old worlds in exquisite detail as if written in color by the fine tip of a paintbrush. 

Mike thinks I write too much. Or talk too much. Mike just thinks I’m too much. 

Yet, Hipster Mike has been kind to us square Forgers despite our corporate-thinking and bank hoarding ways. He’s actually sat down with us –once, maybe twice-- over a light dinner of invasive swamp weeds and a mash of concrete taters that he stole “from the Man, dig?” at his engineering and environmental job. Truth be told, Mike is so busy with his day job, that he will not have found the time to read this post. So… Mike likes licorice tea and he dabbles in White Witch witchery. Although his favorite movie is still La Cage Au Faux, he thinks Harry Potter is da Bomb! On the third Saturday of the month, Mike plays Battleship with unshaven elves with shady pasts. Speaking of shady…

Watch out for Heather.

Professor Heather by day…Gefjon Heather of Broken Hearts by night! She will lure you to your death with her intricate writing. Sure, her lessons on the art will show you how to possess a reader and lead him or her to their death, but let’s marvel at her effectiveness, Forgers! She’s enticing; she’s our beautiful and Nordic Goddess. Yet she has only YOUR demise in mind whilst you are lost in figuring out where her plot shall lead her innocent characters.

Heather’s posts on adverb sensuality can literally kick you in the jewels, and bigly! In fact… Professor Heather has a dark and puzzling crush on me. Can you see it, too? The clues are all there. Look for them. SEE them. While Keith sees a liberal conspiracy if we add honey to our peanut butter sandwich -- I see Heather crushin’ on me. While Mike sees sharing cranberry granola as the only way to broker the peace between the Muskrat peoples of LaPorte County with the recently immigrated Polish Wodnik -- I see Heather crushing on me. And not in a good way.

It’s most obvious if you read her posts starting from the end and then to the beginning. (Yes, please try it. By the way, the words ‘subjects, verbs, and adverbs’ are code for ‘Randy, you are the gold in my fields of barley; the buzz high in the tobacco my poorly paid workers receive whilst harvesting my vast lands of Solanaceae).

She’s married, too; so it’s a little awkward. The man she forced into bondage after he read one of her earlier posts set in South Korea (http://www.fictionforgeindy.com/2015/10/its-punt.html); well, frankly he is a giant Alaskan man whose shadow touches Michigan City. I might have to change my name and move out of the city! Why must I... Why must I be so attractive?

Is it my writing? My long, dark brown curls? Or, perhaps, something else?

In conclusion, Forgers are strange folk. Fiction Forge Indy is a strange place. Thank you, Forgers, for your strange!