Well, now I’ve gone and done it. I was at one of my favorite sites poking the author’s favorite site list looking for inspiration when I found a guy talking about personal heroes. Although, I don’t think he phrased it quite that way. Still, the idea was to approach the person you want to emulate and ask them for a few pointers.

The writer suggested a few novel ideas: that the person you were writing was indeed human. What? Oh no no no, mine didn’t get to where he was by being human, thank you and I appreciate you not humanizing him. Mine is a demagogue of humor and you don’t become a “dema” of anything by slumming with we silly mortals. Then, the writer went further to say something about how given the person is in fact human, that person would likely be open to a few questions. Oh please, now you’ve gone too far. This writer clearly has demonstrating his own sense of humor with this suggestion, but the problem is that my guy is far too busy thinking up amusing topics on top of his pedestal to answer a few questions – questions he’s likely posed on a daily basis from fan-girls like me. He suggested that you be brief, to the point and be ready for rejection. Now the rejection part, I was prepared for.

So, yesterday I decided “what the hell” and I wrote my local hero. I even threw out my website, why not? I was already being funny, why not extend my personal skit to include my blah-g. I tried to be brief, but in also trying to be humorous, I lost track of that whole brevity thing and found I had composed one of those crazy meandering e-mails my friends occasionally get. At some point I thought “ok, enough you nut – he’s going to think you’re going to start hanging around his yard if you keep it up” and paused long enough to finish with a big “Thank you for your time, Beth”.

As I always do, I called Jay and April to announce that I officially lost my mind. They’re sympathetic and understand that I am Lucy from “I Love Lucy”. And then I braced myself for the “rejection” phase the post I read talked about.

When I got home an e-mail sat in my box winking at me. “Beth, give me a call”.

Now, I’m stuck. Sometime between now and Monday, I have to think of some good questions (I’m back to that again) – things I want to know to help me improve my own writing without sounding like a complete goon. Wish me luck.