Getting superfly with some suped-up soup on the pulp fiction celebration trail...

Thinking about the kind of tales I'd like to tell to children and the sort of genre I want to celebrate and pay tribute to in text, I keep on coming back to schlock. I get high on pulp fiction and B-movie matter and so approaching stuff specifically for kids I end up writing vignettes that riff on sci-fi and horror instead of quotidian tales. I've got no interest in writing kitchen sink picture books so, hey, let's have fantasy in the things I blast out. It's way more fun to write anyway.

Today's writing effort dredges up the stuff I dig and douses it through an attempt to appeal to a family audience. The story is tentatively titled "The Fly Who Supped the Suped-Up Soup" and crosses superhero/superspy territory before finishing off with a monster-movie bang. In it a secret agent ninja woman picks up her 'special shopping' (like Popeye or Asterix, her strength comes from foodstuffs and supplements) then leaves her suped-up soup on the side while she goes to answer the phone. A jumble housefly enters and slurps some and then you know the rest. We've got a giant mutant fly on the loose...

Whether there's any value in it or whether it works as a picture book tale, I'm not sure. What I do know is that it's always enjoyable to channel my enthusiasm into writing these things and trying to twist 'em around to present in a new format (B-movies and action flicks into pictorial children's stories). It's also always fun making yourself laugh with in-jokes, scripted references and considering crucial questions like "is an innercity Chinese supermarket to obvious a place for a secret agent to pick up her supplies?" and "how big would a giant fly have to be to knock over Big Ben?"

Stupid tales are more my cup of tea and as I lurch on towards the final couple of days of this project I think I'm just going to hold my hands up and blast out some batpoo craziness that keeps that spirit going. Why stop now? On with the schlock and onward with as much fun as possibly as I kill off the crackers mission that's now draining me and making me think "hey, I want to do something else now..."