Mat Twassel: Blog

Two stories about tennis today, "Love Love," and "Tennis Lessons." I believe Pickle Ball may be taking over the tennis world. I've never played Pickle Ball, and I'm not sure I ever will, but then I haven't played tennis in more than a decade and it's likely I'll never play again. I still have my old Head tennis racket. I bought it because I was a big fan of Arthur Ashe. He also promoted the newly created Ford Tempo, and I bought one of those, too. Both were mistakes. Later I switched to a Prince racket, and that helped my game, not that I was at all exceptional at tennis. I was good enough to win a couple of times in the annual corporate mixed doubles tournament, but that owed mostly to being paired with the best woman player. One year our prize was a pair of goldfish. Hers died the second day. Mine lasted a week longer. As a kid I was fascinated by my parents' tennis rackets. They were wooden rackets, but what interested me was not the racket but the racket press, a pair of frames designed to keep the racket from warping. And what interested me about the racket press was not the press so much as the wing nuts used to secure the frames. My small fingers could actually work those wing nuts, tightening and loosening them again and again. Maybe I need to write a story about wing nuts.

Both stories I posted today, "Gleam" and "Art Show," have to do with painted art and artists. Artworks play an important part in the plot, and at least to a small degree, I like to think, comment on the characterizations and relationships. Quite a few of my stories involve painting, maybe because I like that kind of art, and maybe because I wish I had the skill to do first rate drawing and painting.

For the past few years I have been illustrating some of my stories. I use a computer art application from DAZ Studio. It is free, but to do very much, additional content must be acquired, either from the DAZ Studio store or from other suppliers, of which there are several. I also make use of Photoshop Elements and SnapArt4 to add finishing touches to my illustrations.

This morning I posted "Scented Candles." Like one of the characters in the story, I dislike scented candles. I don't get along well with smoke, either. Back in my Boy Scout days, the campfires didn't agree with me at all, and my hamburgers always stuck to the bottom of my stainless-steel Boy Scout frying pan. Still it might be nice to make love in front of a camp fire (or a real fire place), and candles do add something nice to intimate dinners and to loving sex. Just don't ask me to go into the gift shop area of a Cracker Barrel restaurant or a candle shop at the mall. Not that I'm a fan of Cracker Barrel cuisine or malls in general.

Today's two stories have fish in common. "Jazz at 906" and "Fish Tank." I suppose outside of the jigsaw puzzle and the main character's limited interest in fishing, there's not a whole lot of fish in "Jazz at 906," not a whole lot of jazz, either. But I like the title.

I had a difficult time with the story codes for "Jazz at 906." While sex is surely a driving force in the story, there's very little if any explicit sex. Some kissing. Some sexual conversation. So I marked it "no sex." There's also very little if any explicit violence in the story, but I marked it "violent," for violence surely plays a part. Sex and violence-I didn't want any reader to feel tricked. Story codes are tricky. I don't really have a feel for it, and I'd be fine if there weren't any, but I am not complaining.

Tomorrow I think I'll post a couple of stories about bowling.

Today's stories include a flash piece, "Extra Ohs," which I wrote years ago for the Bradley Stoke Flash Stroke Festival. The rules, if I remember correctly: the story had to fit on one computer screen, no more than 18 lines including blank lines, and no more than 80 characters per line. Of course back then there were no illustrations. I could not resist adding an illustration for this edition.

The second story, "Painting Lessons," includes nine illustrations. This story, like many of my stories, is set on Florida's Gulf Coast, Cape San Blas. I've take a few liberties with the geography, but not many. The cell phone service is somewhat better now than it was three or four years ago.