Hey 3.5 readers.
So, how the heck I find myself writing this story?
It all happened really fast.
Tuesday, I was perusing some books when I came across a novel set during the time of Ancient Greece about Helen of Troy falling in love with a warrior.
I didn’t read it but I started to become curious about Good Ole Hotpants Helen.
I’d seen movies and/or read about her before. The most prominent movie I can remember is 2004’s Troy.
So I looked up some information about her. I found some scholarly articles written about her, how she was born, how she was kidnapped or possibly fell in love with another dude and was taken or went voluntarily to Troy, depending on whose side you believe, thus resulting in the ten year long Trojan War.
Apparently, I’m an old hat at this now because as I began reading, I started writing jokes in my head:
- Helen was conceived when Leda had sex with Zeus, who’d taken the form of a swan. That right there. I came up with a million swan fucker jokes.
- She was so beautiful that men constantly fought over her and one of the most famous examples was that two old kings kidnapped her because they wanted to do the bom chicka wow wow with her just to experience being with a hot chick before they died from old age. Thus, the “crusty old fuck” jokes started rolling in.
- Castor and Pollux, aka “the Dioscuri” aka Helen’s brothers, had to rescue her from the elderly kings. Immediately, I turn it into, “Geez, these two poor schmucks have been saddled with having to rescue their super hot sister from a different pervert every week.”
- Fun fact – all these years I never knew the villains in Face/Off, my favorite 90s action movie, were named Castor and Pollux Troy after Helen’s bros.
- And that’s just the surface. Ancient Greek history is a veritable cornucopia of sex, murder, and absurdity, rife for a comedian to exploit.
Now, here’s the thing.
I have put way too much work into my Zombie Western books.
So I absolutely will not abandon them at this point.
An idea for a funny book about Helen of Troy, told through modern language, popped into my head.
Wednesday night I wrote two chapters then went to bed.
Thursday morning I woke up, read what I wrote, and I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I peed my pants laughing.
That’s big for me because I am always very harsh on my own writing. But laughter is honest. Laughter never lies. As I read those two chapters, I couldn’t stop laughing.
I’m going to get back to Zombie Western and see that through. My feeling is that maybe once a week I’ll write a chapter of Helen of Troy just to see if I can keep it going.
The story of the Trojan War is long, detailed and has like ten zillion characters. It would be a challenge to keep the comedy going throughout. Not sure I can do it but the first couple chapters have led me to believe it is worth a try.
But at any rate I won’t be quitting Zombie Western as I have put way too much work into that to hang it up now.
And what I have learned is no matter how tired you get, how busy you get, you do need to keep coming back to the story you are writing again, and again, and again because if you go away from it for too long then you’ll never come back.
So fear not. Zombie Western will continue. Not sure about the future of Helen of Troy yet but if it continues to be this funny I don’t think I can stop. But I think I have the discipline now to keep coming back to write two stories at once.
The key is that you keep coming back. Like anything difficult in life, if you keep coming back to work on it, it will eventually get done. Maybe not as soon as you’d like but it does get done.
Tell me what you think and be honest, 3.5 readers.
The story of Helen of Troy, told through modern language. Yay or nay?
Bookshelf Battle 