That’s when she did scream. At least she tried. Before any sound could escape her, something cold clamped down over her mouth, holding the shout in and forcing it back down her throat as unconsciousness took her.
AFTERWORD
Don't get me started on Norman Oklahoma. I've had more missteps with Norman than anything else I've ever written.
I have been writing about Norman for years. How many? Well, I started in on Norman Oklahoma not long after I met my wife, before we were married. We've been married now for 15 years.
So yeah, he's been living up in my brain for a while now.
And while he's been there, I've been writing, publishing, and then unpublishing ever since.
How about we start at the beginning.
Back in October of 2001 I joined a message board using the screen name, Strangely Brown. The name had come from an episode of the Blackadder starring Rowan Atkinson.
I liked the name and so used it to register on the board.
It’s funny, I don’t remember seeing much out there on the internet at the time, but if you do a Google search for Strangely Brown now, you’ll find all kinds of stuff, including a flikr photostream by this guy who actually uses my old message board avatar as his buddy icon.
Crazy.
Anyway, one day in January, 2002, I was at work and feeling somewhat bored. This was my previous job, mind you, not the place I’m working now. As I said, I was a member of a message board at the time and I felt like posting something. The problem was that I had nothing I wanted to talk about.
So, I opened up a new post which I entitled:
I AM THE WALRUS
Then I just started typing.
My first line was: I woke up this morning to find a walrus smoking a cigarette under my kitchen sink.
At the time I wasn't writing about Norman Oklahoma. I was posting as myself, Strangely Brown. And really, I was just messing around.
But not long after, I began to take it a little more seriously. That's when I came up with Norman Oklahoma.
Ugh, don't get me started about Norman Oklahoma.
Okay, so, as I said, I haven't handled Norman all that well.
I had big plans back in 2002 for Norman. I started a site and everything. But then it all fizzled because while I was taking the writing thing seriously, I wasn't really taking the writing thing all that seriously.
A few years go by and I had done nothing but write a handful of installments to a Norman Oklahoma serial I was calling Thrilling Adventures, which had starting with Norman waking to find a walrus in his kitchen.
At some point after that, I was a member of another message board, this one dedicated to the Comic Geek Speak Podcast. That year, as they did the year before, the forum members were putting together an anthology comic. This particular year there was a theme. Create a story about what it meant to be a fanboy.
So, I wrote up a script, staring Norman Oklahoma, in which he is a survivor of a zombie apocalypse. He also collects comics. He knows of a comic store that has a prize comic and he has to battle a crap ton of zombies to get it. The last line being: "It ain't easy being a fanboy."
That went nowhere, but through it I met Harold C. Jennett III. He and I, to this day, do a web comic together: Our Adventure Continues.
After the comic story went nowhere, I decided to write it up as a short story. That became Norman Oklahoma and the Zombie Fanboys of Doom.
I wrote it, and then I published it.
Eventually I took it down. My first big Norman Oklahoma mistake.
I took it down, however, because I wanted to really make a go at this writing thing and I loved Norman as a character. But, my plans (as I was formulating them) did not include Norman Oklahoma in the future after a zombie apocalypse.
So I rewrote Norman Oklahoma and the Zombie Fanboys of Doom using a new protagonist, and renamed it Fanboys of Doom, which you can currently get for 99 cents, and, as a matter of fact, has the original comic script featuring Norman Oklahoma as bonus material in the back.
Once I decided to give this Norman Oklahoma guy a serious try, I went back to the well and dug out the Walrus stuff and started rewrites based on the premise that Norman Oklahoma was a private detective who specialized in the paranormal, the unexplained, and the just plain weird.
What to know more?
Read my series of posts entitled Regarding Norman over at SteevenOrrElse to get all the poop on Norman Oklahoma.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank Harold C. Jennett III. He’s a good friend and he provides me with a lot of support.
Speaking of support, I also want to thank John Wimmer. He’s always the first one to retweet most everything I put out there about my books. He’s a loyal reader and I thank him for that.
Thanks to Eric White for always being there to bounce cover ideas off of.
Thanks also to Adam WarRock, Mikal kHill, MC Frontalot, Kirby Krackle, Beefy, Kabuto the Python, Tribe One, and the Aquabats for making the music that keeps me going.
Finally, I want to thank my family. I have the most loving, most supportive family any man could ever ask for. It’s for them that I write. Thank you.
JOIN MY MAILING LIST
Would you like to get updates on future projects and possibly some free stuff? Then join my mailing list by clicking below:
http://eepurl.com/UPD2T
THANKS FROM STEEVEN
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my book The Adventures of Norman Oklahoma Volume One. You would be doing me a huge favor by leaving me a review on the site from which you purchased the book.
Leaving a review only takes a few moments of your time, and it helps in monumental ways to get the book noticed by others.
Thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steeven R. Orr lives as a recluse with his wife and three children somewhere in the hills of Eastern Kansas. When he’s not helping with homework, or running errands, or paying bills, or working, or spending time with his family, or sleeping, or eating, or using the bathroom, Steeven likes to write.
Steeven can be found on:
BLOG: www.steevenorrelse.com
EMAIL: http://eepurl.com/UPD2T
TWITTER: twitter.com/SteevenOrrElse
GOOGLE +: plus.google.com/u/0/+SteevenOrr/posts
The Adventures of Norman Oklahoma Volume One Page 27
