Attempt Numero Uno:
It was our summer vacation and we were headed due south on the Ohio-to-SC turnpike, drinking day old Pepsi's that had outlived their usefulness. We drove around the state looking for potential real estate buys when we happened across an old dander of a town... (Here "dander" was a sign this attempt was DOA.)Attempt II:
Five years ago I was on a Walmart book tour, punishment for having written "Memoir of a Walmart Greeter", which, as the title implies, gave a detailed account of the fictional life and times of Edgar Silverstein....(Great initial promise but then I hit writer's block.)Attempt III:
Got a job in construction, mainly roads. Worked as a flagger when a two-laner went to one and it was fun checking out the girls as they drove by. Spent the days sniffin' asphalt so strong I'd be smellin' it for days after, like it was lodged in my nostrils or something. When it was hot we brought a pup tent for shade. But it wasn't really all that hot, which must've made Al Gore hot. Sometimes I operated the steam roller machine which spread out the black lava and made it smooth before it cooled. We took our time, did it right and because we were union. I'd stand out there all day till I couldn't stand no mo'. We used to play practical jokes on each other, like the time I rid in the backhoe. (This was my attempt to "write what you don't know".)
Attempt IV:
I'd always hoped, despite experience to the contrary, that the state of South Carolina had avoided modernity, or at least the last nine decades. I was under the impression that Columbia had been burned during the Civil War and that some of the buildings might be still smoldering. I hoped to catch a glimpse of Jefferson Davis walking with his family to his house with the thick maroon carpet and draperies, the latter full of decorative flourish. I longed to see live oaks with white pillared houses where you could hear the shouting of men arguing for secession. I wanted to see the southern belles with their ten-inch waists trying to fit in eight-inch corsets.
But when I drive there on the interstate, it looks like pretty much any other state. (Too non-fictiony.)
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