A simple typo is all it takes to send a writer’s imagination off on a tangent. For me it was a post by a fellow author who wondered if she should have a writer’s blob.
Growing up in the 60s, I knew all about blobs. Actor Steve McQueen made his movie debut in the 1958 movie “The Blob” about a giant amoeba-like creature that terrorized the town of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.
The blob flew in on a meteorite, starting out as a tiny, innocent little wad of jelly. Once it stuck to a human, the stuff of nightmares was born. The blob started eating humans as it oozed its way through town.
For decades the blob pulsated across TV screens, eventually becoming a laughing stock in the comedy-sequel directed by none other than J.R. Ewing himself of Dallas fame, otherwise known as Larry Hagman. “Beware! The Blob” became known as The Movie That J.R. Shot in 1972.
Also known as “Son of Blob” or “The Blob Returns,” Hagman’s movie rekindled an interest in the blob. A few years later in celebration of Y2K 2000, the town of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania where it all began started having annual Blobfests.
With my head all full of such blob lore, I knew I had to answer the question about writer’s blobs. What does a writer’s blob look like? Wet and slimy? Neon green or translucent white? Maybe even Fungus Among Us Orange? The perfect blob would be just tall enough to fit under your hand, as anything bigger would be too scary.
That’s another thing. Is your blob going to be friendly to you but scary to others? Does your blob get bigger when people get too close? Or is it just a fuzzy wuzzy blob that welcomes the world?
I got turned on to some really cool blobs in nature, like the tentacled orange blob that hangs from the trees, which spawned a whole Tree Blobs chapter in The Wizard of Awe – An Acre of America Backyard Nature Series.
My personal blob is neon green, fuzzy and friendly, but when you get too close it pulsates bright red and will zap you. People are drawn to my blob, mostly for the shock factor. So which blob are you?
Acre of America
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