Like A Character In A Cheesy Children's Book Churned Out By A Hack Writer In Two Hours

My friend Ev, who writes for a living, humorously refers to Hollywood writers as 'schlockmeisters'.  She includes herself, of course.  In truth, I have nothing but respect for people whose job it is to write stories to order;  it takes a great deal of talent and perceptive acumen, not to mention speed and endless patience, to do what they do so dependably well.

Anyway, the title of this imaginary, made-to-order book shall be A Cloud Named Sam.  A drawing very like the above photo probably illustrates page 6 or 7.  The plot is requested to be about a plucky little child-cloud born in Cloudland, where the skies are perpetually gloomy and grey and thick with ever-ready rain, and it begins along the lines of...

Little Sammy the cloud had no friends.  He was always off somewhere quietly playing by himself because he was so different from other little clouds of his age.  He was bright, curious, and intellectually adventuresome, but he was also awkward and shy, could not learn any of the games most young clouds liked to play, and easily distracted by things that did not interest other clouds at all.  His parents were concerned about their odd, lonely little cloudlet, but kept telling each other that he would eventually grow out of it and mature into a responsible adult cloud in due time.

One day Sammy Cloud strays farther afield than usual and loses his way.  Frightened and desperate, Sammy wanders about, flitting this way and meandering that way, hoping to find familiar landmarks, all to no avail.  Then, just when he is on the verge of tears and despairing of ever seeing his home again, Sammy espies a strange, bright point of light ahead.  His curiosity overcoming his fear, Sammy makes his way toward the light.  As he approaches the light it grows tremendously and dominates the sky in front of Sammy.  Sammy, feeling somewhat overawed, timidly approaches the awesomely radiant orb, little realizing the danger that awaits any cloud that wanders too close to the Sun...

O.K., so far, so good.  A nice beginning, no?  I'm sure it's cliché-ridden enough to feel reassuringly familiar and promising of lessons to learn.  I actually would love to read the rest of the story, if only I could come up with a good middle and a touching ending.  I also counted eight points of similarity between myself and Sammy Cloud -- two of them were negative traits, five arguably positive and one neutral.  Rather unexpectedly though, both of the negative ones were also in the positive column.


Related Post:  Sunny Cloud