literary blog relay - transformation

Hey, I was a part of a literary blog relay. Here's the gist: 

One writer writes at 250 word post/story/fragment and then tags the next writer, etc., etc. We can write whatever we want, so long as our posts begin with the last line of the previous post and are linked to a central them; in this case, “Transformation.” Kind of like a track and field relay–except we’re writin’ it!

This, of course, is awesome and stressful and not the sort of thing I'm used to doing. And, of course, I got sick the week mine was supposed to post. But, even a day late, I gotta say that I'm pretty happy with what came out.

But yo - do yourself a favor. Go read all the posts. Every one of them is amazing. And then come back and read mine.

1. Christine Lee Zilka czilka.wordpress.com
2. Nova Ren Suma novaren.wordpress.com
3. Wah-Ming Chang wmcisnowhere.wordpress.com
4. Nina LaCour ninalacour.com/blog
5. Stephanie Brown scififanatic.livejournal.com
6. Jamey Hatley jameyhatley.wordpress.com
7. Matthew Salesses matthewsalesses.com
8. Krystn Lee blog.kryslee.com
9. Bryan Bliss bryanbliss.blogspot.com

"My love,” she says. “You’ve changed.”

            It took me by surprise, of course, because, like most things, it happened slowly and we were never the type to acknowledge the cracks – even as they snuck across every part of our life.

            It would be a lie to say either of us expected it. But there were times when I was unable to shake the feeling that everything was backwards. It itched places I couldn’t articulate – a slow, tickling sense of disorientation. Like one of my contact lenses was the wrong prescription. And that just grew and grew.

But even now, I can’t explain it - the attraction had always been there, striking like a match the first time I saw her. God, there were days when we got lost. When we couldn’t wait for the bedroom. The floor, the kitchen, everywhere. Even the backseat of her car, too small for passengers and, most certainly, for the sort of things we tried.  

            Yet, when she smiles at me – just now, her hair falling across her face – I can’t say where it went wrong. I can’t say that she isn’t beautiful, isn't the same woman who made me stumble so many years back. The one who’d break into my apartment, who can still make me smile, even when I don’t want to. My love – first, truly, fully.

            It’s enough to hold my tongue. To pause before I finally say it. Before I agree and everything changes.
            She smiles again.

            “Your shirt. You were wearing the blue one before?”

What Happens Next.

I haven't looked at it since I finished. I haven't peeked at the first page, which I already know I love, or played the game where I scroll through the manuscript and stop on a random bit, hoping to find something that surprises me - evidence that I am not a hack. That I deserve the confidence so many people have in me. I haven't worried about the revision ahead, or how I know that the end doesn't match the middle and, maybe, the beginning. That I have a ton of work ahead of me.

Instead, I took the last few days and I let myself read some books I've kept in the wings. I've eaten good food and showed my kids how to properly get bodyslammed onto the couch. I've watched the fourth season of Breaking Bad, climbed a few crags, and made a trip to Portland, then Eugene.

But I admit: I'm scared and nervous. I'm worried my execution won't live up to the vision. I'm worried that Abigail's story won't be told in the way it deserves to be. I'm worried I'm going to be didactic, moralizing, or worse - sentimental.

Yet, where else is there to go? What else is there to do but open the document and begin the work? Not doing so seems to be the harder choice. Because there are moments when this story flirts with beauty. When it shows me the power of family and how people can remain connected and committed and loving even when everything is falling apart. It's about having faith, but also doubt, and how both are crucial to growing up - to finding what is really true.

So, tomorrow I start. Maybe even this afternoon. And despite the fear and anxiety, despite the frustration and pain, I can't wait to see what happens next.

This Week

Today, I made the mistake of mentioning my (admittedly crazy) attempt to write 15 pages every day for the next week. Like most of what I say on Twitter, I expected this to get lost in the white noise of people's feeds.

Yeah, right.

First, my friend Lisa Schroeder did some math and pointed out that - if I wrote one page per 30 minutes (slower than my normal rate, of course) - this plan would require 7.5 hours of writing per day.

Then Steve Brezenoff retweeted it with a simple "Lol" that made me think, "Wait - is this really that crazy?"

And then there were various Fear of God quotes and remarks about Holy Production, Batman! and other sorts of comments that, really, I never expected.

It's actually pretty simple. I'm trying to recreate the first moments of my writing life. Years ago, in graduate school, I'd spend hours in my living room - writing until I could barely keep my eyes open. Loving every minute of it. It was nothing for me to write 20-30 pages a day then. Granted, most of it was shit. But still - I was writing.

Eight years later, I've got an agent, obe unsold novel, one that never went out, and I'm writing something that makes me look at all the time I've spent working, all the failure and disappointment and thoughts of quitting, and think, "Okay, this is the reason. This one is good." It makes me feel the way I felt in graduate school. Like the next sentence could take me someplace I never expected.

So 15 pages a day. Yes, it's excessive. And there's a good chance I won't reach my daily goal - kids, life, Netflix all seem to get in the way, right? But after I spent so much time - a year, a year - nitpicking my way to the end of a book that ultimately didn't work, I want to do something a bit daring. I want to do something that pushes me. Then, at the end of the week, failed or not, I will be closer - to the end, to knowing who these characters really are. To having a book I can send out into the world once again.

So 15 pages. Right or wrong, win or lose, stupid or not - there it is. And here's hoping that, when it's over, I'll have something that surprises me. Something that helps me catch a glimpse of what this story can be.

I'm Vegan - I don't do Cheesy.

I like to write - and read - stuff that is emotional. Stories that reach down into my core and pull up something real. It can be sad, funny, tragic - it doesn't matter. I just love it when a book I'm reading makes me stop reading and say, "Well, damn."

Just a few: Please Ignore Vera Dietz, Looking for Alaska, Catch, Sweethearts, The Absolute Value of -1, How to Say Goodbye in Robot.

These killed me, in that good way - the way that makes you feel alive. And, largely, it's what I'm trying to do when I write: give the reader (and myself) something genuine. Something real. And for a long time, it was nearly impossible. I was afraid to put what I really thought down on paper. I was afraid of going there - wherever that might be. I was afraid of making people angry. Of hurting their feelings. I was afraid of making a certain kind of joke and I was even more afraid of not making a joke. Because being real - being me, for everybody to see - will probably always feel uncomfortable.

And now I'm writing a book that isn't very funny at all. Yes, it has it's moments - but mostly it's kind of a sad book about a brother and a sister. And as I re-read pages, as I start to tinker a little bit, I'm worried that it's gone beyond feeling and into a place nobody wants to find themselves. Cheesy. Melodramatic. Worthy of a Dashboard Confessional song. You know.

And then I remembered something from graduate school - an essay first. And then I found the book it was in, still sitting on my shelf. And I read it once again. It dealt with irony and writing and religion. And it ends this way:

But as for [David Foster Wallace's] notion of who the next literary rebels might be, I'm banking on his being right. The scandalous move right now is to have hope, to look out at the world in love in order to discover it anew in whatever way you can, in whatever form you can....risking all the while cheese, corn, schmaltz. The scandalous and radical move right now is to infuse our post-ironic age with hope, and with love, risking, as it always and ever should be, your own heart. - Bret Lott, The Best Spiritual Writing of 2002 

And maybe it is sentimental to write with such hope, even if the book is ultimately sad. But I like the idea of writing with a chance of being cheesy. I like the (possibly cheesy) idea of risking my heart in my work. Because, hopefully, the reward becomes the sort of book I love to read.

It Doesn't Have to be Good.

That's what I keep telling myself as I write the first draft of this new book. It's weird, because the first book - Legendary Days - was my epic, the thing I worked on for years. And the next one - untitled and shelved for the time being - was so intentional. Synopsis. Outline. Discussions with the agent. And to top it off, I edited each chapter as I went - if only to give myself a cleaner palette for the next round of revisions.

But this one - I've had to let go a little bit and write. It's like letting my kids play in the pool by themselves. I know they can swim. I know they've had lessons. But then I see the water rushing down the waterside. I see all the other kids - bigger, meaner, you know - and suddenly I need to be the only dad sitting in the 2 foot section of the pool.

And that's what it's like writing this book. It's flowing, more than anything I've written before. Like a pinched hose that finally became un-kinked. And I want to control it. I want to stop at the end of each chapter and tinker. I want to make it perfect.

But it can't be perfect - at least not yet. Because I don't know where these characters are going yet. And I don't know who they are, what - who - they love. I don't know what they're scared of, or the things they can't stand to lose. And with every page, it becomes clearer. A little bit of the story opens up to me every time I sit down and open Scrivener.

And so, as I get ready to write this morning, I tell myself again: It doesn't have to be good.

Yet.

100 Pages

There's something about hitting 100 pages in a manuscript that always makes me feel a bit like this:

That, in case you don't recognize it, is total excitement (exhibited by my son...) And that's how I feel whenever I hit 100 pages, because regardless of how long the book is going to be, you're now in triple figures. You've got something that, if you printed it out, looks like a book. Something that can impress your friends and family. The sort of thing that will make people think you're a real writer.

And I guess it's more than that this time. My writing journey hasn't been what I imagined: getting an agent less than two weeks after querying for the first time. And not only getting an agent, but one that seems to understand what I'm trying to do - and wants to make it better. It's been going out on submission and having my book come back like a boomerang. It's realizing what that book was and wasn't, and then realizing I had other stories I wanted to tell. It's writing one of those stories, trashing it, then starting over again. It's sending it to my agent and realizing - crap - it's just not working. It's sitting at a bar, hearing him say: "You can work on this new book. I like it."

It's starting that book and reaching 100 pages and realizing: Okay, this one can work. You can do this.


And that's enough. I'm not thinking about whether it will be published, if anybody will like it, or what the cover would look like. I'm writing something that I think is important. I'm writing a girl, which is so weird and amazing and, at times, has me wondering if writing guys was holding me back a bit. It's taking on some stuff (religion) that has been both important and horrible in my life. And maybe it's a good story that will help people realize we're all on a journey - that we're all unfinished and even when big-ass mistakes get made, there's a shot that things will get better.

So here's to page 101.

You need to hear this.

Much like everything I have to say, you really need to hear this.

So go read this article. Don't worry, I'll wait. 

I don't think anybody tells you about the soul-crushing rejection you'll receive when you decide to become... a writer. Oh, people tell you. But you aren't listening. You've got visions of you in a coffee house, thoughtfully (and effortlessly) typing away on your laptop. Writing another critically acclaimed best seller (with a great cover.)

Fast forward five years. You're in the coffee shop and you're shaking, but it has nothing to do with caffeine. Your fingernails are dirty, clothes wrinkled. You mumble. Sometimes you yell out incoherently. The typing is a battle. And you know to your core that nobody - nobody - will ever want to read anything you've written. Except your mom. 

And then you finish and you can't even look at it, afraid it will have teeth and warts and hair and - damn it - it almost always does. But you jump back in and fix it. You shave its back and cut its nails and, maybe, it's presentable.

What keeps you going? What keeps you writing? I've written about this before, but it's always amazing to me: why do we put ourselves through this? It's got something to do with love and passion. And maybe some mental illness. But if I'm being serious, it's the knowledge that every time I open my laptop, I know it can happen.

And if you're a writer, you know what it is. When you are kicking ass. When everything you put down on paper is (or seems to be) amazing. When you don't want to push away from your writing desk, because you're not sure if it's ever going to come again. (A hint: it will.) 

And for me, that's enough. As much as I want to be published, writing is so much more than just having a book at Barnes and Noble. It's something that I really just love. It's something that - dramatic as this is going to sound - has literally saved me. But don't get me wrong: I want a book contract. I want to go to my writers group and be like, "Who's the best writer now you ass--"

Well, nevermind.

The point: I love to write. I can't imagine not doing it. And I will continue to rest comfortably on the moral ground high above the rest of the people who write only to be published... 

But then I read this:

A friend of mine once said she didn’t want to write a novel because she couldn’t stand the idea of working for years on a project that might fail.

Cough. Sputter. Choke. Die. Stab. Eye.

I've never really thought about that before, so thank you. Thank you very much. And even though I've had it happen twice now, it's never something that enters my mind when I start a new book. I never think, "Well, here's a few years of my life I'll never get back..."  

Jesus. Who thinks that way? Who puts themselves in that situation? Oh, yeah - writers. 


Is it worth the rejection? Is it worth knowing that you may spend the next years of your life doing something that ultimately will not be important to anybody other than yourself (and your mom)?

I think you know the answer.