How’s The Writing?
I get asked this question from time to time. Mostly because I haven’t shared a lot of what I’m working on. Because…well, I don’t know what to say. I’ve been so busy working on it that working on it AND talking about it seemed like a lot to do.
But in light of the fact that I’m working to build a little support online, I decided it would be a good idea to let everyone in on what I’ve been doing for the last few years, what I’ve been working on and how it’s going.
About 3 years ago I attended a Dangerous Writing workshop with Tom Spanbauer in Portland, OR. It was incredible. I learned a lot in those 3 days, from the instructors and from my classmates.
It was a great case against the saying “Don’t meet your heroes.” Tom was such a nice man. A real pleasure to be in a room with. I was intimidated as hell, and he shared some things about his MFA program that, had I known them and had those possibilities in my head before I went to Tom’s workshop, I wouldn’t have had the guts.
It was a big deal for me. For a couple reasons.
One, to be in Tom Spanbauer’s house. It sounds crazy, but to be downstairs in that basement, sitting around that table where he’s worked with so many incredible writers. It was to the point where every day I was trying so hard to remember the details. To stop and think, “You’re pissing in TOM SPANBAUER’S toilet right now!”
Of course, it gets back to a bathroom thing with me.
It was somewhat of a re-igniting, or as I’m fond of saying, an ignition remix. I got the chance to be in a room full of people who cared about the things I cared about, and who cared about storytelling and writing very deeply.
I’ve been lucky enough to be around people who are supportive, but damn is it hard to go through life without a running crew. So many of you really are great help and great support, but it had been a long time since I’d sat in a workshop and been surrounded by other people who cared about this same thing that I cared about. I suppose this is the sort of thing many people feel from political rallies, perhaps beloved jobs. Gaming.
The other reason the workshop was a big deal for me was that I got some validation. I didn’t go to the workshop to get validation. But I got some, and that changed a lot for me.
People in my life have told me that I’m a good writer and they like what I do, but this was the first time I heard it from people I didn’t know. People who had no reason to lie to me, or to lie to themselves a little bit, taking it easy on me.
I’m not saying my work was flawless or better than anyone else’s, but what I am saying is I heard some very nice things, and I’d been working alone for…8 years at that point without much feedback.
There was this night, I was supposed to revise what I wrote and bring it back, and I walked from Tom’s house back to where I was staying. It was a long walk, but I needed it. I kept stopping and scrawling notes in a little notebook, things I wanted to change to make my story work better. And I ended up having to make the changes and then get the copies printed at a weird zine co-op thing (it was Portland, alright?). It was a lot of work is what I’m saying, and I was happy.
The last night ended, we all went out and had a drink, but honestly, I was exhausted. I went back to where I was staying and passed out hard. And when I woke up early the next morning to take a bus to Seattle, I felt like, “I did it. I did a thing.” I felt unstoppable. Which was a good thing because I nearly killed myself running to get on the bus. It had rained, and when I stepped on a metal plate on the sidewalk, I slid a good couple feet. Far enough that I’m still surprised I didn’t fall down.
Whenever you’re feeling really good about yourself, just try and do something like run to catch a bus. The world will remind you of your place.
At the end of the trip, I thought, “Maybe this writing is a thing I could do. Maybe this is something I could be.”
This story kind of starts earlier. In college, I had some great teachers who helped me out, saw that I was doing good work and spurred me on to do better work.
And after college, I applied for three MFA programs. And I told myself that if I didn’t get in, then I’d grow up, do library school, and get a library job.
If you know me, which I assume you do to read this far, you know how that turned out.
And here I was, a decade or more under my belt in library work, and I’d attended this workshop, and I just felt like maybe it was time to make a change.
But what was the change, exactly?
A few months after the workshop, I got an email from Leo, who was in the group with me. He said he’d been Skyping with Tom to work on some writing stuff, and Tom was looking for other interested students. Leo asked if I was interested, and I said fuck yes.
We met every other week for almost two years.
People ask how this whole process worked. I’ll tell you how it was working for me.
We worked on something short together, and then I started a long story. That’s still going right now.
That story is based on what it was like to grow up at my dad’s house, and there are characters that stand in for my parents, my brothers and sister. They aren’t directly drawn, and the traits are mixed around, but that’s the guiding force.
It started out as a story about the father, who was an astronaut who’d been to the moon, and afterwards nothing really compared. His family wasn’t that interesting. Earth wasn’t that interesting. And who could blame him?
But as I moved along, the story shifted hard, and it became all about the kids growing up with this very strange parent. And the story got a lot closer to real life.
Tom would call me every other week, and over the course of an hour I would read him the new pages I had ready.
Now, I’m not sure how polished other people were, but I always tried to have 15-ish highly polished pages. The reason being, I didn’t want to use our time together to talk about small issues. I wanted to use our time to talk about the stuff that I couldn’t work out myself, the times when something was wrong and I didn’t know how to deal with it, but Tom did. Damn it if Tom didn’t always have an idea.
Working with Tom was such a gift. I don’t normally gush this way, and maybe that’s why it’s hard for me to talk about. It’s not all that natural. But when I worked with Tom…let me tell a story.
There was a time Tom emailed me to ask if we could meet just a little later in the day. He was doing an interview on the radio, and it might take him a bit to get home.
I said No Problem, and while I waited, I listened to his interview streaming online. Which was kind of a mistake. Because he told this horrific story about the AIDS epidemic in the 80’s. He said people all around him were dying, so many friends and people he loved, and nobody knew what was going on. And he told this story about going to a party this couple held, and everyone was there celebrating and drinking and it was all good, and at the end of the party, this couple, these two guys, went up to the roof of their building, held hands, and jumped. Because they’d been diagnosed and that’s what they decided to do. That’s how they decided they wanted to die.
I listened to this story, and maybe 30 minutes later, there I am talking to Tom about my stupid story. And I told him that, that I felt stupid because what I was doing felt so petty. And I asked him, “How do you do it? How do you listen (because he’s a great listener) and have empathy when you’ve gone through such horrible shit?”
And he said:
“I still get pissed off. You know, the neighbor leaves his car running outside, and I’m thinking ‘What an asshole with his stupid SUV, doesn’t give a damn about the planet’ and so on. But then I think, ‘He’s fighting a battle too.’ I don’t know what’s going on, but chances are he fought with his wife or his parents passed away this year or anything, really. And that’s what you have to do. The Dalai Lama says when you meet someone, you have to look them in the eye. Because there you’ll find a great battle waging.”
And then we went over my pages.
This was how the next two years or so went.
I don’t want to talk out of school, but our appointments ended. Not with animosity, there was no dramatic breakup or anything. Life circumstances intervened and it just was not possible for us to meet anymore.
And since then, I’ve been working.
I’ve recently decided to adopt a similar practice, but a different timeline, having 15 polished pages every 3 weeks. Which probably sounds slow, and probably is slow, but it works for me.
The document currently titled Moondad is over 500 pages at this point, and 500 pages that I can vouch for as being good work. MY version of good work anyway. I don’t know what you like, but it’s what I’ve got.
The story has gotten close to home. I’m a little embarrassed to say that certain parts of it, when I read it out loud, make me start to cry. It feels so stupid to admit that something YOU wrote makes YOU cry, but I will admit it because I think it’s important. I’m writing something very close to my heart.
There’s this thing Neil Gaiman said. I’ll paraphrase: Just when you think you’re walking around naked and exposed to the world, when you start to feel like you’ve revealed too much of yourself, that’s when you’re probably getting it right.
I think I’m getting this one right. It’s slow, and it’s hard, but I really want to get it right.
Next week I’m going to put a section up here. That way you can see a little bit of what I’m talking about, where this is coming from or where it’s going. I hope you like it.
And that, dear readers, is how it’s going. Well. It’s going really well. There are aspects of it I’d love to be different, but they are what they are. I miss seeing Tom every other week. I wish I was a little faster. I wish I felt like this was a lot closer to being finished than it is, but it is what it is.
Feel free to ask me about it. I call it “Moondad,” but you can call it whatever you’d like. It’s not a big secret. It never was. It was just something I wanted to do more than talk about, but I think I’ve been quiet on the writing front for so long that I’m sure some of you are wondering whether I’m working on anything at all.
In the meantime, I do occasional side projects. Mostly goofy shit. Because it’s what I like to do. It’s fun for me. And it’s a good outlet for ideas I have that have no business in Moondad. For example, saving an arcade with a topless volleyball tournament. That really doesn’t fit all that well.
Thanks for reading this whole way down. It’s quite the explanation.
It’s a weird, scary process. Honestly, and this is going to sound totally nuts, it’s a reason to live like I’ve never had before. I want to finish it. Or for it to be finished. It sounds dark and twisted, but, you know, i never used to get scared when I would fly or whatever. Because if I died…not really that big a deal. I don’t mean that in a depressive way. I mean that in a way of realism. Some people would be sad, I don’t doubt that, but what were the internal things that I would be pissed about? When that plane was crashing down, why would I be angry instead of terrified?
I didn’t always have an answer. Now, I have unfinished business.
I think this is how a lot of people feel about kids. I know people probably don’t like having their kids compared to a pile of papers, to which I say Tough Shit. Because this is what I’ve got, so let’s make the best of this together.
The world would be fine without Moondad ever being finished, but it’s something that won’t happen unless I do it.
I hope Moondad will see the light of day at some point, in some form. We’ll see. Honestly, I haven’t thought about it that much. I’ve been really focused on writing it. I want to write the book that needs writing, then worry about what to do with it.
I hope you’ll all be patient with me.