yearofwritingchallenge

In Regards to Mr. Williams' Death

8/15/2014

From "Dead Poets Society," Copyright Touchstone Pictures

There are times where the world collides with us. External actions interrupt our flow of everyday internal life. We remember that the deepest, oldest parts of us are still there and do have shape and form.

For me, this was Robin Williams killing himself.

Robin Williams dying isn't just another celebrity death. Robin Williams was my fake uncle ("He was everybody's fake uncle!" a friend said yesterday). He was depressed. What artist hasn't been depressed? He was lost. Which of us haven't been lost? As my Facebook newsfeed multiplied throughout the week, I saw personal stories of colleagues, friends, and mentors all divulge the fact that they understood how Robin felt all too well. All the stories had two things in common: everyone suffers, and everyone suffers in silence.

Then the clips started to pop up. You know what I'm talking about. Robin Williams saying something really profound in Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams talking about death in Good Will Hunting and Bicentennial Man, Robin Williams being freed from the lamp in Aladdin. One by one, people pointed to words he'd once said under the guise of a character and declared that there was something profound about his work and his life and his death.

I agree.

"We don't write poetry because it's cute," he said in Dead Poets. "We write poetry because we are members of the human race."

Damn right, Mr. Keating.

He goes on to say that we do business and law in order to live, but we write and read in order to have something to live for.

How much truer can you get about art?

Mr. Williams meant something in this world, because of his art. He suffered, he hurt, and yet he gave his audiences hope. He was sad, but he still sang and danced and dressed in drag to promise us children of the nineties that we were still loved and we had a friend out there. Some of my first imaginary playmates were Batty and the Genie, and when my parents hit their separation, I took Mrs. Doubtfire's closing remarks to be the gospel. Later on when I was having a hard time dealing with adolescence, Peter Pan declared that he believed. Whenever we were weak, he made us stronger.

Even if he was feeling weak himself.

Tom Hanks conjures up a sentiment in Saving Mr. Banks that still hasn't left me, and I saw this movie all the way back during Christmas 2013. He plays Walt Disney, and he discusses the reasons for wanting to change the ending to Mary Poppins. He says that the world is bleak, but by writing hope, storytellers give hope. And maybe, just maybe, those dreams can someday come true.

Walt's dream was to make the happiest place on earth, teach kids that dreams aren't dumb, and the fact that Disney World exists is just one example of how Walt isn't full of, as Mr. Keating would say, excrement.

Robin didn't always have hope, but he knew how to give it. He knew what would make someone smile, cry, or just think for a goddam second. And because of him, we're all the better for it.

We don't do art because it's cute. We do art because we are members of the human race.

Robin is gone. We lost our Captain. He's not coming back. But he did leave his verse. Now he's somewhere standing behind us, whispering in our ear with that grizzled, hairy voice: "Carrrpe. Carrrpe Diieeem. Seize the Day, boys! Seize the Day!"

You're still here. And you don't get to go anywhere, because now it's your turn. How do you fight your own demons? How do you create hope for this world? Where is your poetry?

What will your verse be?

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Survival of the Day Job 2014

8/8/2014

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Articles About Authors with Day Jobs:

Lapham's Quarterly - Dayjobs

Huffington Post - 11 Authors Who Kept Their Dayjobs

Writer's Digest - Before They Were Famous

Mental Floss - Early Jobs of 24 Famous Writers

Buzzfeed - Famous Authors and Their Dayjobs

Did You Click Buzzfeed - That Was a Test

Stop Reading Buzzfeed Articles - Go Write

No Seriously - Go Write

Toto watches over my writing desk. He wishes you good day and good luck.

So this was my first week back at work. About two minutes after I stepped into the building, I started a conversation with a co-worker and mentioned my writing room.

"Oh, are you still writing that series?" she asked.

"Yes?" I said.

Then she gave the look. If you're a writer with a day job, you know what look I'm talking about. It's the look that reminds you how your dreams are silly little things.

It's difficult to be in an environment where no one knows how serious you're taking this, how hard you work to keep both the day job and the night job going, or who you really are and where you're going.

I once said to a friend that there is a fine line between the deluded and the successful when it comes to art.

So it's important to remember, fellow dayjobbers, that our coworkers do not define us. Our daily chores do not make us failures. And if we want it bad enough, we need to remember that there are a hundred thousand people who did it before us. If we want this for ourselves, then we need to stick to it and stand on our own and make it a priority in our lives.

So here, I'm making rules for us:

1. If you have time to write, then write. One author shared his story of writing seven hours straight on the days he had off. You don't get a day off if this is what you want.
2. Don't worry about how others define you. Remember, everyone has a job and no one's life is completely encompassed in their job.
3. Don't feel guilty for taking time to make your writing a priority. You cannot always live for other people.
4. No one has a for-sure success in the future. Everyone, even J.K. Rowling and Margaret Atwood, has at some point felt like a loser and wondered if it was worth it. So make it worth it (and by the way, Rowling was on welfare/worked as a teacher before that, and Atwood was a coffee shop barista).
5. Set deadlines for yourself and do not allow yourself to waver or come up short. Give it your best shot so you won't regret anything.
6. Ask those around you in your personal life to support you. If they love you, they will support you.
7. Make friends in your writing community, even if it's just online. In 2014, I don't think it's "just online," I think it's a huge resource.
8. Give yourself a writing space or a place to go write. Turn off the internet. Focus. If you can't write, then read. Blog. Network. But for God's sake, do not Buzzfeed.
9. Believe in yourself. Advocate for yourself. Love yourself.
10. Finally, submit. Nothing will come of you just sitting there type type typin'. Even if you get a rejection, you're having a conversation with the external writing world.

Have a great year, everyone. And if you need a day job writer friend, you know where to find me.

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Reading Neil Gaiman and Ray Bradbury Taught Me the Most Important Lesson in Writing

8/1/2014

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Cover art copyright by William Morrow Publishing

So my reading list has begun for Stonecoast, and this week I actually had two writing retreats: one with Kaitlin, and one with Alex down in the capital so he could take his bar exam. This meant I was shuffled around to hotel rooms with nothing but books and spotty internet access all week.

It was awesome.

So while Alex took his test, I dove into Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, paired with Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury.

And something clicked.

I've always had this weird, dark place sitting in the back of my head. A rural town where things happen. Little boys in overalls and little girls who can see the future. I wanted to write stories that talked about ghosts, dead grandmothers, prophecies out of the mouths of children that live in old weathered wooden houses at the end of gravel roads. I wanted to write about other worlds and boys who never grow up and men who did too much growing up. But for some reason, for some stupid reason, I thought I was supposed to write "a certain way." I was supposed to learn "how to write a short story" and "what sort of a short story people would want to buy."

So surprise when I read Bradbury, and he said no.

Don't write for fame or fortune, he warns. Don't be a liar. Don't tug at your audience and try to manipulate them. Just write for you. Write those stories that you've carried with you since you were a kid.

Bradbury talks about Mr. Electrico, a sideshow worker from the circus who told him as a child during an act "You will live forever!" The next day, little Ray found Electrico and spent the whole day with him, going around to the different backstage tents and having his own personal tour. At the end, Electrico told Ray that in a past life, the boy had been his best friend and died in the war. Bradbury writes in his book that he doesn't know if he believes in immortality or past lives, but that little boy does. And that little boy has never steered his writing wrong.

This idea of writing from the heart, from the innocence of childhood and magic, is obviously put into place in Neil Gaiman's book. I've been a longtime fan of Gaiman, seeing him advocate for what he wants to write and always being true to his story and characters. I admire his honesty. And I am in awe of his imagination.

In Ocean, he says he wrote a book to explain to his wife who he was. These people who had lived in his head for years now came to the surface and he wrote them all out in two weeks. Ocean was the water on Helen Keller's hand for my brain. It was the sort of book I'd always wanted to write, but didn't know how. And then I saw how Neil put it all together, and I said to myself, "Yes. This is what writing is."

Writing is sitting down and taking all of those parts of yourself you don't think will interest anyone else, but interest you. And you write them. And yes, they will interest others, because although they're old hat to you and they have haunted you for years, turns out we all have different experiences. My knowledge of ghost stories might not have been a thing that you, the reader, grew up with. Gaiman's ocean at the end of this little country lane was a familiar thing to him as a child, but is completely new to our eyes.

And in writing what we are, who we are, what is at the core of ourselves, we write in that ever elusive "voice." We aren't the next Hemingway, like Bradbury warns us not to be. We are what he calls "The New Element." We are true to ourselves, we do not lie, and so we tell one hell of a story.

Write like Bradbury. Write your Electrico. Write your ocean. It may look like a little pond, but like Gaiman says, it's so much more.

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In Regards to Mr. Williams' Death

Survival of the Day Job 2014

Articles About Authors with Day Jobs:

Reading Neil Gaiman and Ray Bradbury Taught Me the Most Important Lesson in Writing

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