I’m interested to see what will happen with a novel.
For anyone new (as I’m hoping such a promotion will attract), The Prodigal Hour might well be the world’s only pre-/post-9/11 novel. It’s about time travel and alternate histories and trying to change the world one moment at a time.
For anyone not new who hasn’t yet picked it up, now’s the time. Hope you enjoy it.
The very first essay I wrote at USC was called “What I Saw That Day (9/11/01).” It was an essay I’d been trying to write successfully for several years but never pulled off, and I thought bringing it to my first non-fiction class and submitting it for workshopping would help to improve it.
And I was right. Thanks to Madelyn Cain-Inglese and my classmates, I finally felt as though I’d written something worthy. I think that’s the only way I can describe it. So much has been (and continues to be) written about that day, and my feeling’s always been that if I don’t have something to contribute I’d rather leave the discussion to others.
“What I Saw That Day (9/11/01)” was something I wanted to contribute to the collective cultural memory.
I wrote “The Come Back” the first time I visited New York after writing that essay to my own satisfaction.
In May, when I heard the news that American Special Forces had killed Osama Bin Laden, I started a new essay. I started it with the intention of posting it here, but it ultimately became something rather more. It became something of a discussion of how my life had changed after September 11th.
And as it did, I thought it would be fitting to create a new book for Kindle. Something specifically honoring and chronicling that day and discussing my experiences and memories of it.
So I did. Here’s the link. It’s a dollar.
When I first published Entrekin, I dedicated a portion of its proceeds to charities, including the United Way and the Red Cross. I’m doing the same with this new collection.
Things in the story are heating up while at the same time standing utterly still. Cassie just started up the time machine. Meanwhile, at CIRTN, Leonard and Race watched the September 11th terrorist attacks occur.
I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you that the next installment, Chapter 11, begins our second act, which is about as it should be; while a first act is about set-up, the second act is complication (and the third is resolution). I feel like there’s an ‘-ion’ word for the first act, but for the moment it eludes me.
I’m not sure I’ve mentioned I intend to post the first twenty or so chapters here, on this site, and only those chapters, which bring the novel up to the midpoint of the second act.
So we’re about halfway there.
And here we are, at the end of summer, autumn in the near-distance already making her presence known. The air here in Pittsburgh is turning more mild. There’s a lot of autumn in The Prodigal Hour; it is–at least partly–set on October 31st, 2001. Only “at least partly” because, of course, it’s also set–
Well. Spoilers, as River Song would tell the Doctor.
But it’s worth noting that when I say The Prodigal Hour is a pre-/post-9/11 novel, I don’t just mean that it begins both afterward and in Elizabethan England. I mean “pre-/post-9/11” in a very literal way, as we discovered last installment, when Leonard requested to travel to September 10th, 2001.
One of the major reasons I chose to publish The Prodigal Hour independently was that I wanted it to be available right now, so close to the tenth anniversary of that day. For me, personally, that felt important. Probably because of my experiences that day. I’m not sure, to be candid.
I’m also not sure, precisely, why it feels right to offer the novel on sale for the next two weeks, but it does. So I’m going to. For a limited time–probably the next two weeks–you can pick up The Prodigal Hour for just 99 cents on Kindle.
Hundreds of meters below the Operations Center, Leonard strode across the Schrodinger Chamber at the core of the Large Hadron Collider. Behind him, the Safe looked like a gunmetal cigar resting on its unlit tip, rising twenty feet before its tapered top intersected with the bottom of a down-pointing, porcelain white cone. Because the entire room was brilliant white as a laser-treated smile, its exact dimensions were elusive; its only visible feature besides the semi-cylindrical chamber was a small, dark-glassed screen next to a large door.
Leonard placed his palm on the screen, and a bright blue laser scanned his palm. It sped his fingerprints through CIRTN’s electronic databases before the door next to it whirred open. Leonard stepped through, into a long, white corridor where a man wearing the CIRTN uniform, khaki fatigues and dark shoes, waited.
The man half-raised his arm to salute, but paused at Leonard’s outfit. “Lieutenant Kensington,” he said, with an accent Leonard couldn’t identify.
“At ease,” Leonard said as he strode past.
The man fell into step behind him. “Grand Marshall Atropos asked me to brief you,” he said. “I’m Private Madison—.”
Leonard nodded. “There’s a problem.”
You’ve known it’s coming.
I hope you’ve prepared.
I just went over the proof myself, and just handed it to my editrix, who’s informed me she’s attacked it with her red pen.
This summer, I’ll be releasing it to you.
I plan on a similar schedule as with Meets Girl, with some differences, the most notable being that The Prodigal Hour is a vastly different book with a vastly different structure, and I intend to post through to the end of the second act. That’ll be 30 chapters.
You won’t have to wait for each one, though.
I’m aiming to make it available in time for July 4th weekend. The Prodigal Hour has always been my huge, mainstream, uber-commercial, blockbuster of a time-travel novel, and with that in mind, at what better time to make it available than over a big summer weekend?
And for an independent author like myself, what better big summer weekend to do so than the one that celebrates independence?
To celebrate, I’m releasing the first teaser today:
I dig Bill Maher, mostly. Like his stuff. I mean, he’s neither Eddie Izzard nor Jon Stewart, but I do appreciate both his candor and his challenge. I agree with him often, but often mostly in the sense that I agree with Jon Stewart: not in the sense that I’m lefty or liberal or whathaveyou, but more in the sense that I just find the whole system and process completely absurd, as well as many of the participants therein.
I don’t really watch television, though, so I rarely catch Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. I’m sure I could catch recaps, somehow, but I’m rarely so inclined.
I’ll tell you, though: I’m totally inclined to see his new “mock documentary,” Religulous.
I may even start using religulous as an adjective. Seems like, on the hierarchy scale, things would be first ridiculous, and then totally ludicrous, and then absolutely religulous.
Trailer after the Continue reading
Last week, several of my very favorite blogs helped me get the word out concerning my collection/essay.
Dani Torres mentioned essay and collection both in Reading Notes over at A Work in Progress.
I discovered that my former classmate and fellow writer/blogger the illustrious Mister John Fox was actually there, that day, as well, when he mentioned it over at BookFox. Funny, that; John and I both taught in the same writing program and studied with John Rechy, and yet it never once came up between us.
Besides the interview he ran over at Lulu Book Review, Shannon Yarbrough, author of Stealing Wishes, which is just flying up the charts at Amazon, mentioned it on his personal site.
Chartroose posted the essay in its entirety at the sublimely named “Bloody Hell, It’s a Book Barrage!
Trish, whose birthday is Dec. 7th, another day of infamy (I see you opening Wikipedia in another tab. It’s the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack) wrote about it at “Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?” and she’ll be happy I got the punctuation right.
Chandler Craig maintains Fumbling With Fiction and mentioned it in a post concerning book memory. She called me a nice aspiring writer, and she’d know; she’s one, as well, who writes Young Adult fiction and whose novel, Scout, just landed her representation with Daniel Lazar. If she weren’t so damned enthusiastic and didn’t totally deserve it, I’d be batshit envious about it, but I’m not, because it couldn’t have happened to a sweeter gal.
And finally, I’m mentioning this one last because it prompted some thought on my end. World Fantasy Award nominee Will Shetterly mentioned it at It’s All One Thing, (the WFA nom is for The Gospel of the Knife, and meanwhile, in a fun turn of events, his wife Emma Bull is also nominated this year, for Territory) and in the same breath noted some issues with the United way– that it’s not the most efficient charity out there and that it’s famous for paying its executives a whole lot of money.
I chose the United Way because I, personally, go way back with them. My father used to work at a local Mobil refinery and volunteered with the United Way when I was a kid; I remember, some summers, he used to get to use a van for a few weeks, though I realize now, thinking about it, I haven’t a clue why. Also because it was one of the reasons the Boy Scouts of America began to change its policies regarding discrimination based on sexual orientation. For a long time, the BSA denied membership to anyone gay, but some units actively began to defy national tenets in favor of keeping United Way funding.
That means a lot to me. The Boy Scouts was one of the most influential organizations in my life, and I value that every bit as much as I hate their discrimination policies.
Anyway, that was my mindset going in. And this is the mission statement of the United Way NYC:
United Way of New York City creates and supports strategic initiatives that address the root causes of critical human care problems in order to achieve measurable improvement in the lives of the city’s most vulnerable residents and communities. Throughout our work, we partner with neighborhood agencies, government, business, foundations, volunteers and others so that collectively we can achieve more than any one organization working alone. By leading programs that get at the root causes of problems in these five key areas, United Way of New York City creates lasting, systemic change: homelessness prevention, access to healthcare, education, building economic independence, and strengthening New York City nonprofits.
But now that I think of it, really, I realized I should put the question to you. Because it is, after all, your money. Is there somewhere else you’d like to know it went? I’m wondering if donating it to the American Red Cross might not be a better idea, as that would actively help other people affected by very similar tragedies, and Lord knows it seems to come up every year anymore.
Thoughts?
And to everyone who mentioned it (I went by WordPress’ incoming links widget, so if I missed yours, let me know, or put it in the comments, please): thanks again.
In the spirit of lightening things up here a bit, I figured I’d post something more cheerful. To quote Tom Hanks in That Thing You Do! (which is certainly one of the most underrated movies of all time), I thought I’d give you something happy, something poppy.
Because it’s a perfect day for a ride, ain’t it?
***
I should really just sell the damned thing. Manhattan just isn’t a place for such a beast, much less the Village. New York’s a walking town. A subway town. Sometimes a bus town, and some other times still a taxi town. It’s a bustling town and a jogging town, a drinking and dancing and staying-out-till-4-am town, and in fact it’s a different kind of town just about every minute for just about every person in it, but it’s not so much a driving town. There are too many cabs, too many long limousines with precious celebrity cargo, too many delivery trucks and big buses, too many Lincoln Town Cars shuttling CEOs to the office and back. The air is too bright and the sounds are too vibrant and the color is too loud to be shuttered away from the world by four windows and a growling engine, but still I keep the dilapidated duster.
I tell myself I keep it because I wouldn’t get much for it. The old lady who used to own it never did know much about anything she put a key into, and the engine’s hoarse in her memory. The duck tape on the torn cloth top; the old, nearly bald tires; the muffler that might as well not exist—selling it might cover a month’s rent or a fancy night on the City, but not much more.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
But I know the truth. I don’t keep it because selling it wouldn’t make enough; I keep it for days like this.
Every year, I think it’s going to be different. Every year, I write a little more about it, talk a little more about it, and every year I think it’s going to make some difference. Every year I believe I’ve processed it a little better, a little differently, learned to cope with it a little more.
Every year, I’m wrong again.
Every year, I think I might sleep a little later, and every year my body shocks me awake at almost exactly 8:45 am Eastern standard time. Every year I think I might just make it to my alarm, and every year I don’t. Every year I wake up confused and bewildered for a just a moment during which I don’t remember what day it is. And every year, I do, all over again. Every year, I get quiet and reticent.
Every year, I watch two videos. They are as traditional to me at this time of year as Twas the Night Before Christmas is traditional to December.
The first one is of Jon Stewart introducing The Daily Show on the day it returned to broadcast on September 20th, 2001.
The other is the video for Ryan Adams’ song “New York, New York.”
Unfortunately, WordPress, Comedy Central, and MTV don’t seem to play nice, so you’ll have to follow those links, but trust me, they’re worth it.
I just wanted to share them, because they are cathartic on a day on which I otherwise shut completely down. I tend to solidify like concrete, mute and rigid and immobile, and each of those videos seems to serve as tiny, persistent chisels, busting away all the defense mechanisms I’ve thrown up since the day I smelled that dust (some days I fear there are too many). And I figured, since I truly believe there is catharsis for all of us in sharing the memory of that day, I feel too that there is similar relief in sharing how we cope with it.
This year, I’ve had an epiphany, prompted by Making Light, a blog maintained by Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden. Making Light is intertwined with my memories of that day; there was a check-in post there, that day, and I remember I either posted there or to the well. Today, Making Light pretty much defiantly rejected commemoration of the terrorist attacks in favor of other anniversaries/memories:
I am sure that there will be many places to remember the dead, and to debate the lessons they can teach the living. I’m confident that the Making Light commentariat will have a lot to say on the subject.
This thread is not for that. This thread is for defiant normality. If the aim of terrorism is to produce terror, grief and anger, then let us laugh, and rejoice, and love.
And I both understand and acknowledge the value of such a sentiment.
Moreso, I say, I’m sorry, but grief, for me, is normality today. Today, I laughed at my students, and rejoiced in the fact that people read what I’ve written, but both come in utter defiance. That doesn’t necessarily mean that both are tainted, but still, I look around at where I am and what I’m doing and remember where I was and what I was doing. This year, I acknowledge it hurt, and I accept that it’s okay. In the past, I’ve felt at times like I don’t have a right to feel this way, because hey, I survived and that leaves me so much better off than so many other people, but this year I note:
I’m sorry. I’m not okay. I’m not even a little okay. I miss Manhattan more than I can express. I miss my friends and my crummy little apartment and riding the subway to work. I miss all the terrific people I worked with and all the wonderful friends I made. I miss the neon and the way the sidewalk sparkled under my feet. I miss blowing half my paycheck on bad CDs at HMV, and watching movies alone at Virgin.
But most of all, even though I may not be okay, I am grateful.
To you.
I don’t think I’ve said it lately, but thank you. Because a reader is not solely the single best thing any writer can have, but also, arguably, what makes a writer in the first place. In “Your Name on a Grain of Rice,” Roger Clyne wonders:
What good is my love song if you ain’t around to hear it?
I’m forever grateful I don’t ask that question.
You also mention how your employer’s front desk attendants just waved you by that morning without checking your ID, but never again after that. What else has changed for you on a personal or professional level that sticks out in your mind now?
God, where to start there? I mean, what hasn’t changed, really? On a personal level, I moved back home, stayed for five years while overcoming depression, then drove cross-country to study, and now live in Denver. On a professional level, I taught and trained, then edited, and then went back to school, and then again became a professional writer.
But I think what’s more important is what I see has changed on greater levels. For example, I think we, as a country, are more naïve now than before. That might seem counterintuitive, but before that day, I think we would have laughed at a color-coded emergency-response system. I think we would have been outraged at the idea of illegal wiretapping, and I think we would have, rightly, run our collective leaders right out of office (I mean, heck, we impeached one guy for a blowjob, but not another for misleading our country into war?). I think that day was the first time we, as a nation, realized we could be hurt, that we are, in fact, mortal, and I think it scared the hell out of us, and I think we’re still recovering from it. Now, the people who attacked us are still at large, and we’ve demonstrated our utter inefficacy to fight them on a massive scale.
Many thanks to Shannon for his support and involvement in all this.
As always, you can find the book here, and all proceeds benefit the United Way NYC.
Late at night, I wonder if she ever really had feelings for me. That’s what’s been most difficult: not her leaving, but rather wondering if she was honest.
What’s most difficult is . . . did she really look at me, try to get to know me? Was she open to it? Does she really not have time, or did she look at me and realize, nah, not this one (and then there’s the nagging, well, if I’d handled my feelings better, would it have changed anything, but no, that way lay madness)?
That’s what counts, mostly.
I’d say that she was the first girl in a while I felt anything for, that she was the first girl since my ex- that I really wanted, but that’d be a lie. There were three years between my ex- and her, and those years weren’t filled with girls, no, but they were filled with misplaced emotions.
Misplaced emotions. Not like I lost anything. Just kinda stopped thinkin’ about where I was puttin’ shit.
I fell for her. Girls will only play the games you let them, will only hurt you as hard as you let them, and she crushed me and hollowed me out because I let her. I let her get inside me, and why?
Because one day I saw her smile, and one day she kissed me back, and one day I let her in.
The town spreads out below us, looks up to us, admires,
Wishing that it could be where we are for a moment.
We’re on top of the world, blessed in our youth;
We’d better enjoy our positions while we can.
The stars look down on us without our condescension;
They all wonder what happened to God.
They see what we have done and are doing
But never realize that we can change.
The moon shines down on us its scornful eye;
We are uncomfortable though others are less moral.
It is only half there, but where the rest is I cannot say.
Perhaps it is with God, waning philosophic.
The wind moans against wood and our flesh,
The same sweet nothings we whispered earlier.
And when it howls like fury through the darkness,
It almost seems like it knows how we feel.
Moisture like morning dew beads blades of grass;
Tiny, clear jewels of dripping condensation.
The whole world smells primal and visceral,
And it glistens in what little light there is here.
There are sounds all around us, some loud and some not,
From furtive, unknown sources in the darkness.
They seem to be everywhere at once and yet nowhere at all,
And isn’t that exactly how we are sometimes?
There is night all around us, overhead, up above,
Silk and satin and dark to the touch.
It is almost oppressive but somehow refrains;
It shows more restraint than we did, earlier.
And so we stare down at the town with a smirk on our lips,
And look up at the stars and feel less than we are.
We throw an ‘up yours’ in a scream at the moon,
And whisper nothing in reply to the wind.
We let the moisture bead and then drip off our skin,
And the sounds gradually become unnerving.
But we live this night, my lady, on Inspiration Point,
Despite darkness’ trying to steal the only one we’ve got.
***
Yesterday, Lisa said:
That poem reminds me of countless nights I looked up at the stars with Chad. Times when we wanted so badly some recognition for our efforts, times when we both felt like it was an endless cycle of repetative days. Times I wanted to shout and scream at the moon, because I felt so damn tired. We both were looking for inspiration.
Which, I think, is pretty awesome.
It’s kind of amazing how you can try for one thing but achieve something else entirely.
To wit: I wrote “Inspiration Point” when I was a sophomore in college (which probably shows through in ways, I think), and its inspiration was “Thunder Road,” by Bruce Springsteen. My then roommate was a huge fan of the Boss, and he played “Thunder Road” one night, and, while I liked the song, my more visceral reaction was closer to, “Man, I want to do that.”
And so I tried (ain’t sayin’ I succeeded, mind you, just I tried. Then again: man’s reach should exceed his grasp, else what’s a heaven for?).
Here’s some Bruce, because come on, nobody does it better:
It’s a bit crappy, video-wise, but I love the story (“This is the land of peace, love, justice, and no mercy.”). Also, hey, another Jersey boy doin’ it right (also, we see where I get my predilection for tank tops, though, admittedly, the Boss pulls it off better than I do). Unfortunately, I got no guitar, but sometimes I get my pen goin’.
And again: the poem is from my collection, the proceeds from which benefit the United Way NYC in honor of those we lost on September 11th, 2001, and in the days following. If you took advantage of the free download, now’s a good chance to help make a difference, and let’s not forget, it would make a great Christmas gift for the booklover you love.
I write to
And about
Will be someone.
Eventually, my lady, you
Will have a
Name,
A personality,
A face.
Eventually I will know
Just who you are,
You, about whom I have
Wondered for years.
Eventually I will not
Have to settle for a
Good time.
Eventually I will
Find you,
Know you when I
See you,
Hear you,
When your soft, light
Footsteps
Finally echo from my
Dreams to my floor.
Thank God I’m
Patient.
***
One of six poems in the collection, and one of the earliest overall. I wrote it during college, which is also true of “Inspiration Point,” “This Ain’t Wonderland,” and “A New Drink.” This was, of course, at a time when I thought every line of a poem should be capitalized (I’m no longer sure, and I’d concede this one might look better without the capped lines). These and my other college poems were the ones that came closest to not making it into the collection, in fact, because I thought so much else seemed so much stronger, but one of the good things about doing it in the first place was recording those times.
I think every writer has early work that makes them cringe a little. I know I have a novel on the top shelf of the closet in my parents basement, which will, as far as I’m concerned, remain there forever (or at least until they move), a big, thick, hunk of a novel I thought it took nearly a ream of paper to tell. I’m pretty sure it’s up near 500 single-spaced pages.
Better I offer you the poems than that, I think. The poems, it’s fun to see how I’ve grown.
The novel you might just bludgeon me with were I to try to sell it to you.
As well you should.
It’s nice to know, as well as a little ironic, that a couple of you cited this and other poetry as your favorite. We are so rarely good at judging what of our work will appeal to others.
***
Back when I lived in Manhattan, I worked as a freelance production assistant at Young & Rubicam New York, which I believe was then the third-largest ad agency in the world. I basically fell into the position, I remember: I registered with the temp agency, and I worked, one Thursday morning, at the New Yorker office in the Conde Nast building just off Times Square, organizing some guy’s rolodex. No, really; I spent that day stapling business cards to little rolodex-y cards and filing those in the little turn-y thingy.
I think it’s safe to say I was overqualified for the job, though not by a whole hell of a lot.
I received a call from my temp agency that Sunday (I worked for Force One Entertainment, and if they still exist, consider this a plug; they are one of the main reasons my experience in Manhattan was what it was, and for that I am forever grateful. An amazing staff, with great connections), and they offered me one of two positions: one in human resources, and the other in broadcast production.
Obviously, no contest.
So I started working with commercial producers. For huge clients: Sony, Dr Pepper, Jaguar. This was one of the spots we worked on:
So was this:
At Young & Rubicam, each assistant generally worked with no fewer than 7 or 8 producers. During my time there, I rotated to different desks, and I think I basically ended up working with the entire department in one way or another. Mostly I did the sort of grunt work one would associate with an entry-level freelance administrative position, but sometimes I got lucky. Once, I helped put together a video for the United Nations Millennium Summit. Sometimes I got to watch casting, or even directors’ reels. Never anything major, but certainly a lot of fun.
It was my first experience with production. Budgeting. Finding out how people made the images the rest of the world watched. For a while I had thought I might want to get into filmmaking, but I discovered there I didn’t, really. When I sit down to watch The Matrix, I want to see the Matrix, not the greenscreen and the wires. I like to watch magic more than I like to know how it works, and probably more than I’d like to perform it, unless, of course, it’s the real stuff.
(writing, to me, is the real stuff)
One of the producers for whom I worked was named September Reynolds. I don’t think that’s her name anymore; she got married not long after I left, I believe. September looked like a less skeletal version of Elizabeth Hurley, which meant she was a special kind of beautiful, and she was also one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with. Gracious and charming and cheerful.
It was because of her, and others like her, that I never felt like a temp when I worked there. I felt like part of the gang.
I think about all that every year around this time. It rarely gets any easier. I had always loved fall, and still do for all the reasons it’s wonderful, but the end of summer and the beginning of autumn always remind me of what was a difficult time in my life. Every year around this time I start thinking more and more about September 11th. I start wondering how my life would have, could have, been different. I start to consider how it’s not, and I remember to be grateful it’s still mine to do with as I so please.
I’m not sure I remembered that for a while. I think, for a while, the relief of survival made me selfish, in a way. In fact, not just for a while: for several years. For a few years there, I tried to play safe, tried to build security, perhaps because for a moment there, I was no longer certain I’d ever have either again.
In our commercial and consumerist culture, October 31st is now, popularly, a day of pint-sized ghouls and ghosts and too much candy rushing through bloodstreams rush from door to door to beg for more. Being by heritage Scotch/Welsh, however, it is, for me, an end; October 31st is not Halloween but the Samhain, basically the equivalent of New Year’s Eve. This time of year always makes me reflective about what has come before, and, moreso, it reminds me of those years, and specifically that one. In some ways I feel like I might have survived that day, but in a very real way, a life ended. By that Halloween, I had moved back in with my family.
Five years passed before I left once again.
I doubt I’ll ever separate the extraordinarily mixed feelings I have regarding both that day and that time in my life. Because they were extraordinary years, full of hope and pride but also some anxiety about being young and trying to make my way. I remember the mornings on the PATH and the midnights in the bars. I remember Paisley, who worked on Nickelodeon and was a complete sweetheart, and who had an anthrax scare in the month following the attacks. I remember Marybeth, who always called me dude (so I always called her dudette), who lost several members of her family during the rescue efforts at Ground Zero. I remember Madeline, the music producer, who was a germophobe but gave me a hug, anyway, the day I left, and who once told me, in reference to my writing, “You’ve got it,” and with whom I watched the World Trade Center 7 fall from the center bench on the Hoboken ferry.
And I remember September, the greeting of whom inspired me to write a poem the year before, which was cliched and trite, and which I have since lost to time and moving. September, whose wedding song was “The Girl from Ipanema”–
The girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, each one she passes goes – ah
. . .
but I watch her so sadly
How can I tell her I love her?
Yes, I would give my heart gladly,
But each day, when she walks to the sea,
She looks straight ahead, not at me.
. . .
And when she passes, I smile – but she doesn’t see (doesn’t see)
(she just doesn’t see, she never sees me…)
So good morning, September. Another year come and gone, but every time you come around I realize how much I missed you and wonder what we could have had if only I’d stuck around. I know you’ll be gone again before I know it, but in the meantime, well, it’s gonna be magic, just like always.
I’m not quite sure why you actually have to be aware of this story to be able to find it, but it seems to be the case. I was told of it the other day by someone browsing the BBC news site, but on perusing it myself, I can’t find it. I checked all my major news sites, too: the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post and MSNBC.com. Heck, you’d hope one would find it through the New York Times, but no luck there, either. Just to confirm, I ran a search on it yesterday, and this is all I found:
I had to go all the way to Google, in fact, and when I did, I found an Associated Press story the associated press seems to have summarily completely ignored: apparently, whoever owns the World Trade Center proposed completely scrapping plans and deadlines for the construction of the new Freedom Tower because “nearly every project is delayed and over budget and that previous estimates are unrealistic.”
Sad, that. The first project scheduled to be completed–in time for the tenth anniversary of the attacks–was the memorial. Freedom Tower itself, along with the other buildings, weren’t expected to open themselves until 2013.
Shame, this.
Larry Silverstein is in charge of building three of the five towers (seems he’s the owner). He’s also the person to whom will be made payments of $300,000 per day for every day the construction of the towers goes beyond deadline. In fairness to him, though the article is not clearly worded, I think he’s also the one proposing scrapping the deadlines in the first place.
It puts me in mind of a paragraph from “What I Saw That Day (September 11th, 2001),” my essay (in my collection) concerning that day those years ago, and how I feel about it now:
I can’t seem to shake this feeling that it’s a bad dream. I can’t help looking at the plans and design for the new Freedom Tower and wonder why we can’t just build the World Trade Center back. Why we can’t recreate those buildings so that, one day, when we talk to our children and tell them about that day, they can look up at us and say, “What’re you talking about, Daddy? You mean those buildings? Right there? They falled down?”
There are days I miss New York, especially lately, but sometimes I wonder if I don’t miss Manhattan during the summer of 2000. It’s different when I go back, and then again, so am I.
(if you want to read my September 11th essay and haven’t yet, you can find it here.)
I just finished watching Cloverfield. For anyone unfamiliar, it’s a J.J. Abrams (he of Lost fame) movie that came out in January and begins with a going away party at a SoHo apartment. Before long, there’s a tremor, which causes a brief black-out, after which all the partygoers decide to go to the roof. From there, we see an explosion near the harbor, and then some panic as a bunch of people run down the steps.
By this point, I was already having some problems; after what appeared to be a pretty major earthquage (which, for the sake of this post, we’re going to define as any ground shaking of suitable strength it shuts lights off, however briefly), whose first thought it is to go to the roof? Especially in Manhattan, where the buildings are so many multiple stories tall?
What I liked was that the whole movie wasn’t exactly like that. Sure, some of the characters make some questionable decisions, but amid chaos like that, a lot of decisions are going to come flying, and no one can decide them all well. A lot of times you do the best you can with the information you’ve got; a lot of time, the best you can do isn’t much (or could even be nothing at all), while the information you’ve got is limited (or, again, nothing). After you’ve seen a military stand-off between a handful of soldiers and . . . something big as a skyscraper, retreating to the subway tunnels in favor of being caught out in the open isn’t that bad a decision. Also, constant movement in the best direction possible, when possible, is good; otherwise, cover is your friend. The characters maintain a pretty consistent balance between the two.
I like to think I’m good in emergency situations. I grew up in scouts (Be Prepared), and if I never encounter a situation as uncertain as being in Manhattan on September 11th, I’ll be a happy man. As I watched the movie, I kept thinking of what I would have done. First, no going to the roof. Second, on first sight to the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty, get my friends who were just at my party together, walk back up into my apartment, quickly grab some supplies, and start walking. Away from the damage. Considering said monster was in midtown, I’m not crossing the bridge to Brooklyn; I’m starting north, toward Harlem and the Bronx.
Along the way, I’m stopping to make sure the women in my party can get more sensible shoes and clothing than the trendy/pretty clothes they wore to my going-away. I’m also making sure everyone is carrying at least one bottle of water, which I’d continue to make sure they were drinking, rather than rationing, stopping to refill as possible/necessary.
Also, and I think somewhat important, I’m not trying to keep control. Not that I’m running with the chaos, but I think the most important thing in any such situation is flexibility to adaptation. I’m starting north because I think that’s the best option, but if better ones present themselves, I’ll take them. I’m with my friends, at least, and if I can keep a group together, safety in numbers.
Most important, of course, is not panicking.
My father got me into Boy Scouts when I was a kid. He was an Eagle, too, and he was my cubmaster and then my scoutmaster and then committe chairperson–he was very often more than just a father to me, and his influence did a lot to shape who I’ve become. When I was 16 or 17, he handed down to me his old stereo system, in which I found some old clippings, one of which was a copy of “If,” I think by Rudyard Kipling, which included the line, “If you can keep your head about you, while those around you are losing theirs,” and I think I can.
Which is probably why I liked the movie. I didn’t love it, and I could have done just fine without seeing the big monster thing, and, honestly, (MAJOR SPOILER, SO IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW, SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH BREAK), I wish even one of the characters had survived, but it certainly wasn’t bad.
Thinking about emergency prep always reminds me of Making Light, where I’ve learned a lot. One of my favorite posts concerned how the characters in the movie could have (or should have) responded to their emergency; now that I’ve seen the movie, I understand what the author was talking about in which places.
I think it’s stuff everyone should know.
I was eleven years old when I read Stephen King’s Needful Things and realized I loved stories and wanted to tell them myself. That King’s work prompted the realization and that my parents were both pretty avid readers while I was growing up were probably the two reasons I actually thought writing was a pretty certainly viable career option, or could be. One of the stories in my collection is called “Deluded,” and part of the point of that story, at least to me (and I’m only one reader of it, so consider this one personal take) is that there is, sometimes, a fine line between faith and delusion. Delusion and certainty. And that’s okay; I grew up with the firm belief that I was going to become a great writer through careful work and a lot of discipline, and could achieve success by way of the sheer force of my will to write better. Not better than anyone else so much as better than I realized I could, every word down.
For many years growing up, however, I also thought I wanted to be a doctor. I studied hard and started college with a major in premedical biology. In my high school yearbook, my life’s goals were: “go to med school, be a doctor, write a book.” I remember telling my parents I would start a practice and then, at some point, when my book became a bestseller, take a few-years sabbatical to concentrate on writing.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think that idea of a sabbatical was key; I think I was subconsciously realizing that I wanted the safety to support the more risky profession.
By the time I was a junior, however, I’d realized I’m not a doctor, and that’s still the way I think of it. Because, you see, I don’t believe that training and education make someone a doctor; one of my best friends is a doctor (and a successful one, at that), and I think he was a doctor when we were undergrads and roommates. He had to learn the anatomy and the surgery and the general stuff, certainly, but I think ‘doctor’ was part of his core to start. Me, I don’t have the confidence, I realized. I don’t have the self-certainty to stick my fingers into someone’s body, nor even to cut it open in the first place. I realized this the month before I was to sign up for my MCATs, but am glad I did.
What that meant was, after college, I floundered a bit. I graduated with (nearly) two degrees (six credits shy of a second in natural science) and honors and etc., but I hadn’t sold my book. So I needed a job. I fell into temping pretty much by accident and lucked into commercial production via a cushy gig on Madison Avenue. But it didn’t suit me as medicine hadn’t; advertising didn’t resonate with me, and I have trouble doing things I don’t believe in or can’t stand behind.
September 11th kicked me in the pants to figure stuff out. I thought I would by moving back home, regrouping, maybe subbing and then becoming a high school teacher, so I could write in my off time. I got set back, however, and fell into a six-month depression from which I emerged with shoddy credit and little in the way of real prospects. I became a personal trainer for a while, and then finally got into subbing, which was fine for what it was, but I’ve never been about fine with what things are. I remember being at a shitty Christmas party thing, though, and I remember thinking how much more fun it would be if the company throwing it had actually produced a book instead (they sold security systems, from what I recall of it).
So I got it in my head to work for a publisher. I considered moving back to Manhattan, but then found a gig five minutes from my parents’ house, where I was living, as an assistant editor for a healthcare publishing company. Felt like a perfect fit.
It wasn’t. I was there nearly three years, but never loved it. I discovered I couldn’t put my heart into it, and my performance suffered.
That was when I settled on graduate school, which opened my life. Moreso: teaching.
I became an instructor via USC’s Writing Program, and the most important thing I’ve learned is that I don’t have to just be a writer anymore. I don’t have to try to rely on it for income; I can be a student, and an instructor, because I love to be both. It’s been a real relief, and oddly, it’s freed me to become a better writer than I realized I could be; this latest draft of my novel finally feels like the one, and I think it feels that way because I stopped worrying so fucking much about selling it or succeeding with it and just concentrated on telling that story as best I could.
Being a writer is probably a good gig, but I’m having much more fun just being someone who writes.
Was it a year ago today I clicked the buttons to launch my own publishing venture? If it wasn’t, it was pretty close, I think. I know it was at the start of March, because I remember thinking about its being close to my parents’ wedding anniversary.
Now, like a birthday present, a website called Lulu Book Reviews has put up an extraordinarily positive review of it. LBR is a nascent venture, just initiated last week or so, and its review of Entrekin is only its second, but I see good things ahead for the site, and I don’t just say that because the review was so overwhelmingly good.
As reviews and kind words go, Entrekin had a rather good year. Back in June, the PODler had great things to say about it, and I already mentioned that, in July, one wonderful reader (thanks again to Deborah) downloaded it to her iPhone to read it and shared the experience with me. Not long thereafter, I took a long-ish hiatus from blogging, and during that time, some other nice things happened. The first was my entering Entrekin into the Writer’s Digest self-published book of the year contest. During the summer, I got a note, via MySpace, from one of the judges, who told me how much he’d liked my book and that it had made it to the second round of judging.
That note made me smile, and not just for the kind words; there’s a bit in Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye when Holden Caufield says something along the lines that the best authors make you feel like their friends, make you want to phone them up and tell them how much you liked their book and maybe chat a bit. That note made me feel somewhat like that.
Ultimately, Entrekin made it no further in the judging. I’d had doubts it would, truthfully, but mainly because of the category selection; there was none for a collection, so I had to enter it into the “mainstream/literary fiction,” which only really makes up probably less than half the book. There’s still poetry, and there are still five essays, one of which, concerning September 11th, is, I think, one of the more powerful pieces in the book. It was certainly the most powerful to write.
But Entrekin did get 4s (out of 5) straight across the board (plot, grammar, character development, cover design), and whoever offered commentary liked that it’s all over the place, but that one gets the sense that I write because I love to do so (and I do), calling the notes at the end “genuine and heartfelt,” then, “This was a remarkably refreshing read, and its earnestness is catching.”
Which is just lovely, yes.
The judge also commented on a possible improvement, calling it “only … one small thing,” and then mentioned my self-titling the collection. He (or she) noted that doing so “might lead many cynics to think that Will Entrekin is egocentric. Just a thought. Again, I don’t think so particularly, but there are some who might.”
This comment made me chuckle, though I don’t yet know how to react beyond that yet. It’s not a criticism with which I’m unfamiliar, but still I don’t know how to respond; the more I note I’m, in fact, not, the more defensive I appear. Totally no-win situation. Lately I’ve just taken to not responding, except in extraordinarily rare cases; the last time I engaged anyone, in fact, I did so to stick up, so to speak, for someone else. That that someone else hadn’t responded, though, might well have been the clearest indication that they didn’t feel response was necessary. When I was younger, my parents taught me to always stick up for myself; part of it, I think, is that I’m still often learning how.
This bears up to the last review of any of my writing before LBR’s. I very deliberately took a step back to more fully realize what I wanted to do and how I might, during which time a blog called POD People reviewed “How the World Will End.” The reviewer, Emily Veinglory, opened by noting she’d heard quite a lot about me, though she doesn’t mention whether what she’s heard was good or bad, then that “It seems he can write, but it really isn’t clear what he writes about.” So she decided to give a shot to one of the free stories available over at my Lulu page, and I’m positively thrilled she decided to find out for herself. She chose “How the World Will End,” which, coincidentally, was the very first download offered, just a few days before the book became available, noting that she thought it was clear I knew how to put words together, but that the story, which started concrete, became “abstract,” noting that she “didn’t really get it.”
Which is, of course, fair enough. “How the World Will End” is a flash piece based on a song, written as a sort of translation/adaptation; I listened to the song and tried to extrapolate what it would be had it been a short story. It’s certainly experimental, but as for “abstract,” I’m not certain. Veinglory says one might call her “overly literal,” but then, I think the story is overly literal; I’m not a symbolic sort of writer, mostly, and when “HtWWE” mentions a missile, I meant a missile; when it mentions penguins, I meant penguins; and when it meant mountains and rivers, I meant mountains and rivers.
What I think is more important than the question of concrete v. abstract is that, ultimately, Veinglory notes she’s “left certain that Will Entrekin knows how to write but I am not sure that I would be interested in anything he chose to write about,” which is a shame and indicates that “HtWWE” fails, for her, on a number of levels: as a story, but also as a taste of the collection itself and as an enticement to give others a try. Veinglory ultimately gives the story a 5.5 star rating out of 10, which I actually consider extraordinarily charitable considering she didn’t seem to much like it; I obviously do like the story (I wouldn’t have included it if I hadn’t), and though I’m not certain how to rate such things (on a scale of swimming to banana, I’d give it a purple), I’m also not certain I’d have given it much higher. I think it did what I wanted it to, ultimately, and works for what it is; whether that’s good or not I leave to the reader to decide–in Veinglory’s case, then, not so much.
But ultimately that’s the question of the book, and what I’ve learned from this year. Is Entrekin a good, or great, book? To that I answer that I like it and am proud of it, and more than that, I cannot say. Does it do what I wanted it to? That I can’t answer, either, because I didn’t necessarily hope for it to do anything; all I wanted was to learn from this experience, and I have. I’ve learned that what counts is to put out something you stand behind, and believe in, no matter the circumstances, and that you acknowledge it for what it is. I’ve learned that marketing and promotion are difficult. I’ve learned that I don’t believe in self-promotion, because I’m not promoting my self; I’m promoting my book and doing so on my own. And I’ve learned that the best thing in the world one can achieve is belief in yourself and your work, but mostly I’ve learned that I certainly couldn’t have done any of this without you. I couldn’t have done it without the kind words and gracious notes. I couldn’t have done it without the people who took pictures of themselves reading Entrekin. I couldn’t have done it without your support, and for that I am both deeply humbled and extraordinarily grateful; no amount of thanks feels like it could be enough.
I’ve learned that some people like it, and others don’t. Mostly, I just hope people decide for themselves.
To that end, given that it’s the year anniversary, and given that my favorite author’s novel is available for free download for the month, I decided to follow suit. For the entire month of March, Entrekin, in its entirety, will be available as a free download at Lulu.com.
I hope you give it a shot if you haven’t already, and I hope you like it if you do.
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