Stalking macaroni and cheese

"Nobody stalks macaroni and cheese," is one of my favorite lines from 'A Better Way,' a story I published recently on Amazon.com.




Subtle and silly in its own right, it sums up the bewilderment Darryl Johnson feels as he realizes the strange occurrence that keep happening around him are all related and that he has somehow offended some very powerful people.


I have a mild affinity for this story, which I started writing a few years ago. I took the name of the main character from my late cousin, but that's where the similarities between real Darryl and fictional Darryl end. Fictional Darryl is in a world of trouble and he doesn't realize it; he is a regular guy with a wandering thought process that was a challenge to write. Indeed, his thought process was so random and filled with a bizarre kind of stream-of-consciousness wool-gathering that the story was once three times as long as the final version (you're welcome for that, those who read it).


The story itself was based on three things: the title, which came from a Ben Harper song, an upside-down stamp and the disquieting feelings I had about the action of our government (and our willingness to accept those actions) in the wake of the 2011 terrorist attacks. Okay. I may as well admit it here, too. It was also partially based on a fart joke.


It was initially designed to be a pure satire, but it took on a darker tone in the week or so before I finally published it and I included some observations about the state of corporate America. I still think the comedic elements hold up, and I like the way little bits of universal truth peek through the seams when you are not expecting them. (Wait long enough, Darryl muses, and God will eventually turn you into everything you once mocked.)


Real Darryl's funeral, if you'll forgive my own wandering thoughts for a moment, was such an inspiring and unexpected affair that it will be recreated, in some fashion, in a forthcoming novel entitled The Other Side of Goodbye. Real Darryl was a regular guy like fictional Darryl: a mail carrier, volunteer firefighter and a pilot, but his funeral procession required the cooperative efforts of three different policing agencies to manage, it was so long and it reminded me that we all, each and every one of us, deserve to be celebrated.


Thanks for reading.

Home, home again....

"And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish and strengthen you."
I Peter 5:10


That verse came up on my daily Bible app during the early part of Henry's Health Scare. I posted it then, shared it with him when Pastor Chris Thomas from First Presbyterian Church came by (Henry nodded and gave me the 'thumbs up' when he heard it) and I've reflected on it often in the past several weeks. I did not, at first, truly come to terms with it.


When you're looking down on your stricken child, 'a little while' is an eternity. I wasn't ready to think about restoration. I was too wrapped up in the suffering. There were plenty of moments during those early days of helpless fear and anger and worry when I gave the chapel at Mott Children's Hospital a wide berth--certain that if I had gone inside, I would have tried to pick a fight with God.


I put on a brave face. I stayed positive. I prayed. I reassured. I asked you all for help. Inside? I questioned. I wondered why it would happen, how it could happen to him--he is a good kid, blameless and strong, kind and goofy. I didn't feel strong, at all.


But the key to that verse is actually in the one ahead of it, which speaks to the fact that the experience of suffering is required of everyone throughout the world. Nobody can dodge that particular bullet forever.


So if suffering is universal so, then, is restoration and growth. We're not quite there yet. Tomorrow (almost today, as I write this) will mark our second week home after 34 days in the hospital. I wonder what we've learned, how we've grown.


His health has improved. The dressing changes are not a two-person job any more. We had a follow up visit today (yesterday) with the surgeons and learned that even those kinds of bandages aren't needed any more. He could be stitch-free in a two weeks. He's getting caught up on school work, too.


His spirits? Fortunately, they are more up than down, but there are times when I sit with him as he tries to drift off to sleep and he asks me some of those same questions I asked. What did I do to deserve this? Why did this happen? 'Nothing,' I answer to the first and 'I don't know.'  or 'We'll see one day' to the others.


That's where faith comes in. It's about being thankful for the restoration before it comes, or being grateful for the answers before you know what they are.

Writer stares with glassy eyes; defies the empty page

The email I was half-expecting came last week: Unclaimed, a short story that I had previously sent out under another name, was rejected by Lightspeed Magazine.

The email was cordial enough, considering it was a standard form rejection—as if the editor was worried about hurting my feelings. He didn't have anything to worry about there. I don't think rejections are a sad thing, at all. In fact, the way I see it, a rejection should be celebrated.

They are not indications that you are not good enough. They are not suggestions that you should give up, at all. They're just an acknowledgement that whatever piece of writing you submitted is not suitable for that outlet—whether it didn't strike a chord with the editor or won't fit within the genre.

Rejections are a sign of two things: first, that you have something in common with every other writer who has ever taken quill to ink, pencil to paper, or finger to keyboard.

Second, they are proof that you are out there trying. Both of those things are important to keep in mind, particularly during the early part of your writing career, which can be an exercise in loneliness and futility. It takes as much time to find your audience as it does to find your voice.

I was expecting the rejection of Unclaimed. I wasn't all that happy with it when I sent it out. That may sound like a self-imposed justification now, but it's the truth. I had to cut so much out of it to meet the word count that a good portion of the character and back story had to be sacrificed. As a result the narrative was choppy, the characters undeveloped. I probably would have passed on it, too.

So why send it, when even I didn't think it was good enough? To get things circulating, I guess. A quick rejection from that magazine meant it was okay to send out the longer, better, version elsewhere. Plus, it had been a while since I submitted anything, and I thought I could benefit from a renewed sense of focus.

I think I'm right on both accounts. Keegan, the main character in 'Unclaimed' is a series character. I've only written a few of his short tales, so far, and have only begun to sketch the outline for his life's story in my head—and I already feel sorry for the poor guy. He may make it to his happy ending, but I don't think any of his friends will survive to enjoy it with him.

In the meantime, I will keep plugging away, working at his character and others, undaunted by the little bumps along the way. That's good advice no matter who you are or what you're pursuing: whether it's being published, finding a new job or connecting with your future husband or wife. Keep it up. There are plenty of obstacles in life. You don’t have to be one of them.

 

 

"You won't get wise with the sleep still in your eyes..."

When I first set out to write The Prankster's Reward, I had a target of 120,000 words.

One of my main gripes about fantasy fiction is that it tends to take a writer 10 years and three or four 1,000 page books to tell a story and I didn't want to do that--not yet, anyway. I wanted to write a relatively compact adventure tale that would leave readers craving more but wouldn't take such a huge investment of time to get to the end.

More than eight months later, the novel is done. It comes in at about 85,000 words, which means my initial word count was fairly accurate. It will take a lot of work to make it even readable enough to get someone else's opinion on it. Most of that work will be in adding depth to the characters and providing the backstory to the things I revealed in the final chapter and epilogue.

I've learned quite a few things along the way, particularly in the last month, when I declared my own personal 'writing Waterloo' and told myself that if I didn't get any consistency in my writing, do it with any discipline at all, then I was just going to quit and admit that life had won. The goal was impossible. Save yourself the frustration and spend more time with the family. Perhaps you can take something away from my struggles.

First, I am too hard on myself. Looking back, it's amazing that I was able to finish it at all, giving everything that was going on in my life. A battle with blood sugar, documented here. The impending foreclosure (or, hopefully, short sale) of my house, which I've written about here under the tag 'the third miracle.' The care and recent passing of my father to early onset Alzheimer's. It is okay to let things like this eat into your time, but it is not okay to let them defeat. All things pass and, as Winston Churchill once said: If you're going through hell, keep going.

Second, I allowed my own story to drag on to the point where even I got bored with it. If you're not invested in something you're writing, how can the reader be? Henry David Thoreau, a guy who knew a thing or two about writing, advises us to 'strike while the iron is hot.' A writer who tries to tell his story after the passion has faded is like trying to iron a shirt with a cold brick. Or something to that effect.

As romantic and cool as it may sound to say you can write something as you go along, the reality is that it's a lot more practical to plan things out ahead of time. That way, a plot point that you suddenly think about in chapter 21 doesn't require writing chapters 3-17. When I go back to edit this novel--and by edit, I mean rewrite--I'll do it the right way. I'll have a full outline. Character sketches. Back stories. I will set up a desk in my garage, beyond the reach of my wifi, and close the door to all distractions.

And go back I will. Write I will. For at the end of myWaterloo, I had an 18-12 record for days writing vs. days non-writing, and I know can improve on that. It doesn't matter what's going on in your life. Your dreams are still out there, waiting patiently.

Grace and a grain of salt

My mom has often asked me where my creativity comes from. I never really thought about it; I’m just happy the stories come to me, regardless of the effort it takes to put them into words.

But it’s a good question. She can follow a pattern better than anyone. She can make a pant suit out of a discarded piece of fabric, knit you an afghan, build you a stuffed bear (complete with articulated joints), embroider a wall-hanging—and you should see some of the Halloween costumes. But creating completely new things isn’t really her thing.

Dad was a math guy; he worked with computers. Equations were his building blocks.

It wasn’t until the last few months that I really started to think about that question but when I did, the answer was pretty obvious:

I learned how to be creative by listening to my dad swear.

Now, he wasn’t given to much profanity. He wasn’t the kind of person to drop an ‘f’bomb the way some people say ‘Hi,’ or anything like that. He didn’t swear often, but when he did…

He put swear words together like a toddler building a toy train, cramming one word after another with reckless, free flowing abandon. He didn’t care if the words belonged together or not—he just wanted them to roll.

I’d give you examples, but we are in a house of worship—and guests, at that. Suffice it to say that the last thing my brothers, sister or I ever wanted to hear when we were growing up was a plaintive voice calling from the garage or the basement: “Can I get some help, please?”

Because dad, for all his gifts with the more…florid…forms of speech, was equally as gifted at making a simple job become more complicated—and therefore frustrating—than it needed to be.

But dad was basically a quiet guy. Humble. And, in his own way, passionate. He had a great sense of humor, albeit a slightly unusual one. Even that, he kept mostly to himself, laughing when appropriate and sliding a zinger in when it was least expected. His usual expressions—which we’ll get to later—were as smile-inducing as they were confounding.

He was the hardest working person I’ve ever known. He would go to work all day, deal with us afterward, then do chores until he collapsed onto the couch. If he ever complained, I never heard it. That trait served me well in the news business, but even I couldn’t hold a candle to it.

And he was a fighter, too. When he had cancer, he had so little regard for that disease that he told us all about it during a card game.

“I’m glad you’re all here,” he said. “I have cancer. Let’s make that trump. It’s your lead.” We just gaped at him, the cards drifting out of our hands like petals from a wilting flower. He got radiation treatment on his lunch break and then went back to work.

Heart disease took his mother and older brother, but when dad had a heart attack, he barely even noticed. He eventually went to an ER—four days later—and, when we expressed our shock and outrage at hearing that, he just shrugged his shoulders and said:

“I just thought I was tired.”

But, Alzheimer’s…

Well. What can you say about Alzheimer’s? There’s no weight set that’ll help you. Alzheimer’s doesn’t care how much cardio exercise you do. It scoffs at a proper diet the way…well, the way most of us scoff at a proper diet. You can’t really fight it.

And Dad was a math guy. A computer guy. Equations were his building blocks. There must’ve been a moment when he realized that this was an algorithm that had too many variables to solve.

At least in time for him.

So he fought it the only way he could: for the next victim. He was part of a research program at the University of Michigan and we had his brain donated to the same department for study. Nobody could figure out why it hit him so hard and took him so fast while he was alive. Maybe now…

I guess you could call it the gift that keeps on giving, against the thing that keeps on taking. Maybe it’ll give some other son more time with his dad, some other wife more time with her husband, a few more poker games and campfires.

That’s one thing we can take from all of this. As for the deeper lesson, well, I had to think long and hard on that. Everything has a purpose. Everything happens for a reason, right? Well, possible reason could there be for this, to take someone who worked so hard, asked for so little, wanted nothing more than a better life for his children and who offended no one?

I don’t know. I asked that question a lot. If there was an answer to that, I didn’t hear it.

I am left with this:

Sometimes, in our quest for miracles, we overlook the little blessings. The smiles. Inside jokes. Pats on the head. Simple things we see and discard all the time.

My dad was never overly affectionate. I never heard him say ‘I love you.’ But he showed me every day, if I had been smart enough to notice.

That is what I’d like you to take from this, from my dad. Love, real love, real passion: it doesn’t have to be spoken to be valid. It’s evident in the little things that we don’t even notice. A guy who will make his own sandwich out of the crusts of the bread, and then tell you it’s his favorite part. Or someone who spends his last buck on a pop for you, and tells you he’s not thirsty.

Recognize that for what it is. Smile back. Say ‘thank you.’ Or even, ‘I love you, too.’ Because in the end, you don’t know how much time you have. I think my dad would like that, if he knew at the end we all got him.

What he wouldn’t like is us all crying over his loss. He’d be embarrassed over all this fuss (but he’d appreciate the sandwiches). He was a fighter, you know. Cancer. Heart Disease. Alzheimer’s. He was 2-for3.  And he got an assist in #3, right? Don’t be sad. Mourn his passing, and pass on his legacy. Remember your blessings. You are loved, even if you don’t hear it.

And, if you want to pass on his legacy, here are some simple ways you can do it. The beauty of it is, they don’t really require—or perhaps ‘defy’ is a better way to say it—explanation. His expressions:

When someone says: can I ask you a question:

“Shoot Bruce, the air is full of pigeons.”

To this day, I have no idea who ‘Bruce’ was, or what questions have to do with pigeons. We never met anyone named Bruce and, even if the sky was indeed filled with pigeons, dad wouldn’t be able to shoot one, anyway.

When you take a turn faster than you have to:

“Wheel that taxi, Ponch!”

When you’re waiting to turn into or against traffic:

“What is this, a parade?”

Or as a general exclamation:

“Nice going, Clyde.”

Clyde. That was another guy. We never knew who Clyde was. But ‘Clyde’ was the pinnacle of all insults for my dad. It superseded all commonly known swear words or pejoratives. We never met Clyde or anything, but he must’ve really rubbed dad the wrong way at some point.

And, if you’re doing something that just is not going like you planned, before you start stringing together swear words, try this gem:

“Well, that’s enough to piss off the pope.”

Well. There was more, but I don't remember the ending I tacked onto it, and I'm surprised that I even made it that far. Thanks again for those that came or passed along their thoughts. And thanks for reading here.

"Let me take a long last look, before I say goodbye..."

There's nothing more humbling than a good plan quickly derailed.

So. Well, this is humbling.

My old house in Wayne sits empty in a stagnant market, an impending deadline looming large. My plan to sell it and move with my reputation—and credit—intact, something I once referred to as The Third Miracle, will most likely not come to pass.

It was a good plan, too, spurred by events in my life that were mostly beyond my control. I can't write about all of issues that led to this point because many of them are very personal and I need to protect those involved. But let me assure you that there was no deliberate attempt to skip out on a bad investment, take advantage of a weak housing market or to otherwise become part of the problem.

Let me tell you as much as I can of what happened, and let you be the judge.

I originally wrote about my need to move in an old post that I categorized under 'The Third Miracle.' Family issues trumped everything else. When the first two miracles fell in line—the new job, the new house—the plan was to keep up on the mortgage for the old house and pursue a short sale. I knew it would be difficult, bordering on traumatic, but I had an opportunity to earn some extra income through an online editing job that I could take care of at night.

Besides, I couldn't just abandon it, the way so many people on my block had simply left their houses. I had only lived in Wayne for about eight years, but still considered it my hometown. I felt responsible for it. I moved there because of the school district, the neighborhood in general, the proximity to parks—there three within a few blocks. Those things hadn't changed. It was still a good house (during our relatively short time there, we replaced the roof, the furnace and the electrical system) in a good neighborhood. And I still love the town; it's one of the reasons I get so irritated at the actions of the government there.

I also didn't want the stigma of a foreclosure following me, so I thought a short sale would be my best option (when the city bought and sold the house next door to mine for $11,000, it certainly didn't improve my property values). I had several people tell me for months, even years, ahead of time that walking away from the house was the best thing to do, but hearing it, saying it and doing it are very different things. I waited as long as I could and, with great trepidation, missed my first mortgage payment in order to make the property eligible for the short sale process.

Then, life happened.

Repeated trips to the hospital in Ann Arbor—the one not affiliated with Oakwood Healthcare—ate up so much time that I "lost editing privileges" on my late night gig. In other words, I got fired. I suddenly realized that I couldn't make up that missed mortgage payment—or keep them up at all. I have kept up the utility payments (although the water bill is currently past due), although that hasn't helped that much. On a trip to Wayne City Hall an employee there—someone I had considered a friend, and had had plenty of conversations with during my newspaper days—told me I was "shitting in Wayne and leaving." Another, whom I also talked with frequently, just glared at me and didn't even approach the counter. Some people in Wayne still shake my hand, but they don’t look me in the eye when they do it.

And so the stigma of foreclosure is looming down on me, after all.

I guess my plan wasn't all that good to begin with. Good plans don't unravel so quickly or completely after one or two hiccups. Perhaps I was just too optimistic in thinking that someone would quickly swoop in and buy up what is not just a move-in ready house, but one that won't require any serious work for at least a decade.

There have been offers. It is still for sale at the bank-approved price—which is more than twice what the house next door sold for. But a grim deadline spelled out in the pre-foreclosure sale agreement is fast approaching: I need an offer on the house by the middle of next month or the bank will take it back.

There's not much I can do now, other than to hope within the next few weeks that someone realizes what a great find it is and puts in an offer that the bank accepts. I am not sure what I would have done differently (or could have, for that matter). I haven't exactly given up on The Third Miracle, but I admit it's unlikely. Even so, I am still blessed.

"We fall down, but we get up..."

A little more than a year ago, my life was a mess.

I believe that all good writing is personal, but I can't talk about all of the things that brought me to that state; someday perhaps. It was a combination of bad choices and bad luck and, if I were to be honest, more of the former than the latter.

Suffice it to say that there wasn't much going on that I was happy about. My personal and professional life was essentially a mess--finances, too--and in order to make everything right, I needed to get a new job at a time when my industry was shedding workers the way a Siberian husky sheds fur in July, buy a new house at a time when banks wouldn't finance a dime if you showed them a nickel, and sell my house amidst one of the worst real estate markets in history.

I needed more than a do-over--more, even, than a single miracle. I needed three.

I am writing tonight from the second miracle, confident that the third will happen. I say that not to brag or in any way to degrade all that has happened in the past year--the new job, the new house, reconciling my family--but to remind everyone that even amidst the worst times in life, the impossible can happen.

I am not sure what the ultimate goal is with these blog entries, which will come under the heading of 'The Third Miracle,' or even how good I'll be at it. Maybe, if the words cooperate and if I can remember how to string a few sentences together coherently, I'll be able to offer some hope and encouragement to anyone who needs it or lift the spirits of anyone who needs to smile.

Because I'm nothing special. I don't deserve good fortune any more than anyone else. Yet I've been blessed and I know it. And if it can happen to someone as broke down, hurt and dispirited as I was, it can happen to anyone.