Please come visit me at my new place:
http://duluonzo.wordpress.com/
1 year ago
Friday, November 14, 2008
Superfriends
When I was in 1st grade, my buddy Sila and I wrote a book together called Superfriends. It was this great story about two friends (us) who wore capes and could fly around and help people. We wrote every word and made all the pictures. Then it was laminated and through some connection with our teacher, the bookstore in town ended up placing the book upright in their sidewalk display window for a week or two.
It was amazing. I was a real writer! Not even ten years old and I was already able to walk down the street and see my name and Sila's on the front of our book in the window of the bookstore.
I remember it like it was yesterday. It is one of my clearest memories and I still find myself going back to it over and over again when I wage the internal battle inside about whether or not I am a writer. Now, I know I am a writer. I write. And since I was a kid, I have done a lot of writing - journal entries, stories, poems, lyrics, love letters, two novels, children's stories, and now this blog. It seems like I sit down and start a hundred stories a year and then bail out on them after a couple thousand words. I literally have hundreds of beginnings. I go back and read them now and I find crazy things like a name for a character I was using in a story I started in college is now my son's name and and stretch of road that an incredibly important scene took place on in my first novel which I wrote when living in Oregon is now a mile away from my home in Vermont. Strange, no? These things do come around again.
So I'll decide on a story idea and get into it for a while. Then I stop writing for a few weeks out of pure laziness and I lose the story. I've written two full (unpublished) novels at this point, so I've proven to my inner-doubter that I can sustain a story for a novel, and so I'm wondering if my problem is that I've just not found the right form again. I'll go back and read some of the beginnings and let myself dream about where the story might go but I rarely move on those dreams.
But like the way my arms move when I sit down at a drum kit, what comes most easily and naturally to me are children's stories. In them I find I can be more poetic and free and dreamy than when trying to stick with my "adult" novels. My two kids (and a third in my wife's beautiful belly) are such a source of inspiration for me...why not try to use that more? Why not go with that flow which seems to leak out of my fingertips like my bathtub faucet (a week ago, before we finally called the plumber)? No reason.
There is destiny. And there is work. And I believe in the two together. And no matter what I may tell myself in my weaker moments, I believe in my future. My present is pretty damn amazing right now, too, don't get me wrong (and knock on that wood right over there) but I know there's a time for me when I'll be home writing during the day instead of daydreaming about being home writing during the day in my cubicle.
Before she was my wife, about 14 years ago back in high school, she told me I was going to write books and be a great father to our kids. She was at least partly right so far (if I do say so myself). What makes me think she wasn't one hundred percent right?
Well, it's something to think about anyway.
And now, when I put my kids to bed, they ask me to tell them a story and I tell them stories of the Superfriends. Except my kids are the main characters now and every night there's a new adventure. Their favorite so far is the one where they fly across the world to help the kids who lost their soccer ball. Don't ask me why, but they love that one to the point where they request it now. Yes, these things really do come full circle.
It was amazing. I was a real writer! Not even ten years old and I was already able to walk down the street and see my name and Sila's on the front of our book in the window of the bookstore.
I remember it like it was yesterday. It is one of my clearest memories and I still find myself going back to it over and over again when I wage the internal battle inside about whether or not I am a writer. Now, I know I am a writer. I write. And since I was a kid, I have done a lot of writing - journal entries, stories, poems, lyrics, love letters, two novels, children's stories, and now this blog. It seems like I sit down and start a hundred stories a year and then bail out on them after a couple thousand words. I literally have hundreds of beginnings. I go back and read them now and I find crazy things like a name for a character I was using in a story I started in college is now my son's name and and stretch of road that an incredibly important scene took place on in my first novel which I wrote when living in Oregon is now a mile away from my home in Vermont. Strange, no? These things do come around again.
So I'll decide on a story idea and get into it for a while. Then I stop writing for a few weeks out of pure laziness and I lose the story. I've written two full (unpublished) novels at this point, so I've proven to my inner-doubter that I can sustain a story for a novel, and so I'm wondering if my problem is that I've just not found the right form again. I'll go back and read some of the beginnings and let myself dream about where the story might go but I rarely move on those dreams.
But like the way my arms move when I sit down at a drum kit, what comes most easily and naturally to me are children's stories. In them I find I can be more poetic and free and dreamy than when trying to stick with my "adult" novels. My two kids (and a third in my wife's beautiful belly) are such a source of inspiration for me...why not try to use that more? Why not go with that flow which seems to leak out of my fingertips like my bathtub faucet (a week ago, before we finally called the plumber)? No reason.
There is destiny. And there is work. And I believe in the two together. And no matter what I may tell myself in my weaker moments, I believe in my future. My present is pretty damn amazing right now, too, don't get me wrong (and knock on that wood right over there) but I know there's a time for me when I'll be home writing during the day instead of daydreaming about being home writing during the day in my cubicle.
Before she was my wife, about 14 years ago back in high school, she told me I was going to write books and be a great father to our kids. She was at least partly right so far (if I do say so myself). What makes me think she wasn't one hundred percent right?
Well, it's something to think about anyway.
And now, when I put my kids to bed, they ask me to tell them a story and I tell them stories of the Superfriends. Except my kids are the main characters now and every night there's a new adventure. Their favorite so far is the one where they fly across the world to help the kids who lost their soccer ball. Don't ask me why, but they love that one to the point where they request it now. Yes, these things really do come full circle.
excerpt from my novel "A Series of Hopes"
Listen. Listen man, he told himself. Just listen!
Rudolph began the night with a single cigarette.
Exhaled. He twirled a cigarette in his left-hand fingers like a small drum stick, three complete rotations before he gently laid it in between his lips. Ready to smoke.
The night was on. Listen man, he thought. Catch that sound out there. He closed his eyes.
Lit the match with his right hand and brought it to his mouth for the union. He listened to the music, four speakers hung high, angled just right for his seat. Saxophone. It was singing pure sadness. Rudolf sang along inside. The two of them cried and sobbed and pleaded for something, some sort of release from the tension. He was hurtin.
All at once, the horn shifted its argument, the bubbling of a breeze, and Rudolf heard a woodwind laugh out loud. It was sadness turned ‘round. But inside Rudolf’s eyes there was a funeral with old ladies in their black veils and teary cheeks, children sitting proper in their seats. In the darkness he found a casket, open lid, and he saw himself inside dressed up in darkness, fake flesh lipcolor and temples, sad.
Shit. His eyes opened with an embarrassed jerk. Glanced around nervously but nobody was looking at him. He took a big drag off the cigarette, looked down to his bourbon and sipped.
Rudolf held the syrup in his mouth until his saliva dulled the burn, swallowed.
“Alright now,” the emcee coughed, cool as Coltrane, then slipped away, it was all he said, a bastardboy of the whole joint, alive and full of hype.
The piano player, Leon, who was moving his head wavy, back-and-forth, grab the tempo out of thin air, glanced to Melvin and Rudolf, and jammed his fingers into the keys. It was Monkhard, fast anti-melody, all ten fingers worked and spun off in opposite directions, invented a reality all his own, all his own heaphead madness.
Next, Melvin. Black hat down over his eyes, lowdown like a sunset, all you could see was the smoke rising from a glow somewhere down in his dark horizon. Melvin felt around, fondled ideas, spit up silver and flush it all back down until he relaxed into a straight line, gold man, gold, walking downtown then stepped back with one foot, rested on his hind leg. Balanced himself against the rhythm he gave to the room. He plucked four strings, such cautious drama, with his big left hand wrapped around the neck of the upright bass, matched each pluck on the high end up with his ear.
Rudolf slouched. Soon’s Melvin settled back into his real groove, Rudolf splashed the huge ride cymbal to his right, and bounced a wooden tip like a fury. His left hand beat another stick against the snare, oddtime, like back East. His shoulders never moved. He was all arms. The band was off, moving and punctuating everything with question marks, exclamations, and points beyond. Rudolf shook his head, clenched teeth bit sour, a wild pace and he knew there was something extra easy about the way they were playing. Not easy, no, this was fierce, but Rudolf was thinking it was just so damn easy. That night it was just so damn easy.
Rudolph began the night with a single cigarette.
Exhaled. He twirled a cigarette in his left-hand fingers like a small drum stick, three complete rotations before he gently laid it in between his lips. Ready to smoke.
The night was on. Listen man, he thought. Catch that sound out there. He closed his eyes.
Lit the match with his right hand and brought it to his mouth for the union. He listened to the music, four speakers hung high, angled just right for his seat. Saxophone. It was singing pure sadness. Rudolf sang along inside. The two of them cried and sobbed and pleaded for something, some sort of release from the tension. He was hurtin.
All at once, the horn shifted its argument, the bubbling of a breeze, and Rudolf heard a woodwind laugh out loud. It was sadness turned ‘round. But inside Rudolf’s eyes there was a funeral with old ladies in their black veils and teary cheeks, children sitting proper in their seats. In the darkness he found a casket, open lid, and he saw himself inside dressed up in darkness, fake flesh lipcolor and temples, sad.
Shit. His eyes opened with an embarrassed jerk. Glanced around nervously but nobody was looking at him. He took a big drag off the cigarette, looked down to his bourbon and sipped.
Rudolf held the syrup in his mouth until his saliva dulled the burn, swallowed.
“Alright now,” the emcee coughed, cool as Coltrane, then slipped away, it was all he said, a bastardboy of the whole joint, alive and full of hype.
The piano player, Leon, who was moving his head wavy, back-and-forth, grab the tempo out of thin air, glanced to Melvin and Rudolf, and jammed his fingers into the keys. It was Monkhard, fast anti-melody, all ten fingers worked and spun off in opposite directions, invented a reality all his own, all his own heaphead madness.
Next, Melvin. Black hat down over his eyes, lowdown like a sunset, all you could see was the smoke rising from a glow somewhere down in his dark horizon. Melvin felt around, fondled ideas, spit up silver and flush it all back down until he relaxed into a straight line, gold man, gold, walking downtown then stepped back with one foot, rested on his hind leg. Balanced himself against the rhythm he gave to the room. He plucked four strings, such cautious drama, with his big left hand wrapped around the neck of the upright bass, matched each pluck on the high end up with his ear.
Rudolf slouched. Soon’s Melvin settled back into his real groove, Rudolf splashed the huge ride cymbal to his right, and bounced a wooden tip like a fury. His left hand beat another stick against the snare, oddtime, like back East. His shoulders never moved. He was all arms. The band was off, moving and punctuating everything with question marks, exclamations, and points beyond. Rudolf shook his head, clenched teeth bit sour, a wild pace and he knew there was something extra easy about the way they were playing. Not easy, no, this was fierce, but Rudolf was thinking it was just so damn easy. That night it was just so damn easy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
