I may have officially entered the hallowed halls of Geekdom yesterday when a satirical magazine agreed to publish an essay I wrote about the Greek debt. It was a piece I had worked on diligently, and includes a copious number of references to Greek classical literature, mythology, and the pantheon of gods and goddesses.
In short, it's a classic essay and I am glad someone, at last, recognized the moribund and bawdy humor in it.
This Greek piece, along with several poems of classical Greek reference and another humorous essay I wrote on Latin cognates, would seem to make me an official Geek. I expect to receive my decoder ring and club membership in a plain brown wrapper any day now.
Naturally, I will have to tell me wife about my Geek fortunes next time I see her. She is always perturbed by my writing choices (as they produce no money) and she continues to request that I sell one of my novels for a tidy sum. She doesn't understand why I would waste my time writing about Zeus, or Heracles, or Hades (god of the underworld, in case you didn't know). She thinks I should focus on writing mysteries or thrillers (of which I have many) and most recently she has insisted I write romantic novels of the type and variety that women purchase by the truckloads. So, I thought I'd try my hand at it . . . a romance novel with paragraphs like:
She undressed him with her eyes but then realized this was the way most men his age looked while they were taking a shower. He was hideous and she walked away in disgust. She didn't realize a man could have udders and she felt, suddenly, hungry for a Dairy Queen Blizzard with Reeces Pieces. She removed five dollars from his wallet and sped away in a cloud of purple exhaust fumes, wondering why she had married him twenty-eight years before and how her life would have been different had she married Stew, who was now a sales manager for H.H. Gregg and could get her a sweet deal on a plasma television. But she knew she would never leave him; he had hooked her big time years ago when he washed her chassis for free and then wrote heartfelt notes to her mother, asking for her hand and her heart. She would love him forever, into the twilight of their years when, at last in retirement, they would study the works of Aristotle in the original Greek and would, some day, make out in the back of the pickup on an old mattress they had once purchased for their son from Goodwill. Theirs was a classic love story for the ages, and they were still writing it in large 14-point Times New Roman font.
You see what I mean? No wonder my wife wants me to write romance. I could make a million.
Yesterday I bumped up against a deadline for a literary magazine that will soon be publishing some of my erudite humor. I say "bumped" because I waited until the last minute to submit my responses to the editor's mandatory list of pre-publication questions. Included in the list were several legal questions such as:
Do you swear that this material is yours and is not plagiarized or lifted in whole or in part from some other work?
and
Do you own the legal rights to this work?
Well . . . these are easy. I've never plagiarized a sentence in my life. Why would I? If I can't submit my own work, what's the point?
But the questions that gave me pause were these:
In 45 words or less tell us about yourself and why our readers would find you interesting?
and
How are you currently feeling about life?
I'm not joking . . . these were the questions. And I love them. These editors know how to rap. But I was having problems getting my thoughts in order. I wanted to be cute and funny and insightful all at the same time. So, here's what I submitted.
In response:
The readers need to meet my wife. They would be impressed. Impressed that a guy like me chose so well and, in doing so, has earned the right to be admired and respected. Anyone reading this piece will also suspect that I am a highly-educated fellow of some classical learning who has by now forgotten most of what he learned, including the notion that he could once read Latin. Readers will also note that I am high on life, but have very good relationships with legions of funeral directors. I can be reached through my blog, should anyone desire to correspond with me, but I am frequently out of the office, as I am attempting to transition my children out of the house.
There are fallow times for every writer: periods when the writing, though written, lacks something. That's when looking back can help one look ahead.
Here's a poem I unearthed from my 2012 poetic journal, a piece I wrote back on February 23. Reading it now, I can see that it's not too bad. The day must have been cloudy and my experience was best summarized as melancholy, I suppose.
Nevetheless, here it is.
The Cloudy Day
What to make of gray
And the lack of desire
That a gray day brings
Is most illuminating
In its plainness.
And what one might
Learn to appreciate
In overcast skies
Is nothing if
Nothing is paradise.
Even the birds
Become landlubbers
On a day overcast
With lack of blue
When the sun won't last
And the shadows do.
I received word this week that another one of my books is "going out of print". This is always a sad announcement, when the volume of sales (or lack thereof) preclude that the book pass beyond the bounds of the press and enter that great remaindered category in the sky.
As a writer who now has most of his books in the out of print category, it's difficult to feel affirmed. It's another form of rejection. And writers like me are continually looking for other ways to feel warm . . . that's why we buy heating pads and use lots of Tabasco sauce.
Going out of print also makes a guy like me cling to the love. I write my wife daily poems in the hope that she might read them and become aroused to the point where she will sign a waver granting me the exclusive rights to her retirement funds. I dream that she will throw off pheromone signals indicating that she is willing to finish the landscaping project on the west side of the house. I am also more bold to express how I feel, often through tears, and I often cry when I mention how much it would mean to me if she could Simonize the car and fix the muffler.
Going out of print has this affect on me. I live in an emotional stranglehold, my nerves raw and close to the edge. Sometimes I eat buckets of ice cream and call it dinner. My children ask for $10 and I give them a $100 bill . . . just to gain their acceptance in exchange for five minutes, if only they will sit and willingly listen to my problems. These in-home counseling sessions usually end abruptly, however, and with laughter. My own children can't accept that I'm this messed up. They post our conversations on Facebook and include photographs of me when I was twenty-seven years old and badly in need of a shave.
Believe me, if there are folks out there who dream of writing a book, it's not all peaches and cream. Sometimes it's just yogurt, and badly spoiled. Sometimes it's just cutting the cheese and looking sideways at the cat when someone asks, "What smells?"
But I've been out of print many times before and I'll get through this one, too. All it will take is a lot of poems and a gallon of chocolate chip ice cream.
Or . . . if my wife totally loses her bearings and kisses me tonight . . . all will be well.
On Friday I was sitting on a bluff in South Haven, Michigan, overlooking a lake Michigan beach, watching sailboats ease past the harbor lighthouse. And I was reading The Collected Stories of Paul Theroux, sunlight streaking across my face.
The book selection was wholly appropriate, as Theroux's fiction is reminiscent of his many travel books, and his stories seem to blossom from specific locations and cultures. Theroux's fiction, nonetheless, is not easily accessible and doesn't offer quick rewards for the reader. One has to be willing to be submerged, as if the story itself is a means by which we may enter a time, place or culture.
I was grateful to have Theroux on a sunny day, and being a traveler myself, discovered enough in these thick pages to enjoy over a hundred mile beach vista and a bottle of chilled water.
Better yet, I was also offered the hope of a book-signing when I purchased the book at a used bookstore in South Haven. "Next time you're in town," was the word. I won't forget.
It won't be long before my own travels will bring me around again. Back to the port, the deep blue waters, the sailboats fastened to the sunset. I'll have another book then . . . and will likely have a travel story of my own to write about.
Same beach. Different outcome.
As a writer I have always had an awareness of, and appreciation for, paper. I have, for instance, always had a fascination with paper weight, type, and even the binding and cut of books. Yes, I even admire some books on my shelves for the quality of their print or presentation, even if the writing itself stinks. (No way to even discuss these things with Kindle format and digital publishing.)
But recently I've been undertaking a new paper chase for my daughter, who is intent on finding the perfect papers for her various invitations, thank you cards, programs and stationery for her wedding.
Last night I brought home a ream of paper that had been sitting on my office shelf for over twenty-five years. This ream of paper, which I had purchased before my children were born, was meant to serve as my cover letters to editors. It is a very fine paper, 20 weight bond, with 25% cotton woven into the mix.
As memory serves, I purchased this ream for $20 back in 1987. (A tidy sum back then, and I probably forfeited food to buy it.) Not sure how much it would cost today (maybe less?). But since 1987 I've been busy writing (among other things) and these 500 pages of paper simply got lost in the creative process. My cover letters eventually gave way to e-mails and faxes and then, eventually, phone calls and, in some cases, face-to-face conversations with editors.
As memory serves, I also used two pages of this paper. So technically my daughter only has 498 pages for her wedding.
One of these pieces of paper I used as a birthday card to my wife. I likely filled it with sappy sentiments detailing the depths of my love and how much I wanted to shake the peaches on her tree. I also likely included an original poem such as:
Sure as the vine twines round the stump
You are my darlin' sugar lump.
The second piece of paper was used to light a fire in the fireplace. But for the life of me, I don't remember when . . . and I don't recall having a fireplace either.
I can only hope that my daughter can make better use of this high-quality paper . . . and that she will find a use for it some time in the next 25 years. She'd better hurry and find a reason, though. In another 25 years she may be planning my funeral. But she can print my obituary on this paper. I know it will hold up well under duress, and the cotton fiber absorbs tear-stains very well.
In the past year our little household has seen three diplomas earned: one college, one high school, and my wife completed a two-year master's certification for administration. I have been feeling like a slacker. But yesterday I received my "official" letter from a magazine that had selected one of my poems as a best of 2011. And the word was that this letter was suitable for framing . . . should I want to impress my friends. (But I have no friends who would be impressed by me.)
I won't be framing this letter . . . I don't have anything framed! Most of my important documents are stuffed into a filing cabinet somewhere and, should I need them, I will have to die in order for them to be discovered. I'm not framing my letter . . . I'll just write another poem and hope to do better with my next effort.
If I were to frame important documents, I might opt for some unassuming ones.
For example, I might choose to frame a recent Valentine's Day card . . . in which my wife outlined the various ways and reasons she loves me, and wants to love me, and desires me, and also thanked me for cleaning up the basement where the cat puked. I didn't believe a word of it of course, but some poet at Hallmark did touch my heart with his sentiments and made me shed a tear. I haven't been able to toss this card since February 14, although I have created several doodles on it and have scrawled a few phone numbers in the upper right hand corner above the words: "I love you like a wild gazelle crossing mountain ranges in search of a decent mate."
I might also frame a Walmart receipt from a recent mailing envelope purchase. I use a lot of these envelopes and it would be nice to remind myself that I need to fill these mailers with quality work, stuff that will make editors cry, or sneeze, or at least pull a hammie. A framed Walmart receipt might have this effect, especially as I age and feel my energies being reduced to the full force of a triple-A battery.
I might also frame my first published story (and probably still one of my best) that was published way back when in a now-defunct University of Southern Illinois literary magazine. People would stop and ask, "What is this important-looking document stuffed inside this $1.99 frame?" And I could touch my shoulder blades together and answer, "That, my fickle little friend, is my first published story. I am very proud of it, and have been holding out hope for years that writing stories like this one would be a real turn of for my wife."
I could also include a photo of my wife in all of these frames, I suppose. But that would require work. And, although I hate to admit it, I don't even know how to remove the film from the camera. That roll has been in there since 1978, and the last time I pulled out the film to look at it, most of the photos of Becky appeared to be ruined.
