“But however and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget …”  — Bob Cratchit, upon Tiny Tim’s death.

You live your life to protect those you love and nothing expresses loss more than to watch those you have sworn to keep safe wither under the terrible dance of time. Your muscles wrench in their columns and your fists clench as though by sheer will of body you can forestall the inevitable. Even though you set your teeth and prepare your spirit, there is no preparation for the moment itself, because until that moment you will not, can not believe. But then it comes and belief or not, the truth remains.

We watched over the months as congestive heart failure culled Yoda’s appetite, diminished his muscles and stole his wind. Toward the end I’d look to where he rested watching for the rise and fall of his chest, halting for a moment, my own breath hitched high and hard in my chest, and then release when I caught sight of his own.

He never lost himself, my brave little boy. His eyes were always there, watching me. His beautiful, expressive eyes that displayed more awareness than any dog had a right to. He was never the cuddly type of dog and so it was hard in those last days, knowing he was still there but further knowing that you could pet him for a bit but never really hug him. I had to respect that. I had to keep my embrace from him because I knew it made him uncomfortable, so I would look, watch him watch me and hug a pillow close to my chest in his stead.

Yoda was beautiful, intelligent and loyal with only one flaw—he was too much like me. We both shared the stubbornness born of spirit, relentless and driven to hold on long beyond reason. He was still moving, still striving until the very end, when, knowing the moment was upon him, walked down the deck stairs to find his own place, out of the way. He got three steps away from the stair before his tremendous, furious heart beat its last and he fell to his side.

I found him minutes later. The sun, for the first time in days was rising brightly in the sky and it fell on his open eyes and for the briefest of moments, in the glow that I saw there I wondered if there might be life, even though I knew better. His body was warm and I called his name but he was beyond hearing me. He lived his life to be by my side, to protect me, and now I knelt above him realizing that all our journeys must end whether we feel them complete or not. I picked him up and brought him inside. I sat on the edge of my bed and held him in my arms, finally able to hug him the way that I wanted, pressing him close to my heart, rocking him, saying his name over and over while my tears fell upon his smooth coat. After a while we wrapped him in a pretty blanket.

The depths of the human heart are immeasurable and thus the pain that rattles those depths is equally immeasurable. I kept looking for him in the room because he had always been there. Always. He could not bear to be out of whatever room I was in and I hadn’t realized just how used to that feeling of protection I’d come to enjoy in his presence. That was our covenant with one another, to ceaselessly protect and love one another without exception.

Memories flooded back to me. I watched this dog literally attack the ocean itself. He had never seen waves before and when one of them washed over my feet he swept down the beach and bit it! After my accident in Pennsylvania if I were to even approach the wall where me and the riding tractor had gone over he would run up behind me and bite at the hem of my pant leg, pulling me back, away from the edge, away from danger. There were many years when it was just the two of us. Long car rides, endless days in foreign states where we had no roots. For fourteen years we walked side by side and it is only now that I realized I never once feared for my safety.

A couple of years ago I lost my grandmother, another stalwart of protection and strength and she and Yoda were so much alike. So strong, so unending in their protection of me. Both lived well beyond years allotted to most of us for our kind and now I’ve lost them both. (“Oh spirit! How can we endure it?”) I watched time take its due and God take back what he had so lovingly, compassionately shared with me. I was born with few guardian angels and now I’m a man with precious few remaining.

I’ve learned a lot in the past 24 hours. My own mortality is no longer in question. When we see those who present such admirable strength and fortitude of character finally fall, there can be no doubt of our own road and its inevitable conclusion. But I’ve also learned that I have little to fear of that ending moment. I will follow those who had, for whatever reason, decided to provide security for my wayward spirit and I will not be alone. I will go to be with my grandmother and grandfather and panting happily at their feet will be my Yoda, my baby boy, my friend and protector. I will know then that I am finally home.

As I write this, Holly is giving me a precious gift. She is taking Yoda to the Vet’s office down the road where they will dispose of his earthly body. She and I too have a covenant and now my job is clearer to me than ever. I will do for her what has been done for me. I will give her my protection, my grace, all that I am until I can give it no more and I too fall under the weight of time and age.

This world is a tiring place, consuming with its endless trials and tribulations. But our mark on the world is not how much we can acquire or how much we can outdo our neighbors. Rather it is by when we are struck to our knees and have hands extended outward to help us back to our feet. This and nothing more is the measure of our lives. May we never forget our guardian angels. May we never take them for granted. May we remember what they have given us and may we give it in return to others.

For you Yoda, you who gave so much and took so little, I will keep your fiery spirit safe within. No room will ever feel the same without you watching over me. Goodbye my dearest friend. I will miss you, forevermore.

Stefan

Over time this has led to haphazard release schedules and a great many unfinished manuscripts.  On those that I have “forced” through the process, well, I’ve never been overly pleased with the results.  It seems to work much better for shorter fiction of which the majority of my catalog is comprised of.

My Name Is Joe began as mix of both whim and flooded mind and originally came out as a short story with a minor twist for the ending.  This was usually good enough for me.  But as I settled in for what should have been a rapid rewrite something happened.  Something, that until recently I hadn’t been able to form into open thought.  Yes, the story grew and from there grew some more.  The ending changed many times as the time I spent with Joe increased.  In the end, I found myself taken on a journey that while deeply emotional was also intellectually stimulating.

After all the editing was complete I wrote some other pieces, fresh off the energy of Joe.  A short story, a poem, a novelette.  They were fun, but not as rewarding as Joe had been and I began to fear, as any artist does, that the magic touch was slipping away.  While I still had hold of some of that lingering enthusiasm I set out to write the next book in my mental schedule, When It Rains.  I made several attempts at it and while I didn’t hate the words that came forth, there was something missing.  Some small but important ingredient wasn’t present in the mix.  I saw this echoed on my wife’s face as I read her the tender beginnings of the new book.  I saw the look I’ve come to know as someone who desperately wants to feel connected to the piece but simply cannot reach it.  I wish I could say that I was immune to being defensive in those situations but as a writer I’m never more vulnerable to insecurity than in the first few thousand words.  I made it my crusade to express to her exactly why the book was working and of course the sad truth of the matter was that I was merely trying to convince myself.  I failed on both counts.  Consequently I stopped working on the book.

Shortly thereafter the season began to change with the days growing shorter and as it is here in this part of Virginia, the clouds ruling most of the days.  Yes, the winter doldrums had begun.  Last winter was a nightmare for me.  I went without sleep for 3 and 4 days at a time.  I barely ate.  The notion of sleeping brought on tremendous panic and could only be accomplished when I was certain I would lay down and instantly pass out from exhaustion.  All my mental energy went from right-brain creative to left-brain pragmatism.  I dabbled with programming languages as playing games wasn’t enough.  I broke them apart to see if I could find out how they worked.  I did anything that would occupy my time and mind so that I could parse out the dread that I felt deeply seated within.

Finally, thankfully, the spring came and shortly thereafter Joe revealed himself to me.  I rode a high the likes of which I had never before experienced.  I read book after book and dreamed out loud, formulating ideas for a dozen of my own printed page conceptions.

When When It Rains wilted on the vine and the seasons began their descent into the grey hell I had become so familiar with old habits of the left brain began to reveal themselves.  Reading became less and less of a desire.  I found myself back in front of the computer for hours at a time.  I began once more to avoid sleep.  Seeing this coming Holly and I began to spend hours talking about it, keeping it in the forefront of our minds because we seriously didn’t know if I could survive a repeat of last winter.  We began in earnest to compare my time in the summer when writing Joe was the reason of the day and how things were different now.  One thing was for certain, we were darker now.  Even the writing ideas that spawned in my head were less graceful, less hopeful than what I had been working on previously.  But, as desperation warrants, any idea is better than no idea.  I told her that I’d been thinking a great deal about political instability and its impact to freedom, though I was weary of the larger picture and wanted a more granular, more “human” version of such impact.  Orwell of course sprang to mind and with him his singularly terrifying version of a totalitarian future.  In My Name Is Joe I wanted to view personal redemption along the lines of my favorite themes, specifically Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.  The story never fails to move me.  I read it aloud every Christmas Eve and without fail struggle through the final pages with a lump the size of a fist in my throat and the text blurry from watering eyes.  The story has so much meaning for me.  I wanted to understand redemption and what it really means, for me at least.  And with Joe, I accomplished that.  After my wintertime hell I needed to ask the universe a question and I sought my answer within the pages of a story of which the protagonist seeks the same answer.  Orwell’s vision is so bleak, so invulnerable that I wanted … no I needed to examine it more closely.

I sat down at my little table in front of the window and began to to type.  When I was done for the day, drained of any meaningful expression, I had accumulated about 3,000 words of an untitled (and I have never started a piece without knowing the title, the beginning the middle and the end) story.  This felt different than my previous attempt with When It Rains but I couldn’t say why.  I felt good.  Washed clean.  Still, I couldn’t be certain if this was merely hope, the heady excitement of new creation or I had somehow found that same magic I had with Joe.  Without much hope I emailed the pages to Holly and she read them over her lunch break.  What resulted was a whirlwind of adjectives and expletives.  She was floored.  She loved it.  Most importantly she stated, “Wherever you went in your head to write this is where you were when you wrote Joe!”

I was certainly ecstatic from her response, but even more I was curious.  Why did this work when Rain had failed?  It occurred to me then, the way truth can simply explode in your mind.  The “A Ha!” moment that some refer to.  With Rain, I wasn’t curious about the plot.  I already knew the truth of the story and as a result, there was no magic in my heart for it.  I had no grand question to ask.  I was seeking nothing.

In this story, what was I asking?  Well, I surely wanted to know how something like 1984 could have happened.  Orwell wanted to express his fear, wanted to warn Western Civilization of a future that he could envision if things of his era did not change.  But in my opinion Orwell made one grand mistake.  He inserted us into the story after totalitarian system was already in place.  The result was frightening to be sure, but in the heart of most readers hopeful optimism kept the story from being too real; made the story too fantastic.  “Things will never get that way,” we say to ourselves by means of comfort.  “Someone would stop this from happening.”  I wanted to explore how something like this could happen.  Exploration however, is simply that.  Exploration.  A curiosity.  What was my true question?  I reread what I had written that day and instantly saw between the lines, so to speak.  My real question was this:  Can mankind, with his history of domination and violence ever step outside of that history?  Even further: Can he ever put away greed?  For this is the root of all evil.  All the deadly sins can be rerouted through greed.  All governments, all societies and groups of man are ultimately corruptible because greed still exists in his heart.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.  We all know this.  But what is power if not greed?  The ability to take what YOU want because you believe you need it or worse, because you simply want it.  This is the single question I’m really asking.  Can we put this aside?  Will we ever?  And do you know what my friends?  I don’t know.  That’s why I’m writing The Wind and the Breath.  Because I need an answer.  I need to know.

From my once simply writing mentality to a much deeper personal need, this is how I’ve changed as a man and a writer.  Without a question that needs answering I’m merely playing at being a writer, an entertainer.  We have plenty of entertainment in the world these days.  We’re inundated with it at every turn.  Every quiet moment we once had can now be filled with movies on our cell phones and music streaming from every source.  We’re driving out serendipity and pushing questions from our minds.  I can’t abide that.  It is too much like my winter mind, to ready to be filled with noise and unimportant tasks.  My summer mind speaks of life and its imponderables that I am driven to ponder.  I now have big questions and a list of books ready to be written that will ask and hopefully answer those questions.  For the first time in my life I’m writing books for me.  The questions I ask and the answers I find are for me.  If you read these books and ask yourselves questions, seek your own answers, then I’ve made a small but hopefully significant difference.  If something causes you to think, to question your own existence, to open doors through which you can redefine yourself, that’s not entertainment; that’s art.

I don’t know what I’m hoping to find in my books.  All I know is that the searching is keeping me alive, keeping the greyness at bay.  And maybe someday, when it’s all said and done, my epitaph will read, “Here Lies Stefan Bourque, Artist.”

Stefan

My Name Is Joe Book Trailer

If any of you haven’t heard of what I’m calling “The Little House That Burned For No Good Reason” check your favorite news site for the line, “firefighters watch as house burns”.  The general idea is this: Outside of a primary town, sort of ‘in the country’ if you will a fire service was set up for protection.  The fee, either one time or annual (I don’t currently have the specifics … and be duly noted, this entry isn’t about specifics … we’re going to pull the camera back to a higher level, an overall arc of compassion so to speak) fee for this coverage is $75.  For whatever reason (and maybe they were erroneously playing the odds) Gene Cranick’s family never paid the fee.  When a fire started outside their home that was unable to be contained with simple garden hoses they did what Americans are taught to do in an emergency–they dialed 911.  A quick check of the payment roster showed that they didn’t pay the fee and the firefighters were never dispatched.  As the fire raged, Cranick told the 911 operator that he’d pay “whatever the cost” to have the fire department come to their aid, but still no help was forthcoming.  It wasn’t until a neighbor who HAD paid the $75 called, worried about the fire crossing over to his property that the big red trucks rolled onto the scene.

Once there, it would be believed by anyone of us that they would unroll their wide-mouthed hoses and begin pumping water onto the blaze.  Of course, since you’re reading this you understand that this did not happen.  After confirming that there were no living people inside the dwelling, well, you guessed it–the firefighters (perhaps not so aptly named in this case–maybe the fire “mercenaries”) stood around and chatted while the structure burned.  A frantic Gene Cranick begged the Fire Chief to put the fire out, again offering to pay anything by means of compensation for their effort but again he was refused.  Angry neighbors jeered and extolled their anger upon the crowd of onlooking firemen but the only time they moved was when the fire itself threatened to burn beyond Cranick’s property line and onto that of a paying “customer”.

Yes, you can see already which side of the fence I’m standing, but before condemning or condoning I’ll ask you to do what a great many people in our country don’t–think for yourself and about others for a couple of minutes.  There are some solid points here and those points can’t be argued with as they are facts.  And that right there is where most of us stop.  But there’s more to this story (and every story really) than just the facts.  We are, after all greater than any computer resolute in its 1,s and 0′s.  We have the wondrous collage of intellect AND intuition.

From one side of the fence we understand that Cranick didn’t pay the $75 and here only Cranick would know why.  For some, this is sufficient enough reason to stop their thought processes, hang up their proverbial  thinking caps and move on with their morning coffee with a justified sense of self-righteousness.  Consider this though–once upon a time in the New Testament (and no, I don’t follow any specified religion or any book of any specified religion, this is just a good point of reference) Jesus said, “Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone.”  I’ll state this clearly for the record:  If after that statement someone picked up a rock, that rock-wielding fucker was a liar.  There is not one of us over the age of 5 that has not done something we shouldn’t have.  Not one.  It is an inherent part of the human condition.  We’ve all taken risks without full consideration of the consequences and if you think you haven’t you need to put down your rock and seek some counseling for your severe narcissistic complex.  The sad part is we often stop when considering the consequences to ourselves, but don’t push onward to the potential cost of others.  Sure, riding your 10-speed one handed through a busy intersection is thrilling, and after all you’re young and will live forever.  But what of the driver that swerved to avoid hitting your dumb ass?  When he slams into the car coming the other way what becomes of his day, week or year.  Physical injuries aside, his insurance rates go up, his livelihood is in jeopardy while the old car is in the shop … and dear God, what if he doesn’t have the money to compensate for repairs that have to be paid upfront before insurance cuts him a check?  Doesn’t really matter though, because what a rush it was to breeze through that congested traffic.  This is but one tiny near-insignificant example and we could fill volumes with other, more severe evidence that we fall short on our thinking at times, that we do, without regard to the consequences step outside what we know is right or wrong.

People who don’t follow the rules get what they deserve:  Fair enough, I suppose, until it’s you or someone you love.  Suppose for an instant your brother or sister or cousin or son or daughter decided to take dip in the pond.  You know the pond that has the large, bullet-ridden sign clearly stating in bold black letters: NO SWIMMING.  Suppose they got into trouble, you know a pulled muscle or a sizable leg cramp.  Suppose someone saw them drowning and call 911.  But further suppose that when the EMTs and Police showed up they all stood around the shore and watched.  Later, when they fished the body out you’d be devastated of course, filled with helpless rage and unforgettable loss.  Understandably so.  But when the news story broke and people began leaving their comments there would be someone out there who would say something like this:  “Well the sign DID say NO SWIMMING!  I’d say they got what they deserved.”  And you of course would want to introduce his face to some jagged glass and rubbing alcohol due to his arrogant display of inhumanity.  And that’s the rub my human brethren.  We want to believe that we are of higher station than the animals around us but so often we behave more like strategically shaved chimpanzees never taking a breather from our feces-throwing activities long enough to consider the circumstances of our brothers and sisters.

In short, we’re all here because while we were doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing, doing something we know wasn’t smart or was just plain wrong that God, Fate or Lady Luck threw us a bone … or even because another person who occupied this planet with us decided to save us EVEN THOUGH we were doing something wrong.  So when Mr. Cranick threw himself upon the mercy of the Fire Chief and his associated companions he found no compassion or forgiveness.  For those that do push blame in the situation they go only as far as the city leaders (and personally I do believe that Tennessee mayor is a low-form of life and isn’t fit to lead a small carnival act into Hell) but I go further and lay blame on each and every man or woman there who had the ability to thwart the suffering of their fellow man.  Standing before the equipment that could stop the fire but never pulling your thumbs from your rectum is guilt absolute.  Just like each of us, you only exist because someone or some greater power saved your ass once (or likely multiple times before) and to repay such kindness with apathy and disregard is flying in the face of grace.  It’s making a testimonial to the Universe that YOU will never again require help–because in this writer’s, no, in this HUMAN’S viewpoint … you simple don’t deserve it.  Remember that the next time you throw yourself on the mercy of God, Fate or Lady Luck … or even … another person, as you seek forgiveness for the mistake you made but are left to burn instead.

My neighbor doesn’t seem to like me very much and as a result I don’t care much for him.  But were his home on fire I would do all in my power to help him in whatever way I could, even to the point of rushing in to pull his ass out of the flames.  But I’m just a human being.  What do I know?

From the back cover:

“A masterpiece of emotion, My Name Is Joe is a heartfelt tale of a middle-aged man who discovers he has an incurable cancer. Living a solitary life he is left to wonder about the choices he has made and what, if anything he can do to make a difference to a world he sees as devoid of empathy and human kindness. Through a single act of grace he begins to counter his own graceless existence and in the end might just find the redemption he so desperately seeks. Joe, an example of an average man in our average American culture simply wants to believe his life has been worthwhile–the same thought that lurks within all our hearts. My Name Is Joe is a declaration to all of us as members of the human race to share what’s best in us, what can’t be found outside the human heart. Compassion.”

Available by order from any brick and mortar store or find it here at Amazon!

Now also available on the Kindle–find it here at Amazon!

So much has come into my mind and so little has gone out that mighty river of imagination has all but grown stagnant and still.

I have discovered things both beautiful and catastrophic. I have read thousands of pages from every spectrum: Mailer (The Naked and the Dead), Vonnegut (Armageddon in Retrospect), James (The Turn of the Screw). Not everything was so heavy. There was a guilty pleasure: Moody (Hater) and even a little Chick Lit: Brown (All We Ever Wanted Was Everything).

I’ve watched dozens of movies, both commercial and independent (and of the latter, most notably was the Zeitgeist series). I’ve studied civilized structures, both monetary and shared resource. I’ve learned how our money structure works and I’ve discovered who really runs our planet, nations aside. I’ve even, finally, read our United States Constitution and all it’s subsequent amendments. Things are never what they seem. Imagine my surprise to discover that the original Constitution was created and signed WITHOUT any Bill of Rights. To my further surprise (and subsequent disappointment) I discovered that it wasn’t, in fact Thomas Jefferson who tarried on about the need for civil rights attached to our documents of freedom but rather the “Forgotten Father” George Mason. From right here in Virginia Mason wrote the Virginia Bill of Rights, which Jefferson later “borrowed” from heavily; actually word for word in some cases.

As our minds grow we absorb more of the evident truths of our history and of our possible futures. It’s inevitable. It’s also enough, at times, to make you want to drop upon your knees and scream out the futility of all pioneer desires. And if that isn’t a sign that one’s head is too full, I don’t know what is.

Why don’t I just turn on the spigot and release some of this pressure? Right now, I find that I can’t. My Name Is Joe is still deeply within it’s editing work and it’s exhausting. Only trickles of new experience get released, just a little at a time, and I can feel the dam walls weakening as they staunch the flow of what remains.

It’s a mantra of mine that the first draft is always written with the heart and the second with the head and in the future, I’ve taken steps to ensure that this overwhelming editing phase will be better parsed out to relief the pressures of the heart, so to speak. For now though, I press through, a section at a time, attempting to combine both head and heart into a draft of words that hold true to the original construct of this story, but that are beautiful and profound as well. This is NOT an easy endeavor and the time it takes to achieve is close to maddening. I lie awake at night, dreaming with my eyes open, of the time that I can once more sit down and pour forth the “new stuff”. The words aching for release. To let the rivers of imagination splash like rapids across the country of the heart.

I’ve been tempted of course, to take “some time”, as Holly put it, to let Joe go for a bit and get into something more creative. I can’t seem to do that. It will put “Joe” off for longer and upon each return I will be a different writer and a different man and that I’m afraid will create a Frankenstein’s Monster of a story. Much like my first novel “Juggler”, which is a testament to writing a single tale over too long a period of time.

That’s the philosophical or high art reason for not putting aside this novella for a bit. A more truthful reason is likely that I’m incapable of working on a new thing until the old has been completed. I’m too fucking linear. (And too compulsive to attempt to think otherwise.)

So for now, I’ll keep pushing ahead. Perhaps writing with the heart (the first draft) is more akin to making love, to making the baby. This makes sense to me, as writing with the head (the second draft) is often painful and hobbling and likely more like the true labor, the true birth.

In the end, I hope to hold the baby child in my hands and smile down upon it with love and pride–just as many of my friends these days are doing the same with their new babies.

While mine will never (in all likeliness anyway) go off to college, I can still look at them upon my shelf and swell with pride as I recall their conceiving and subsequent painful deliveries.

For now, the bound heart must seek patience as I do what must be done. In the end, once more it will be free to pontificate love, philosophy, anger, lust, hope and redemption, all the wonders of a new life. Then, once more resign itself to irons as the head labors and rears the newborn. This is the cycle of life, both for humans and, it seems, for literature.

Fairy tales and cliche begin that way, and what are we if not a bittersweet combination of both?  We’ll go with the fairy tale for this one, as I’m afraid, simply by living we are consistently at the precipice of cliche.  Once upon a time there was a boy who loved scary stories.  Why he loved such tales is hard to decipher in perfect accord with reason, but there were clues.  Suppose for an instant it was the one thing he shared with a frightening matriarch; the one thing they could communicate without coming to cries or violence.  His home littered with paperbacks.  This time being the 70′s would usher a terrifying visage of little girls in communion dresses holding increasingly large butcher knives and expressing evil intent with doll-like smiles.  It seemed the boy could not escape these tiny monsters.  The television played Creature Double Feature on Saturday afternoons and there would be small moments of closeness as they all sat around staring at the fuzzy picture as rabbit ear antennae only brought you so close.  There was real honest-to-God horror in the boy’s childhood and fantasized horror seemed much more palatable.

The boy becomes a man, at least as far as age mandates, though his heart, for better or worse continues on childishly.  In these times the manchild writes out his thoughts, modeling himself after the Matriarch’s favorite, one Mr. Stephen King.  Oh how those books lined the mantel like some shrine to dark literature.  So glossy the covers, so difficult to follow and understand.  The first adult book that he ever read was Night Shift and though most of the stories got away from him, a few found their way to understanding and thus to memory.

So write he does, capturing what he believes to be some form of epic truth, because even there, in the darkness and the heartbeat counts between something bumping in the night, he is looking to communicate, seeking to draw in what he can never truly attain.  When this would-be writer comes to the threshold of talent, when his words can no longer be contained in the box in which they were born, he stumbles, falls and remains still.  In his heart are stories of much richer ideals.

He has cut his teeth on the wide array of dark fiction, so consuming is its design.  No well written dark tale goes off without drama, love and even comedic relief.  Atmosphere becomes tantamount to his tales, wrapping up the characters in a blanket so loved it’s like grandma’s afghan, and still he is not happy.

With heavy heart, he realizes (and he prays not too late) that he must step free of the box before he becomes locked inside forever.  His tales of zombies and vampires and twisted humanity are giving way to tales of compassion and empathy and the lost art of being human.  For the first time his reach is unlimited.  Those long repressed stories of fathers and sons, of love and redemption are swarming to surface, pulling at his attention like eager children pull at coat tails.  He realizes that these were the stories within the stories; the ones he coated in black paint and set free upon the world in the guise of short-pointed boogeymen and now he wants to give them breath.  He wants to see them dance and sing and live and love, because he can no longer hold them back.  And with each vision he lays upon the electronic page, his heart swells like that of the Grinch post-crime.  He learns about himself and so the cycle continues.

He looks back to the box from time to time, a haven of familiarity but knows, like any wayward son that he cannot go back, not entirely.  The contents of the box will stay with him forever and he will pull from it on occasion, when the desire warrants.  It’s a nice place to visit, he realizes, but that old saying is true–you can never go home.  Sometimes home is just not the right place for you.

So he sets about a new journey, staring at roads once too daunting to travel and deciding the world with its plentitude of paths is the next great awakening.  His old backpack, the one toting his worn old notebook computer will one day have stickers plastered across it like an well-traveled suitcase.  And someday, when he lowers his head for the last time, clutching the backpack close to him, still rich with the scents of a thousand other worlds, he’ll know he’s seen the bounty of life, that he’s lived it.  He’ll understand that home was never the box, but rather wherever he chose to go.

The first steps are taken and he is of course frightened, but also quite eager.  There will be voices of dissent, in his mind and in his ears but they are only voices.  His will and determination will carry him well beyond their echoes and into the light of new gods.

Adventure awaits.  And even though we are part fairy tale and part cliche, we are still something more.  Adventurers … each and every one.

Hours in the evening when Holly and I would flip the television on in the background and run our little 3D characters around a 3D world, in most cases separately but together have been replaced by intense conversations about writing and publishing and all that world might have to offer us. We pontificate for hours over what I had written that day. How she simply stares at me, sometimes brushing tears from her eyes and simply says, “Wow!” in a very quiet, very awed voice. And how high my spirit does soar! We talk until darkness fills the living room and we realize we’ve forgotten to eat dinner. Even while dinner is cooked (lately just those delicious and as luck would have it healthy Healthy Choice bowls) we can’t seem to shut up. It goes on and on until we regretably move our way to the bedroom to retire. Even there, watching the time tick away, guiltily knowing we should be seeking sleep, we chat quietly, as though the softness of the words will make up for the time we’ve stolen for what the real world demands. In the morning we wake groggily and promise to go to bed with a better conscience toward more sleep–though we’ll repeat the same pattern in all likeliness.

The past weekend, two days when we would usually awake and sit at the computer until exhaustion took us back to sleep were different. We talked of course, like fiends with newly found voices. At the end, when we finally tired of speech Holly curled up on one end of our ratty old sofa, me on the other and I read aloud to her Cormac McCarthy’s devastingly beautiful “The Road”. We finished that in three evenings and stayed up much too late watching the film version on-demand. I’m sure the film would have been relentlessly intense if we’d not just finished the book. As it was, the book being ever so much more powerful (leaving us weeping, each for our own reasons) drained the movie of its potential, which I reasoned, is how it should be.

We always had this gift of gab, my wife and I but over the years it traced the root of politics or the ever-changing (and neither of us feel for the better) world in which we live. Things that would make us angry or restless in our hearts. Sometimes we would endulge in shots of hard liquor in an effort to shrug away the disdain and fear that crept into our spirits during and after those talks. I can still hear, if I think back, the agitation in my raised voice; the despair. These days our talks bend toward hope of the future–something I think neither of us were brave enough to believe in. We read Pullitzer Prize winning books and she assures me that my latest work is just as good. I don’t believe her of course but I allow myself just a sliver of fantasy where I dream of what it would be like were her words a reality. We talk ceaslessly about a house on the Atlantic. Such vivid detail escapes our lips and hapless, youthful minds that we can practically taste the salt air in our otherwise air-conditioned and stagnant home. We dream like people half our ages. We talk like reality and push away impatience drawn of unrequited dreams. Someday soon, we tell ourselves. But for now the work. The work must be done.

The work IS being done. In two-week intervals, the work is being pressed out of that little notebooks’ keypad. We realized a little ways back that after two weeks I can barely string two sentences together. Frustration ensues, driving me backward to less than appealing habits–the road back to the last five years. “What if I’m a sprinter?” I asked. “What if I’ve never been much of a marathoner?” We decided then that after each two week session there would be a week of nothingness. A week of sleeping, reading, movies or just plain boredom. Serendiptity is born of boredom, we reasoned. All writers need a chance to be bored.

That first week off started with some restlessness. Then a strange settling where I began to watch episodes of “Californication” on-demand. What could be better than a series about a writer? I polished off the first season and then most of the way through another. Holly sat and watched some of the first with me but can only do shorter exposure. She sees too much of me in the character. She see too clearly how things can go sadly for the worse. It helped her, she said, to better understand the true nature of the man she lived with. Writers, she discovered, while powerful with their mouths and moving with their words (such authority!) are so much more delicate than she ever would have believed. Easily led astray and easily moved into a state of insecurity that offers nothing but the inability to claim words for our own. We are like, I suppose, some flower that blooms like something almighty but withers at the faintest touch of cold. She has taken to nurture this flower as her battle cry, her reason for standing up each morning. She promised me that weeks ago and has been more than true to her word. Her crusade has led her to more comfortable knowledge of the publishing industry than I ever knew. She reads the blogs of agents, editors and publishers. She communicates with up and coming authors, deriving from them what it’s really like to walk the road she is so certain I will soon pad my soles upon. She’s devouring books, reading them for style, tone and quality, using some inner comparability to ensure the words of compliment she so often bends my ears to is nothing but truth. “You’re still better,” she says to me without sign of sarcarsm or deceipt (because I’m looking hard for those and I’m not one easily gotten by). I stumble in my mind because I know she’s telling me the truth as she sees it. I can’t wrap my mind around her words though because I’m unable to imagine what she’s saying. My words to me are just that; MY words. They make no sense to me anywhere else. These are big names she’s talking about here. BIG names. Not just bestsellers but authors of literary fiction. The stuff that makes my blood run cold just to be compared to. Heroes I’ve held close to my heart because I think the men behind them to be sheer genuis. Untouchables. “You write with a warmth and humanity that so many of these others are missing. As brilliant as they may be, you’re better for that. Your words are just as good but your heart is somehow bigger. You understand life in a way that I’ve not seen done by other writers.” Sometimes, if I were capable of such an action, I fear I would swoon. She watches the battle of belief cross the country of my features and she ultimately loses; at least for now. It’s probably for the best I decide. If I were to believe her I might well become an insufferable bastard just as those literary heroes of mine are often believed to be.

Being kept from my writing desk for the whole week, I began to long for it in a fashion I’ve never before experienced. What had over the years become a chore, the pulling of mental teeth, had now become something I feared to live without. It could have been fancy but when I resumed my work the following week I wrote more words in that one day than ever before. Thousands upon thousands–all passable by my toughest critic. Myself. At the start of the second work week I began to ask Holly if she thought I might be able to push off the oncoming ‘Vacation Week’. I didnt want to stop working. I would miss those days that seemed to speed by without concern of the clock or bodily comforts. (I often had to remind myself to visit the bathroom or partake of lunch.) She said that would be fine of course, if I wanted. But with dawning reality we both knew that wouldn’t be true as by Wednesday the words seemed to dry up. The idea was still there, beating its drum loudly in my head, but where only 10 days prior I’d shelled out 6,000 words in only six hours, now I was beating out a mere thousand in just as much time. The next day, only 500. The well had run as crusted and dry as any spring in a drought. I relented. As much as I resented it, the Vacation Week must come.

The first few days were hard, my voice tinged with a regret I didn’t want to acknowledge and I looked toward my desk with a desire that made my teeth ache. That desk might as well be a shiny pole in skittering dance light and the notebook computer a voluptuous beauty dancing an enticement that would only lead to frustration once your dollar bills had run down. While the analogy crass, the truth of it was no less real. I desired my words as I would any formidable beauty. I longed for the touch of those keys as I would the cool exposed flesh of any woman desired but yet unattainable. My razor edge continued until my wife needed comforting as her body clock issued another monthly repose and through that I found my own sense of inner peace. We sat on the bed, mahogany tray filled with cheeses, breads, crackers, varieties of horse radish and poured glasses of chianti. In lieu of deep resonanting repartee we oohed and ahhed over the flavors, both separately and combined and watched pre-political episodes of Family Guy on DVD.

I awoke this morning, made a pot of dark, rich coffee and picked up the copy of “God Hates Us All”, the book supposedly written by the fictional author of “Californication”, Hank Moody. I read it one sitting. Something I never did with any book before. My vacation from writing has given way to a long-forgotten joy of reading. With that, came the idea that it might be alright, even acceptable to relax and perhaps put away my lust for writing for a few days. Of course there was some cheating, I’ll cop too that. There was the start of a new novel, written in pen in a composition notebook and of course this lengthy entry, but all in all, I’m finally starting to allow the words to stay in place, just long enough to suck up some that brain water they need to grow fat and weighty. And they’ll be ready in there for when I’m allowed to return on Monday morning and sink that bucket once again into the well.

I finally have a job I love and I’m brave enough to love it. My life has never before rung with such purpose and my heart, head and spirit have never felt so full. At the later age of 42, I think I’ve finally discovered how to live.

The greatest has been the understanding that I’ve positively impacted the lives of a couple of people that I hold dear unto my heart. That unlike most times, my words do not fall on deaf ears but rather, even if not instantly and held for later regard, kept for means of polarization; a guideline along the balance beam of decisions. Nothing spawns such great hope within me and my heart swells with compassion and regard.

The last Sunday evening, just before bed I picked up my hardcover copy of “Juggler” and really looked at it—the first such action in many years. I felt its weight and brushed the grimy dust from its cover with some form of near-parental gentleness. I flipped to the author photo and saw a youthful vision of myself (it’s hard to imagine 30 as youthful but the years are all subjective) staring upward at me from the sheath of longer, dyed-black hair. I recently learned that certain people I was close to then had attempted some rather insidious manipulations upon my well being, of which knowledge I would be unbothered by if it hadn’t been of such boundless cliché. Still, the picture shows none of that, only a reverberating optimism and in all likeliness, an unmovable naiveté.

I flipped the pages, fanned them before my eyes seeing blocks of black text swim by and in the past there was always the vague memory that I had somehow put them there. This night however there was no such obscurity. Instead there was a closeness to those words and the deed of writing them than I’d ever before experienced. As the saying goes (and what Massachusetts native does not know it?) ‘dawn breaks on Marblehead.’

“I wrote this,” I said quietly to myself. I liked the way it felt and so I said it again. And then again, until it slowly became a mantra.

Holly sat down beside me, minty fresh with Listerine, kissed my cheek and said, “Yes you did. Every word.”

I smiled and said, “I don’t care about my past anymore. It doesn’t bother me, any of the failings or the things that I had to live without. I don’t want to define myself by those days anymore.”

“Good,” she said, and kissed me.

After she had drifted off to sleep I kept hearing my own words in my head. Did I mean what I had said? Could it be possible to mean those things. It seemed to me some inner resolve had decided enough was enough and that it was time to move on. The last five years of inaction had finally reached some undeniable pinnacle that was beyond my own ability to justify. I went to sleep that night, unafraid of letting go and losing control for the first time I could recall.

The next morning, when I returned to my little Gateway laptop (ages old but perfect for the tasks required of it) I settled back into “My Name Is Joe” and found myself inspired and ready.

We had moved a small table from the dining room (where we never eat) into the living room, directly in front of a window. The table is only large enough to allow a couple of photos (one of Holly smiling back at me and the other a picture of the two of us, my favorite ever), my hardcover version of Norman Mailer’s “Tough Guys Don’t Dance” (for when inspiration escapes me) the above-mentioned laptop and a glass of water.

The table is like that found in an English pub and the chair which accompanied it tall so that I sit with a clear view of the front yard. “Less is more,” I said to Holly as I set up the now-writing desk and hoped I meant it.

On that Monday morning I sat down, after walking one of our three pups around the development behind our house, just to get some of that fidgety morning energy out of my system, and did not move other than to grab a quick lunch and tend to nature until a few moments before Holly returned home from work.

I became aware then, as the sun slipped behind the trees that I’d written more in one day than on any other day in my life. Even more amazing was that it was with reluctance that I slipped my butt of that hard, wooden chair (lines from the edge of the seat so settled into the flesh of my thighs as to resemble raised scar tissue) and closed the laptop. If not for the knowledge that Holly would soon be home (and the resulting cacophony of three canines eager to greet their mother) and that my brain had begun to resemble some thoroughly wrung sponge I might have tried to stay where I was … just a little longer.

Each day since has been a marvel at self-discovery and growth of story, though as with anyone’s day some were more difficult to manage than others. Still, with one exception (and one I do not regret as it involved a deep and consuming conversation with someone I consider dear and that left us both with newfound respect for our own lives) I sat throughout this week, ever close to my new friend “Joe” and in turn never far from myself.

At today’s morning meeting (something we do on my writing days for inspiration, planning and revelation) Holly and I decided that we want this novella to have a wide audience; that there’s something about the story that requires witness. As there’s few paper publishing options for a novella out there—and why not, the cost of the book would far outweigh the page count—we’ve decided to go with e-book publication (if details and price consideration warrant) options as distribution through this site would be ineffectual given its wild unpopularity. As the details are still in the research phase we don’t have much in the way of real honest-to-God fact, but I can share our ideas. One option we’re likely to pursue is with Amazon for distribution through its Kindle e-reader. The second would be through Barnes & Noble’s e-book service which distributes through a variety of formats including Windows PC, Mac, iPhone/iPod-Touch, BlackBerry and of course their own e-reader, the Nook.

While I would still retain the publication rights by using these methods it is entirely likely that the novella will not be published here on Darkwriter as freely distributed. As this looks like I’m going back on my word from the previous entry on this topic I’ll explain, simply, my reasons for this decision. Neither of these services publishes for free, which means a price would need to be charged for the book. As a result, it would be entirely unfair to those who purchase the thing to later find out it is also given freely on the Web. I wouldn’t want such a thing done to me, so I’ll not do it to someone else.

In the end we’re hoping that these two major e-publishing outlets will give the story a greater audience of appreciation, something we both feel the story deserves.

More details will be forthcoming.

Here’s to health,
Here’s to wealth,
May you never doubt yourself!

If it seems the blog entries have been non-existent lately you’d be nearly correct. I assure you, I’ve been writing them, though sadly they’ve fallen into one of two categories. The first is what I call ‘Meandering WTF’ writing, which is where I think I initially have a point, but as the writing rolls onward, I find myself swerving all over the place like some drunkard in a go-kart. I don’t like it when the words get away from me like that and as a result, I almost always end up scrapping the whole thing. This was a fairly consistent problem during the middle weeks of June, right about the time when the post entries dried up. It was also, at times, affecting my work on “Joe” and on more than one occasion I found myself stripping entire pages from the story to get myself back on point. It’s discouraging when shit like that happens because it’s not as though I didn’t sit and do the work (some near 10,000 or more words were lost this way) and the work itself wasn’t really too bad either—it simply didn’t fit. It’s a little like driving past your exit and realizing there isn’t another one for 30 miles.

The second category is the ‘Too Personal to Publish’ file. After a much needed little break last week I came back much refreshed. Work on “Joe” resumed powerfully (more on that later) but each attempt to write a blog shined a spotlight in some dark crevices that required some forethought before simply putting up there for the whole world to see. As a writer it’s nothing new to be laid bare because even when we’re writing fiction we’re still autobiographical. The best lies being made up of 80% truth and all that. But it’s another thing entirely to expose others and that’s where I would up choosing to keep them to myself. Most of the individuals mentioned don’t deserve protection, such as it is, but it not my job to openly expose them either; their own lives should be the result of how they’ve lived and that’s enough for anyone to see.

So there you have it … a virtual cornucopia of words you’re not going to get to see. Trust me though, you’re not missing much as I’m sure they meant more to me than any of you.

There’s plenty of things I both experienced and realized during the previous week and could probably have entitled this “What I Did On My Summer Vacation” and created a ludicrously indulgent entry, but that comes to close to the whole meandering thing, so I’ll keep this one on track and brief.

As for “My Name Is Joe”, I’m still punching away at the keys, knocking out about 1,500 to 2,500 words a day which is fairly amusing considering the original version of the tale was only about 3,300 all tolled. I haven’t gotten wordy nor do I feel any need to “puff up” the prose. This is a simple case of falling in love with the story. As I began the second draft Joe’s story just seemed to get more involved and what started as a cute (dare I say trite) little tear-jerker has grown into something much more significant and also much more personal for me. Each time I approach where the story should be ending another, deeper ending presents itself and like any good parent I have to give my child enough room to grow. My job is to keep it within the scope of reality and within the confines of the story itself. Other than that, I’m proud of the life it’s taking on and will do nothing to harm its growth.

As of today’s writing, “My Name Is Joe” has crossed over into the novella category which means I’m expecting another 10,000 (if not more) words to bubble to the surface before I can slap a “The End” on it. And, as a novella is more significant than a short story (at least in publishing circles) Holly is currently looking around to see if she can place it anywhere. While that’s great for me professionally, it could also mean that the story might not get published via my website as all my short stories have. It would be up to the allowances of potential publishers. Be certain that if there is any way to offer it to you as I do most of my other smaller pieces, I will.

That’s all I’ve got for now and in the immortal words of Bill & Ted, be excellent to each other.