Things To Do While Still In High School #1 – Own the Angst

Posted on

While everyone else was out drinking, getting high, or, you know, going on dates with actual girls, I was doing this, with apologies in advance to any Depeche Mode fans:

Can you feel the angst? It drips from the ceiling. The story behind this video is not the point (it’s a good story, maybe for later). The point is, you should do this.

I don’t necessarily mean making an angst-ridden video, although I know that happens a lot on YouTube and elsewhere. (Here, I was going to post an example YouTube video, but I got too depressed reading the comments people were leaving. The shit people feel free to say online drives me insane, hence my novel RANDOM, which is inspired by real events and by events you probably have experienced yourself, statistically speaking.)

The reality is adolescent brains are cooking on overtime. You probably know that much. That’s not an excuse to do stupid or dangerous things. Don’t drink and drive, for example. Don’t get pregnant or get anyone pregnant (just trust me on that one, okay? You’ll be glad later if you dodge that).

But while I’m a huge proponent of #stayhere and not doing things your body or mind can’t recover from, I also believe you should be yourself, and experience everything there is to experience right now. Angst is good.  It can be harmful, but it can also be a lot of fun. It’s like, on the one hand, people are always telling you to grow up, and that’s fair; this is your origin story. The decisions you make today will reverb down through the rest of your life. They will. I promise, they will. Good and bad ones, they’ll stick with you. So make good ones.

But on the other hand, don’t grow up too fast, either. See, the other side of this “grow up” mentality that most so-called grown-ups won’t tell you is that this is when you should fail. You should reach for the sky and get knocked down. It’s so much better to do that now than in your twenties, and better in your twenties than your thirties, and so on. (We’ll talk about your twenties some other time. That’s a whole other mess.)

I’m not saying to be irresponsible. On the contrary, you should be exceptionally responsible, because that’ll pay off later. But go up and ask that guy that out! Ask that girl out! Go on adventures. Stay up till the sun rises once in a while. Confide your secrets. Give your heart to someone, and then survive when he or she tosses it casually into a woodchipper. Which he or she will inevitably do.

And when everything goes wrong, make an angsty music video.

Then go dance, sing, lip-synch, whatever. This is your time. Own it. Yes, be careful…but own it all the same. Life will settle down soon enough. Sooner than you can imagine. Don’t rush for it.

Maybe I’m telling you stuff you already know, in which case—good! I’m glad you’re out there kicking metaphorical ass and having a great time.

But if you didn’t know this, if you didn’t realize that this was your time to both shine and suffer, then I encourage you to try both. I’m not advising you this because I regret not doing it myself—I’m advising you this way because I did. We lived up every second of high school, good and bad, diving deep into whatever the moment brought. I got hurt. I hurt others. I regret the second one, but not the first.

I don’t write YA because I didn’t have a great time; I write YA because I did. And I want you to. All of you. All of us.

Anyway. Sermon over. Have a great weekend, huh?

And, P.S. Just in case any friends want to leave snarky comments, remember – I have your videos too. Don’t push me, man. Don’t push me.

 Take care, stay here, say words.

~ Tom

 

Transitional Period

Posted on

I’d love to sit here and tell you that Laurie Halse Anderson is a good friend of mine. But that would be disingenuous of me. That’s nothing against her, by the way; ohmygod, if you’re a fan like I am, let me just tell you right now she is exactly as cool and awesome in person as you’d think. But do we hang out regularly at those secret writers’ retreats sipping coffee and discoursing on character development? No. A very sad, sad no. 

laurie halse w fam2

Laurie Halse Anderson – a kick-ass human being.

BUT, having said that, she did give me something when we met a couple years ago that has been a huge help, and that is The Five Year Plan. 

This is–my words, now–basically a way to write down your goals for the next five years, and you update it every year. Everyone’s will be different; mine is mostly focused on my publishing goals, such as “Sell one YA contemporary novel” and/or “Sell one middle-grade adventure.” Things like that. I, personally, also keep track of speaking engagements and whether or not I got paid for them.

Let me tell you … this thing works. The first year I did it, I hit every single one of my goals. I think it’s just because there they were, waiting to be checked off. (I’m a hard-core checker-offer.) I set out to get ten paid speaking engagements; I ended up with twelve. I wanted to sell my next YA novel; did that, too. And so on.

It’s now October 2014, and I’m updating my 5 Year Plan for 2015, looking back at 2014, and I gotta say…eesh! Things did not go according to plan. I mean, big-time.

Okay. That’s what the 5 Year Plan is for, at least the way I use it. I was able to track exactly where I went off the rails, and where exactly I want to go in 2015.

 

So what’s on your 5 Year Plan? The keyword there is your. Look out a bit, what do you see? Who do you want to be next year, or in five? Write it down, brothers and sisters. Write it down. You can do anything.

No, you really can.

Take care, and say words.

Random Pulp Fiction quote of the day that’s running through my head: “Normally, both your asses would be dead as f***ing fried chicken, but you happen to pull this shit while I’m in a transitional period so I don’t wanna kill you, I wanna help you.” ~ Jules 

 

 

Best Of Phoenix, and the Transformers Soundtrack

Posted on

This is partly another Behind The Music post. So this is #3 right? Maybe it’s #4. I dunno. Anyway.

This, as they say, happened today:

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/bestof/2014/award/best-ya-author-4455444/

The New Times Best of Phoenix issue is sort of a state treasure. Not one person in New York publishing could care less that New Times gave me this honor (most likely, and that’s okay, I don’t read their fancyass publications either), but around my home town, this is the shit. I don’t think it means free drinks at British Open Pub or anything, but it means . . . it means you earned it. That’s the thing about New Times. This is the same publication that began a review for one of my shows with “Get the hook!” If and when the New Times says you’re legit, you earned it. They don’t pass this stuff around easily. They don’t screw around with this issue. I stopped caring what Kirkus and Horn Book had to say about me about four years ago; and in a sense, they will never matter now, because New Times vetted me. Coupled with the Best New Local Author 2012 from Phoenix magazine, I gotta say, I love my hometown critics! And, as happens so often, this nod came at a great time, neatly erasing – or at least shoving aside for the moment – lingering and ongoing doubts about my usefulness as a, you know, human. <wink!>

But seriously, New Times . . . this makes my year.

+++

270px-TFTM_Soundtrack

So Toby discovered my Transformers: The Movie soundtrack this morning. Nah nah nah, hold on, we’re talking the real movie starring Judd Nelson and Orson Welles. (Let that sink in for a minute. Orson Welles and Bender were in a movie together. This is a great card to play during any Six Degrees game.) This is the album with the bad-ass metal version of the Transformers theme song.

The thing that struck me this morning driving Tobes to preschool was this: I still know most of the words to most of the songs. And most of the lyrics are full of these standard 1980’s power anthems (not unlike “You’re the BEST/Arooooound!/Nothin’s gonna ever KEEP you DOWN!” from The Karate Kid.)

I mean, check this out:

You never bend, you never break
You seem to know just what it takes
You’re a fighter

It’s in the blood, it’s in the will
It’s in the mighty hands of steel
When you’re standin’ your ground (The Touch, Stan Bush)

Dude! That is some fist-pumping, Decepticon-ass-kicking shit right there! Or this, from Spectre General (aka Kickaxe) from a cover by John Farnham)

We won’t be denied
We know that time is on our side
We’ve got the passion and the pride
We won’t be denied

This generations
With fire in our eyes
Strong are the ties that bind us
We don’t need no alibis

Nothing’s gonna stand in our way

This is the stuff I was listening too when I was 10, 11, 12 years old. Over and over. As we drove this morning, I couldn’t help wondering…did lyrics like this actually get into my head, and into my soul? I know, I know; I’m a bona fide nerd, but even this crosses the line, right?

Still. I happen to be someone who is, shall we say, ambitious; not for money or power or prestige, but rather just for getting things done in my life that I want to get done. There are very few things I’ve wanted and not gotten, eventually. Again – not talking about an expensive new car or huge house on the mountain. I’m talking about things like, say, “I want to direct this play.” Done. “I want to publish the novel.” Done.  “I want to play out with a band.” Done. “I want to make this movie.” Done. (The movie, Endgame, aired exactly once on a Phoenix public access channel.  The band played one gig to a house of about 15 people. See what I mean? It wasn’t about prestige, it was about doing the thing you set out to do. Just, you know…’cause!)

Maybe those cheesy, cornball lyrics from the 80’s actually did make an impression. Maybe it’s why people still listen to that music in the gym. 

So yeah, my kid will be a geek like me – if I do my job right. If those sappy lyrics and hard-drivin’ synths are just one more tool in his arsenal to deal with whatever life throws at him, with whatever he wants to make of it, then I’ll take it.

Nothin’s gonna stand in your way, Tobes. 

 

That Thing You Do

Posted on

Just in case you didn’t hear me the first time, let me reiterate and post it for all the world to see:

That thing you do? That thing that actually gets you excited to wake up on certain mornings? That thing that makes you lose track of time in the best possible way?

You get to do it. You deserve to do it. Provided it’s not a three-state killing spree or some similar hobby that breaks the laws of man and gods…you get to do it.

Particularly if you live in the U.S., or any other industrialized nation. Obviously there are people struggling — trust me, I know — but the vast majority of us have roofs, food, and clothing. If basic survival is not a daily issue for you (and if you really take stock, it really probably isn’t), then you have time to do that Thing You Do.

Do not listen to anyone who tells you it’s stupid. Or you can’t. Or you suck. Do it anyway.

The trick is to work with the people in your life to whom you are “beholden.” A spouse and/or kids, for example. Your Thing may not get to come first on the week’s agenda. That’s okay. But work with those people and carve out that time. That Thing You Do makes you who you are, and you’re no good to those other people if you’re not the best You that you can be. (Someone told me that once. It helped a lot.)

Writing poetry, writing fiction, playing guitar, kicking the ball around, gardening, walking the dog, meditation, martial arts, knitting, cooking…anything that makes you the best person you can be, you deserve to do it. All people do…we just happen to live in a nation where it’s largely possible, and the only things really keeping us back are our own fears or resistance to talking to our loved one about it.

It might be an hour a week, it might be an hour a month. But you deserve it. (So do those other people!) Talk to them, keep talking to them, work something out.

You’re only going around once. Do Your Thing. When you do, it makes the world a better place.

I for one could use the world to be a better place. How about you?

 

#stayhere

Posted on

So I’m 40 today.

No, seriously. It’s true. Damn!

I was burning this old videotape to my hard drive yesterday, a video from when I was 21 or so. Know what? I look better now.

There was lot I wanted to say today, but I’ll keep it short instead:

I’m here.

This video was—and I am not kidding—a video journal, in which I was bemoaning the loss of a girlfriend. Did you know that I will never love anyone ever again? Fact! And that I will never get over what she did to me? Fact!

Yeah…except for the part where those things aren’t true.

Trust me, I am the last guy to dismiss a young person’s trauma, drama, and emotional pain. Have you read my novels? That would be pretty inconsiderate of me, to say the least. Problems and pain and angst . . . these are real at the time. Watching that video, you could see the stress and strain. You or someone you know is going through difficulty right now. Right this very moment.

Life is simply never, ever, ever going to get better.

Or so it seems. Yet somehow, it can. It does. I know it’s hard to wait a week, or a month, or a year . . . or almost twenty . . . but if I’d given up then as I very much wanted to do, if I hadn’t ended up asking for the help I obviously needed, there’s no Party. There’s no Random.

 Worst of all, there’s no Toby. C’mon, look at that! DSC_0053

I’ve done a lot of things the past twenty years: Marriage and a son, awards and talks, travel and adventures, meeting new people and making new friends. 

 …Walking the earth like Caine in Kung Fu. (Well, maybe not that part yet.)

 If I’d done to myself what I felt like doing back then, none of that happens. None of it. It’s one thing to want the pain to stop; I get that. Trust me, I do. It’s another thing to end any opportunity to see what happens later.

 I’m thrilled to be here. I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I’m glad I stayed.

 You should, too.

 #stayhere.

 Take care,

~ Tom

“Thanks for watching!”

Posted on

 

My heroes.

My heroes.

“DID YOU KNOW…?!” ~ The Wizard

 State Fair, early nineties. The Gin Blossoms – local boys make good! – are riding a wave of popularity rivaling the entire grunge movement of the day.  But it’s hot. Phoenix hot. And half a dozen friends and I are crammed into this indoor venue with thousands of other hot and cranky young adults. Tempers are flaring. Yeah yeah, we’re here for the band, shut up. Things are getting tense. Where the hell are the Blossoms, anyway? God but it’s hot in here.

Then this music starts. Only it’s not the Blossoms. What the hell, man? This is like…like some kind of jangly pop thing they’re piping in over the sound system, a happy dirge, if there be such a thing. Is that . . . is that a flute? What is going on here?

Then it dawns on us all. We know this song. We can sing this song. Simplest, best chorus ever:

Ho ho, ha ha, hee hee, ha ha.

Everyone’s looking around at everyone else. If this is some kind of joke, it’s in bad taste. The Gin Blossoms are from Tempe, man, they should know better than to play the theme song to the TV show every single last damn one of us grew up with. This is tacky. Tacky.

Until . . .

No way.

No way!

Down on the stage, the first thing we see is the tall gray top hat. Before we even see his face, we know who this is.

Ladmo.

“Hi, everybody!” our hero cries, and man . . . we lose it. We cheer ourselves hoarse, the roof damn near collapses. It’s Ladmo.

Then comes the greatest sentence ever spoken on God’s green earth, as far as we are concerned:

“I have a seating chart!”

I’ve seen Pink Floyd live, from the sixth row. I’ve seen Social D more times than I can remember, and loved every second of every show. I even saw them on a double bill with the Ramones once. But Ladmo’s got a seating chart, and me and thousands of other guys and girls just like me are completely and utterly losing our shit. A seating chart can only mean one thing:

Someone’s getting a Ladmo Bag.

Ladmo Bags are paper sacks filled with Twinkies, candy, coupons for Slurpees . . . everything a growing boy needs. I never got one myself – one of my great life disappointments – but not long from this night, I won’t mind so much, because history is being made right in front of me.

It’s the last public appearance Ladmo will ever make. He passed away not long after. And it hurt. It hurt hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of us here in Arizona.

This was some twenty years ago. It was just a few month ago that I got one of The Wallace & Ladmo Show triumvirate’s autographs on an 8 x 10 black and white: Pat McMahon. It was years ago that I got to meet Wallace, the other third of this uniquely Arizonan trinity. Arizona makes headlines a lot on The Daily Show, and with good reason, but we got one thing absolutely, perfectly right: We got The Wallace & Ladmo Show.

This children’s show lasted some thirty-five years in the Valley of the Sun, and made television history along the way. My feeling has always been that if there’s a Heaven, Ladmo will be easy to find in it because that’s where all the world’s children are going to flock. And if he’s not there, then I don’t want to go anyway.

Now the show can start up again in whatever Heaven there may be. I just found out we lost Wallace. I can’t – yeah, I can’t write this without goddam bawling because these three guys – Wallboy, Ladmo, and Pat a.k.a. Gerald and a dozen other characters – they raised me. They raised a lot of us. A lot. If I want to come up with happy memories of my dad, they start with Wallace & Ladmo.

When I met Pat McMahon a few months ago, I got to tell him (and I hope he heard me) that I get to talk to young people now as part of my job, and I hope I can do at least half as good a job as he and Wallace and Ladmo did during all those years. I hope I can love those students as much as the three of them all loved all of us; kids, adults, black white and brown, smart and not so smart, rich and not so rich. Wallace and Ladmo leveled the field in a singular way, a way I’m afraid will never be seen again in my or anyone’s lifetime.

But I’m sure going to try. It’s the least I can do. It’s the only way I can really say thanks.

Thank you, Wallace.

Thank you, Ladmo.

We sure could use you around here. Now more than ever.

 

Thanks for tuning in.

 

(If you’re not a native, please take a look at this article from the Arizona Republic, which does a better job with the history than I’m doing here. To give you an idea of how big a deal this guys are, their parody band Hub Kapp & The Wheels outsold the Beatles…only in Phoenix. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/07/23/wallace-ladmo-bill-thompson-dies/13016035/)

Legends of Candlestick

Posted on
She rocks my world.

She rocks my world.

guest post by Joy Leveen

My dad has Alzheimer’s.

These days, it’s good if he remembers my name. He’ll be 70 in September and we’ve been living with this awful disease for nearly six years. A trip to see his favorite football player of all time—Joe Montana—is not in the cards for him.

I have been a devoted 49ers fan since I was born. I can plot my life along the Niners timeline.  There is a picture of me wearing a 49ers helmet and red footie  pajamas when I was 4 years old.  The Niners won their first Super Bowl the year I was born, and won their third the year my sister was born.  She arrived the day after that Super Bowl; I honestly don’t know what my dad would have done if Mom went into labor during that Super Bowl. Alecia has been called “Josephine” for years in honor of her almost-birthday. Each Christmas, my father, a pastor for his entire career,would tell us the Christmas story . . . with baby Joe Montana being born and wrapped in red and gold cloths by Bill Walsh. It was a strange, great blend of Christian and 49er subculture.

Now, I am going to watch Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, and other amazing 49er players play flag football in Candlestick Park!  It is their way of saying good-bye to the iconic stadium.  For me, it is a dream come true, a bucket list experience—and a way to honor my dad.

When I heard that Joe, Jerry, Dwight, and the gang were getting back together for one last game at Candlestick, my first thought was “Dad would love that!” Only he doesn’t travel much anymore, and he certainly couldn’t handle the crowds of a major sporting event. 

Living with an Alzheimer’s patient is hard. The understatement of the century. There is no break from it, no day off, no way to return to our “normal family” for a bit. The disease is so insidious because it steals my dad slowly. One day he can remember names; another day, I am my sister, my mom, and myself from moment to moment.  I couldn’t say when he stopped being able to dress himself without assistance; the days and losses blend together. But Dad can play on the floor with my three-year-old for hours—two boys for whom time does not matter. 

Watching 49ers games is hard now. Weird, right?  I get breathless, anxious, and filled with adrenaline. It’s hard to watch with anybody else. Super Bowl 2012 against the Ravens started out well. I was laughing and joking, and teasing a friend who is as devoted to the Steelers as I am to the Niners.  If we won this game, we would have won as many Bowls as the Steelers. Then the Ravens pulled ahead and stayed ahead. The joking wasn’t funny any more. The good natured ribbing stung. I had to go home before the game was over. As the seconds ticked away, I sat on our couch with my husband’s arms around me, tears rolling down my checks. A Super Bowl lost.  Inconceivable.

I knew it was the last Niner’s Super Bowl my dad would be able to enjoy.

I don’t cry much about my dad’s disease. There isn’t an event to mourn.  The diagnosis day?  I was too worried about my dad and helping my mom manage Dad’s reaction.  The losses now are so basic, so elemental; what is there to elicit emotion?  I can’t break down in front of Dad, as there is no way to explain it to him. But a game lost, a championship record broken?  That I can cry about. Watching the Niners allows me to mourn the father I knew, the relationship I treasured. The loss of my Dad is so oppressive that I can only take it in pieces. 16 pieces, usually; 20 pieces on a good year.

I get to go to Candlestick to enjoy the spectacle of legendary players playing a great game. To say I saw Joe play in Candlestick. Maybe even score a touchdown.  To say good-bye to a great stadium. And to say good-bye to Dad.  

YA Villainy!

Posted on

Guy Montag: villain and hero.
Tom Leveen: …uh, depends who you ask.

 

Are fictional characters held to a different standard than real life people?

I’m working on this YA contemporary novel, the longest I’ve ever written as a first draft. And there’s a character who, should I be so fortunate to publish the novel, will doubtless be decried as a villain. Rightfully so; the character does some pretty awful things by anyone’s standard.

But it got me thinking.

I try hard not to judge my characters. I try hard to give them concrete, sympathetic motivations for even their most grievous sins. Most readers and reviewers … (who am I kidding, I’ll just call them reviewers)…realize this. They might rail against the characters’ choices, to which I say, huzzah! Tear ’em apart. Reviewers are perfectly free to judge my characters. They are also free to judge my writing.

It’s when they judge me as a human being – based on my fiction – that I get a little, shall we say, nettled.

But I digress!

Remember that bad guys rarely think they’re doing bad things. If I told you a certain man was loyal, peace-seeking, and perhaps even ambitious, you might assume he’s a Good Guy. Ambition can be a little tricky, but properly managed, can certainly be a boon.

Except I just described Darth Vader. BOOM! Lightsaber-drop!

I mean, really — in parts 4, 5, and 6 (the ones that matter. Snap!) we have something of a tragic figure in Vader. The point, though, is he’s not out trying to rule the galaxy for the hell of it. He believes in his cause. He is utterly loyal (to a fault) to his mentor, the Emperor. He tells Luke they can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy, and I think he really wants that. That is seeking peace. How he goes about these goals, of course, becomes the issue.

So here I am with this teenage protagonist who commits horrific crimes. Is he a Bad Guy? Is he redeemable? Should readers and reviewers judge him, and if so, by what measure?

Are fictional characters held to a different standard than real life people? Should they be?

Some reviewers have criticized Anthony, or Morrigan, or Beckett’s mother in Party. Some have torn the literary flesh from Chad and Brian in Sick. Some have dismissed Tyler in manicpixiedreamgirl.  And . . . some of these reviews have been spot-on. Can’t lie about that. I’ve learned a lot from them. Others . . . well, others have frankly been pretty senseless, and a very few have attacked me, personally. But that’s a blog (or pending libel lawsuit) for another time. I’ll get more of these come August when Random is released, I’m sure; but I hope what happens more often is conversation.

I write these characters for a reason, and it’s never to be an asshole. It is to make investigations into who we all are as people, and it is to start conversations. I write edgy YA fiction, yo.  It’s been broughten! I wouldn’t be doing my job if everyone was sweetness and light on every page.

I wouldn’t be being honest.

But most readers understand that. The point here is that fictional bad guys (and, often, good guys) are prone to the same errors in judgement, petty squabbles, and rash decisions we all are. No one is all good or all bad in reality, and neither in fiction. Let your good guys have flaws, and let your bad guys have admirable qualities. I think this is the beginning of what is hoped to be “multi-dimensional characters.”

It’s not your job as the author to beg forgiveness for the actions of your villains — in-book, or in real life. Let them do their thing, and let the good guys do theirs, and most importantly, make sure they collide in the middle.

Cool? Cool.

Behind the Music, ep. 3

Posted on

 Aye aye oh! Shake your foundations.

Aye aye oh! Shake your foundations.Sometime in fifth, or as late (!) as sixth grade, I started reading Stephen King. Night Shift and Skeleton Crew, his early collections of short stories, were and remain my favorites. (Although you must read The Long Walk by his Richard Bachman alias if you haven’t. One of my top five books of all time.)

In 1986, King’s directorial debut Maximum Overdrive came roaring into theaters, which means I must’ve seen it in ’87 on VHS or HBO. It’s a fun film–not to say “good”–based on King’s short story “Trucks,” starring a very smarmy Emilio Esteves, although to say the movie “starred” anyone is a stretch. The opening sequence includes a mechanical drawbridge that raises on its own!!! and makes cars crash all over the place. Later, kids are slain by rapidly ejecting soda cans!!!

But the soundtrack that played over it all . . . merciful Zeus. I had found AC/DC.

Which, I was promptly informed by my Missouri-Synod Lutheran school classmates, was an acronym for

AFTER CHRIST/DEVIL COMES!!!

I am not making that up.  True story. I still remember the kid’s name who first told me. And he was certain of this.

I tracked down the soundtrack to Maximum Overdrive; officially, AC/DC’s Who Made Who album, which only contained three new songs: the title song and two instrumentals, with the rest being a sort of “best of.”  I started scooping up AC/DC tapes

(New tape smell! Someone bring that back!)

as quickly as I could afford them. My favorite, still ranking as a top-five desert-island pick, was Fly On the Wall. Every song hit just the right note for adolescent me, with great riffs and colossal middle fingers raising to lyrics like:

Born in trouble they gave up on me/Teacher preachin’ what not to be/Call me dirty trash my name/Just tell the boys that I’m gonna be/Back in business again!

You could find this poetry scrawled on one of the yellow tab divider sheets in my Trapper Keeper in eighth grade. When I drafted a couple friends to make my first horror movie at the ripe old age of 13, I knew which music I’d be using for my soundtrack.

+++

I wrote the notes to what turned into my first movie  in sixth grade. I was home alone, and a few odd things happened, like rain with no visible clouds, the lights flickering, and the cats acting . . . okay, like cats, so maybe that wasn’t exactly noteworthy. These eerie events!!! formed the basis of what became my first feature film, The Moon Daemon.

+++

There are a number of things I could complain about when it comes to my K-through-8 school. Hell, there might even be a faint whiff of lawsuit if I closed my eyes and concentrated. But there are two specific things they did great, for which I am seriously grateful.

One: They let me write a novella, Derro the Warrior, which I later took to a Young Authors Conference at Arizona State University. That book stood in for a yearbook (I have zero yearbooks from the school), and was signed by everyone I liked, or everyone who tolerated me.

Two: They let me shoot a movie and edit it with their equipment. A horror movie. With a sound track by AC/DC. That included “Hells Bells.”

In retrospect, part of the allowance the staff must have made was the film didn’t star my best friends, two or three other ne’er do wells like myself. Rather, the film starred me, the pastor’s kid, and the board of elders’ kid.

It’s always about who you know.

But who cares? They let me make the thing and screen it during class time!

Furthermore, for all the things I could tell you about when it comes to my parents, and there’s plenty to go around, I have to give my dad credit: the guy put on a truly ridiculous costume and played the Big Bad for me in the movie. I mean…that’s love. Ain’t it?

He has a three-pronged garden tool for his right hand. BOO!

He has a three-pronged garden tool for his right hand. BOO!

 

Now, this footage has not been seen by anyone — except maybe Joy — since 1988, when I showed it to my then-girlfriend and her family so they could appreciate the true genius that was my film. Inexplicably, instead of recoiling in horror, they laughed. A lot. And oddly, they insisted on referring to the film not by its blockbuster title The Moon Daemon, but rather as the diminutive Bucket-head.

Well, okay, maybe it’s because he had a bucket for a head. That makes sense.

Ridiculous or not, when we screened the film in class, we did get one legitimate, startled shriek from a girl when the titular character suddenly appeared behind us as if by teleportation. That was a great moment for me. It meant I could physically affect people by storytelling. That’s no small thing.

+++

I don’t remember the last time I listened to an Ozzy song on purpose. Decades. Nothing against Ozzy, he did some damn fine work; it’s just that tastes change. I know a guy who’s gone from Exploited to Enya. ENYA! I don’t get it, but it happens. It happens.

 (There’s a handful of Enya songs I like, too, but again…it’s been decades since I actually listened to one of them.)

I never lost my taste for AC/DC, though. With AC/DC, there are no surprises. That explains why some people don’t like them, I suppose. For me, they’re a comfortable old leather jacket, relic of a bygone time, yet valuable for exactly that trait: It takes but one progression or riff to take me back to when getting in trouble was fun; when I lived in that short moment where everything was new, everything was the first time. Watching some other old videotapes recently, I took a note about my friends and I, regarding my fiction: “Don’t forget the joy. Everything we did, we did with unfettered f***ing joy.” And it’s true. We did suck the marrow out of life, we did take everything–good and bad–to the Nth degree.

(Sometimes I miss that part of me.)

AC/DC does that, too. They’re never not fully engaged, whether it’s blowing up your video or shaking you all night long. Yeah, it all sounds alike. Yeah, it gets repetitive. But I like that predictability. You can trust AC/DC to give you a simple chord progression, a sweet solo, and a driving beat. AC/DC is everything that’s good and right about hard rock, and when I listen to them, I’m reminded viscerally about that brief moment in time when it only made sense to videotape a horror movie with a zero budget, no script, and a dad with a bucket on his head.

Good times. It’s what AC/DC and eighth grade should be all about.

 

5 Things About Writing You Learn from Gardening

Posted on
Carrots are better with a little dirt.

Carrots are better with a little dirt.

Yes, I have click-baited my blog post with a “5 Things” headline. Live with it.

So I’ve got this garden, and only by sheer force of will am I able to keep myself from using sarcastic quotes around the word “garden.” Except, I just did it right there, so…moving on.

There really are at least five things I have picked up from teaching myself how to garden that are applicable to your fiction writing. In no particular order, they are:

1. Trust the soil and sun.

I don’t have a green thumb, though my father does. I pushed little holes into the store-bought dirt, chucked some heritage seeds into them, covered ’em up and hoped for the best. What that got me was not exactly a bumper crop, but for my first time out, the sugar snap and snow peas were delicious, and the carrot came out pretty nice. Your soil and your sun are your history, your experience, your feelings. Trust them to get the job done. They are what makes your voice and story different from any other.

2. But you have to weed and water.

That being said, gardens don’t grow themselves. Not the beneficial, yummy kind, anyway. It requires effort on your part to tend things, to make sure they’re getting enough water, to make sure weeds or pests aren’t destroying things. Most of us can’t roll out of bed, pop out a manuscript, and send it to Random House. Consider your first few years of novel writing as your apprenticeship. Trust your voice, yes; but learn your craft, too.

3. Use shit and scraps.

I didn’t use any actual manure in this garden, but I did use a homemade compost made from leftover soil and our fruit and veggie kitchen scraps. Your best writing, no matter the genre, will come out of your metaphorical shit. All the gross parts, the goo from the broken eggs, the fragile shells, the wilty green stuff. Fiction is about conflict and adversity, always. It’s the shit of human life, so bring yours to the keyboard and use it. All stories are about characters, and the more we identify with your characters, the more we will love your story.

4. Learn from your mistakes.

Like I said, I’m not a gardener, really. I threw stuff into the dirt and poured water on it. But even that modicum of effort showed me that I can actually grow stuff that is fit for human consumption. That’s a powerful thing, the first time you experience it–and so is storytelling. Never forget that.  But now I know how much water to use next time. I know that I needed to plant some other types of vegetation to help reduce the insect issues I had. I learned a lot this season from that little ill-tended square-footer; what might have happened if I’d actually paid close attention? Really gotten my hands dirty, so to speak?

No manuscript–no sentence–of fiction is ever wasted. Every word and every mark of punctuation is like money in your writing bank, slowly building toward a novel or story that will knock people’s socks off. That means even…no, that means especially the bad stuff. You won’t publish every word you write, but you’ll learn from each one.

5. Don’t share until it’s ready.

It really sucks to pull up what you think is going to be a gorgeous carrot, and instead it’s this little runty pale orange root. Growing food takes time; so does writing a novel. Or a story of any length, really. (In fact, I’d argue writing a great short story is much harder than writing a good or even acceptable novel.) Don’t pull your stories out of the dirt until they’re actually ready to be consumed; don’t show them till they’re ready. For beta-readers, that might be after you type “The End.” For agents or publishers, though, it means making absolutely sure everything that went into that story is the best it can be. Did you use good soil? Did you use good shit? Did you show enough patience and get enough coaching and help to make sure it’s ready to show off? Be patient, and keep working. The story and the vegetables will let you know when it’s time.

*Bonus: Ask around.

Read what others before you have learned. Talk to them in person whenever possible. You can learn more from a five minute talk with a published author, and from a ten minute backyard garden tour, than almost anywhere else. There are plenty of awesome books on both gardening and writing, and you should read them. (Tiny list below.) You don’t have to write this book or raise this garden entirely alone.

+++

Okay, look, I apologize for straining the analogy here. It’s a bit goofy, and a dash trite, I know. But the take-away is still for real: If I can plant a garden that yields an edible–nay, delicious!–carrot and some peas, then you can write a great story. Get busy!

Recommended Reading:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – Barbara Kingsolver

Plot – Ansen Dibell

Burning Down the House – Charles Baxter

COMING UP:

Behind the Music, episode 3: Shake Your Foundations

Type Something Up: What to do with too many ideas.