From the time I was six years old until I was around ten, my family lived in a great, sprawling farmhouse with a covered front porch and two huge oak trees in the front yard. There was a garden and barns made for exploring. If you read The Day the Angels Fell, it’s basically the setting for that novel. Every autumn, my father raked all the beautiful, brittle leaves into piles and we ran the path his rake made and we laughed and threw colors around. As the sun set in similar fashion somewhere over the hill, he lit the piles on fire, and the flames danced like savages.
In many ways, I was hidden from the world in those years, living so removed from other people. I went to a tiny school that had tiny problems. My closest friends were, for the most part, my cousins, or the three boys I met in first grade. Whenever I could sneak away from the house, I’d be down at the creek or riding my bike on back-country roads, not a soul in sight.
It was about that time in my life when I took to sleeping under the bed. I’m sure this gives you some kind of psychological magnifying glass with which to view my life. There were three doors in my room: one went into my parents’ room; one opened into a huge closet that didn’t seem to have a back; the third led into the neighboring house (the farmhouse we lived in was split into two separate dwellings). Maybe it was the confluence of all these doors, or the wide windows that opened up onto the porch roof, or the deep-red carpet, but something caused me to crave security, and I found it in the tight space beneath my bed.
I hid away down there, blocking myself in with boxes and pillows and an old blanket I had since my birth. I slept well in that sealed off darkness. I breathed easier.
* * * * *
One of the reasons that hiddenness is such an important aspect of the spiritual life is that it keeps us focused on God. In hiddenness we do not receive human acclamation, admiration, support, or encouragement. In hiddenness we have to go to God with our sorrows and joys and trust that God will give us what we most need.
In our society we are inclined to avoid hiddenness. We want to be seen and acknowledged. We want to be useful to others and influence the course of events. But as we become visible and popular, we quickly grow dependent on people and their responses and easily lose touch with God, the true source of our being. Hiddenness is the place of purification. In hiddenness we find our true selves.
Henri Nouwen
This piece by Henri Nouwen has upended me, as good writing often does. I think about how much of my writing life is spent seeking acclamation, admiration, support, or encouragement. And while I do not believe those things are negative in and of themselves, I do believe that there is also something blessed to receive when we live in the lack of them, when we are forced to find our approval and identity somewhere deeper.
Do I ever leave room for hiddenness? Or must all of my joys and heartaches immediately be shared with the world?
Nouwen talks about the dependency these things create within us. What at first feels like encouragement or support can all too quickly turn into that which my creativity depends on. What does it look like when a writer begins trying to please everyone in an attempt to relive, over and over again, those moments of acclamation? How can one possibly navigate the minefield that is the approval or disapproval of hundreds or thousands of people?
And what, then, will we do with a rush that craves more and more, is never satisfied? How far will we go in our pursuit of the like and the share?
Hiddenness, it seems, in some form, is the answer. But I’m left with more questions than answers.
What does it mean for me, a writer in this particular age, to seek out hiddenness? My word processor underlines “hiddenness” in a scribbly red, as if to negate it, as if encouraging me to delete it from my vocabulary.
“This is not a word,” It says. “Hiddenness is not a thing. Where you do find it, delete it. Replace it with something else. Something in our culture’s vocabulary.”
But hiddenness is a thing, no matter what spell check says. I experienced it sleeping under the bed when I was a child, and it was glorious, that sense of security, of safety. That sense that no one else in the entire world knew where I was or what I was about. Hiddenness is a safe space. It is a place full of truth, a place where God dwells, waiting to commune with us. And while it may be empty of certain, valuable things, I’m quite sure it is full of many others.
Maybe that’s what I’m looking for: a new set of values.
Can we find the courage to hide in a world that only values that which has been found?
This is me rocking a spike, oversized glasses, and headphones that are either playing “You Can’t Touch This” or “Go West Young Man.” Also, that’s either an Ocean Pacific or Bugle Boys sleeveless T because, obviously, who covers up guns like that? But even then, I cared most about good stories.
Back in early June, I sent my literary agent a text. We were expecting to hear a final decision from the publisher on Tuesday. It was Wednesday. I felt like so much depended on this. So many years. So many words.
“Any news?” I asked in the text.
She wrote back.
“Call me.”
* * * * *
In the dog days of August, circa 1985, I was a skinny 8-year-old reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on the farmhouse porch, waving away the flies. Cows mooed in the background. The thing I hated the most was mowing the lawn, or anything else that interrupted my reading.
We had no air conditioning in that massive farmhouse, only a handful of huge box fans to move the warm air around, and on especially hot nights I’d sleep on the floor in front of one of them, the loud hum drowning out the world. I attached a sheet to the fan so that it blew up around me in a dome shape. It was like sleeping inside of a cloud.
I read under that dome with a flashlight until long into the night, the pages flapping back and forth in the gale force. It was like my own world, my own universe. There was the smell of the farm, the scratchiness of the carpet, the weariness of my eyes growing heavy. There was nothing else.
I devoured books in those days. I drank them down straight. The best of them left me in something like a buzzing stupor, and I wandered the farm for weeks after finishing, drifting through the beautiful trance they left me in. I sat by the creek, fishing, and my mind followed the water, meandered all the way to the sea.
I felt a tangible ache for Narnia. I opened every closet twice, quickly, and peered deep into the darkness, hoping to see snow-laden branches or hear the voice of a faun.
* * * * *
In college I dove deep into writing. It started out as journaling, moved into poetry, and occasionally stumbled into a few, halting efforts at novels. I spent afternoons beside the Yellow Breeches, a narrow stream that wound its way through our campus. I wrote in pencil then. Words and words and words in a little red notebook I found in the basement just the other day. The eroded red notebook was hiding between old yearbooks and containers holding floppy disks. The words are barely visible now, rubbed raw by all those years, all those moves.
I wrote the first paragraphs of at least twenty novels that never went any further (I wonder about all of those characters, where they went, what ever happened to them). I wrote a fair amount on three novels, got far enough to realize I didn’t know what to do with the middle part. There was something about that section of a story that always felt awkward, always trailed off into mumbled plot lines that never recovered. I became bored writing them and figured that meant someone would get bored reading them. I set them aside or threw them away.
I finished writing one novel in those days, very short. Very not-good. I might know where it is, but I’d rather not look at it. If I do find it, I think I’ll burn it ceremoniously. Maybe on a floating bier.
* * * * *
My writing road, like most people’s, has been long and winding. For the last 17 years I’ve experienced mostly rejections: I was rejected from at least five MFA programs (at least five – I’ve lost track), numerous literary journals, countless agents, and a series of publishers. I’ve kept many of those rejections in a file folder somewhere. I don’t know why. Maybe because they’re like scars? Maybe because I still want to prove them all wrong? Maybe because they make up this long, winding road I’ve traveled?
I broke into the publishing world seven years ago with the publication of a book I co-wrote, and that led to a lot of opportunities. In the following years, I self-published three books and co-wrote another fifteen, but my dream was still to have a publishing house publish my fiction. My own stories. Ever since I was 8 years old, under that sheet dome in the middle of the night, reading The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe or A Wrinkle in Time, ever since then I’ve wanted nothing more than to make up stories, write them down, and have people read them.
Why?
I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that one. Maybe it’s because, to me, that’s the most real sort of magic I’ve ever encountered. I want to do it, too. I want to make that magic.
Four months ago, we started sending a book proposal for The Day the Angels Fell to publishers. That’s the book you all helped me self-publish through Kickstarter at the beginning of 2015. I think my agent sent the manuscript to 15 or 20 acquisitions editors. You can read about that process HERE and HERE. And that came with it’s fair share of rejections.
As one editor put it,
“Much as I like the voice, though, I’m afraid the story overall just doesn’t feel quite right for us.”
It was a long, hard wait, and towards the end I got impatient. I felt like the road I was on had leveled out and would never change. I was ready to move on with my life, chalk it up as another failure. But my agent, Ruth, kept encouraging me.
“Just give it a little more time,” she said.
So we did.
* * * * *
Then, a spark of light. An acquisitions editor liked my book. She loved it. She wanted her publishing house to take it on. We spent the better part of an afternoon talking with her, hearing her dreams for the book. I don’t think I said much. I was in shock. Someone who believed in my writing as much as I did? Someone from a publishing house who had fallen in love with something I had written?
“I’m taking this to my publication board next Tuesday,” she said. “And I’m hopeful that after that meeting, we will be making you an offer to acquire The Day the Angels Fell.”
* * * * *
Tuesday came and went. By Wednesday, I still hadn’t heard anything. I sent Ruth a text.
“Any news?”
She wrote back.
“Call me.”
I called her.
“I have good news,” she said. I sat there quietly as she told me the story.
Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, was offering me a three-book contract which included re-releasing The Day the Angels Fell, publishing the sequel, and publishing a third book of fiction, to be determined. I was shocked into silence. I couldn’t speak.
About ten minutes into describing the offer and what it meant, Ruth paused. She asked me a question.
“Are you happy with this?” There was uncertainty in her voice.
I laughed.
“Sorry, Ruth, I’m just in complete shock. I’m happier than you can imagine.”
* * * * *
Maile was listening outside the door the entire time. As soon as I hung up with Ruth, she came flying into the office.
“So?” she asked. “What did she say?”
I took a deep breath. I nodded.
“It’s good news. They’re making a three-book offer.”
She squealed.
“Are you serious?” she exclaimed. I told her the details. About that time, Ruth forwarded the offer letter to me.
“Here it is,” I told Maile. I started reading it to her, the opening note from the enthusiastic editor, Kelsey, who would now edit three of my novels. Here is one of the paragraphs:
When I initially read the first paragraph of The Day the Angels Fell, I was hooked. When one of our sales representatives read that same first chapter he emailed me immediately and said “this is something special.” Whether I’m reading what your fans are writing, listening to what my colleagues are saying, or am immersed in Sam Chambers’ world myself, I know that what you have here, in this book and in your writing overall, is exceptional.
The offer letter was so kind, so encouraging, so affirming of everything I’ve always tried to do as a story-teller. I got to the second paragraph of the offer letter when I was overcome with emotion. I sat down on the floor in the office, leaned my head up against the door frame, and sobbed.
“I don’t even know why I’m crying,” I finally said.
“You’ve been working towards this for years,” Maile said, laughing, still in disbelief. She sat down beside me. “This is it. You’ve finally done it.”
She took the computer from me and finished reading the letter out loud, and I sat there listening. It felt like she must be reading a letter written to someone else. I couldn’t believe this was for me.
* * * * *
I don’t think I ever would have gotten to this point without you, my kind and encouraging readers. For nearly seven years you’ve been reading my blog posts as well as the books I’ve co-written. Whether it’s the comments you’ve left, the emails you’ve sent, the reviews you’ve written, or the way you gave me overwhelming support when I self-published The Day the Angels Fell, your encouragement has propelled me forward on this journey.
There’s a long, exciting road ahead. We plan to release a hardback version (hardback!) of The Day the Angels Fell in the fall of 2017 (I know! That seems so far away!). It will be freshly edited and come with a brand new cover. For those of you who have been waiting for the sequel, The Edge of Over There, we’re planning to include the first few chapters of that book at the back of The Day the Angels Fell.
This is where I ask, once again, for your help. I cannot re-launch The Day the Angels Fell without your enthusiastic support. If you’re interested in being part of a fun group that will help me with the release of this book, sign up HERE. You’ll even receive a FREE ADVANCED COPY OF THE BOOK BEFORE IT RELEASES! In exchange, we’ll ask only two things: please review the book online, and help us spread the word during its release. You’ll also receive updates on our progress and provide important input on various things as they come up in the design and planning phase.
I’d love for you to continue to join me on this incredible ride. I promise I won’t email you more than once or twice a month. I won’t be sending these out in my normal newsletter, so if you can help with this book launch, please be sure to sign up HERE.
* * * * *
Now that the spike of excitement has begun to level off, I sit back and I wonder.
I wonder if I would have been in this precise spot, written this precise book, if I wouldn’t have received all of those stinging rejections through the years. I wonder if I would have met all the wonderful people I’ve met along the way if this opportunity would have fallen into my lap years ago. I wonder if we can ever write the stories we’re supposed to write without those times of deep sadness and disappointment, rejection and loneliness.
I hope you’ll keep walking your path. I hope you won’t give up. If I can do it, you can do it. I am no writing prodigy, no natural born success. I am simply someone who insisted on putting one foot in front of the other for a very long time. Someone who, with a lot of help from my writing community, refused to cave to the voices that told me I wasn’t good enough.
I wonder something else, too. I wonder what that little boy under the fan-and-sheet dome would think if he could have read The Day the Angels Fell. I wonder what dreams he would have had after reading it, what adventures he would have taken in the creek behind the church building. I wonder what he would have thought, looking up into the oak tree, the one struck by lightning when I was ten, the one that inspired the story in the first place.
Maybe somewhere, that will happen. Maybe a kid (or an adult) will stay up late into the night reading about Samuel Chambers. Maybe this book, this story, will somehow become tangled up in their life the way all those wonderful books I’ve read have become tangled up in my own.
A writer can hope.
Remember, please sign up HERE to join the launch team and receive your free advance reader copy next spring/summer. For more frequent updates and other random stuff, you can “like” my Facebook page HERE. And whatever your current dream, keep going!
I drive the truck faster, weaving past cars on the city streets. I nearly pull out in front of someone and hit my brakes. We are 35 minutes from the birth center, and Maile’s labor has started. I stop at a red light just as another contraction builds inside her.
This is our sixth child. I know in an intimate way the process my wife’s body goes through when the baby has decided to come. For example: Maile hums through her contractions. It’s quiet at first, barely a breath, but as the contractions get stronger and closer together her voice swells into a loud kind of almost-singing. It’s a prehistoric chant, something in her DNA. But as we sit at the red light, and the contraction swells, that particular pressure transforms her humming into a guttural grunt. I also know what that means.
“Do you have to push?” I ask, looking over at her. This is not a good time to push. We are too far away.
Her lips are pursed and white around the edges. She’s still exhaling the remnants of the last contraction. She nods.
“I wanted to that time.”
The traffic is slow. We hit every light red. Another contraction comes in, tides back out. Another. All those people we pass in their cars, living their normal evenings. Going out to eat. Going home from work. Talking with friends on their phones. Can’t they see there is a miracle in our truck, barely waiting to break forth?
“Play that song again,” Maile whispers. The song is “Born” by Over the Rhine.
I was born to laugh I learned to laugh though my tears I was born to love I’m gonna learn to love without fear
“You should probably drive faster,” she says in a flat, calm voice, but there is a trace of urgency, like a small, red thread on a white carpet.
Pour me a glass of wine Talk deep into the night Who knows what we’ll find
I look both ways and pull hesitantly through the red light, then drive the rest of the highway in the center lane, my four-ways flashing. We are 20 minutes from the birth center. But we are finally out of the city. We are fleeing into the country shadows, the sun setting behind us.
* * * * *
This I’ve also seen: when Maile begins labor, when the contractions start to come closer together, she withdraws inside of herself. There is a labyrinth she follows to the deepest parts, and when she’s there, when she’s in active labor, I can’t find her anymore. She wouldn’t recognize me if we passed in the street.
Intuition, deja-vu The Holy Ghost haunting you Whatever you got I don’t mind
At 7:30pm on Saturday night, one hour before we raced down the turn lane of Route 30, she said she wanted to go for a walk, so she and I set out along with Leo and Cade. We went west on James and turned north on Prince and as we walked down the long hill, the sun was setting off to our left, its light dripping into a vacant parking lot. A cool breeze swept by with the traffic. The air felt lighter somehow, as if August had persuaded October to come and take over the evening duties.
We turned east onto Frederick Street. Cade walked ahead. Leo said hello to a little girl playing on the sidewalk. Maile slowed down. She breathed deep, and I could see it beginning to happen: the withdrawal, the searching. She was looking for a way into the labyrinth.
“You okay?” I asked her. There was some fear in her eyes.
“That was a strong one,” she said, walking with one hand supporting her back. “I’m scared. You’re going to have to help me with this baby.”
I nodded quietly.
“You got it, babe,” I said. “One at a time.”
We walked all the way to Duke, turned south, then doubled back on Prince towards home. A homeless man pointed at her stomach.
“I saw another one of you over on Lime,” he said, practically shouting. Indescribable joy was etched on his face. We smiled and nodded.
“Over on Lime!” he insisted. “Pregnant ladies everywhere.” Then he turned and walked away.
We got to the last crosswalk. Soon we would be home. The sign was orange, don’t walk. Maile bent over then arched her back, breathed deep again, hummed. That was the first hum I’d heard. The contractions were serious. She stood up, looked like she might throw up. Her eyes were far away. She was entering the labyrinth.
“Maybe we should head into the birth center,” I said, not expecting her to take me up on the suggestion. She doesn’t like to go in until it’s time. But she surprised me, there on the corner of Queen and James, just opposite the Greek restaurant we love. She didn’t even make eye contact with me. Only nodded.
“That’s a good idea. We should probably hurry a little bit.”
I wondered what it would be like to deliver a baby in the Suburban. I turned to Cade.
“Hey, buddy,” I said. “Why don’t you run ahead and tell Mimi we need to go? Now. Tell her we need to get moving, fast.”
Cade stared at his phone.
“Hey, you,” I said, half laughing. “Get moving.”
“Dad,” he said, looking slightly embarrassed. “I’ve got an awesome Pokemon on the line.”
“What?” I exclaimed. He paused, swiped his fingers up and down his phone, then took off in a sprint.
“I got him!” he shouted joyfully over his shoulder. Maile and I shook our heads. We both laughed.
Put your elbows on the table I’ll listen long as I am able There’s nowhere I’d rather be
That’s when we drove out of the city. That’s when I weaved in and out of city traffic. That’s when Maile started to feel an urge to push.
* * * * *
We slip away from the setting sun, now 15 minutes from the birth center. With every contraction I ask her if she needs to push. Sometimes she says yes, sometimes no.
These are the hills where I grew up, the sprawling, green fields with July corn as tall as a man. These are the summer nights I cut my teeth on. This is the land inside me, the place I will someday go home to when my life is over, my far, green country. I am not afraid of helping my wife deliver a baby in the truck, if I have to – not with those fields as witnesses. It almost seems fitting, that a child of mine would spring into being in the midst of the corn and the tobacco, the trees and the fireflies, the quiet, curving roads and the distant storm clouds.
But we make it. There will be no Suburban birth. We pull into the birth center and the nurse lets us in after hours and we go into the same room where Leo was born. The same room. The same bed, the same tub. I remember when Leo was born. I remember texting everyone the news, including our friend Alise who had recently had a stillborn son. I wanted her to know we were thinking of her. There is such joy and sorrow as I get older. Joy inextricably mixed with sorrow. They’re a tangled mess.
The contractions come closer together now, and Maile is far away. She is lost in the labyrinth, trying to find her way to the elusive center. She hums through contractions. She strips down and climbs into the warm bath, facing the corner, squatting down as far as she can, her arms out in front of her. In yoga, it is close to the child’s pose.
She whispers prayers into the water when the pain becomes unbearable. Her breath scatters shallow ripples over the thin surface. Or maybe it is the Spirit. She wants me to push deep into her back, and I press with the heels of my hands. I feel her spine and the deep muscles of her lower back, her ribs.
Bone from my bone. Flesh from my flesh.
She presses herself down until I think she might melt into the water or split in two. She wants help out of the tub, so we move her to the bed. She hums through the contractions and the humming turns louder and louder, rises up over itself until she sounds like a muezzin calling us all to prayer. Her powerful voice gives me chills. She moans and cries out and pushes.
Secret fears, the supernatural Thank God for this new laughter Thank God the joke’s on me We’ve seen the landfill rainbow We’ve seen the junkyard of love Baby it’s no place for you and me
The way a child comes into being from a woman is the birth of a galaxy. It is searing pain and numbing joy; it will break you into interstellar pieces. A bundle of powder-coated limbs slips and jumbles its way into the world, still attached to the source. A squirming heap of carbon and water covered in blood and a ghostly vernix. Believe in miracles. They are born every day, attached to their mothers.
When Maile realizes the baby is a girl, she raises her face towards the ceiling. Her smile is like those clear shafts of light that break through storm clouds.
I was born to laugh I learned to laugh through my tears I was born to love I’m gonna learn to love without fear
“What a gift,” she kept whispering over and over again. “What a gift.”
Later, in the quiet, the labyrinth far behind (or perhaps all around, with us finally residing in the perfect center), we name her Poppy Lynne Louella.
Poppy for the ruby red fields in England we often hiked through, gazed at.
Maile exhales in her sleep. The window that looks out
onto James Street is open, the summer air still against
the screen. Maile stirs
in bed, pulls a pillow in
under her belly, under our baby yet to be
born. It is 4am, and I am awake
again.
A car slips by, its radials humming. What new evil
will flare in the world
tonight? I wonder. What new out-
pouring of hate blood violence
on a knife’s edge driven home by an after-
math of anger and suspicion?
I move up against Maile and wrap my arm
around her, my hand on her nearly-ripe stomach.
Then, my hand is
nudged by a human not-yet-here,
a human not-yet-born. Its presence sudden,
real. What have we
done? I wonder. Why invite anyone
into this hate blood violence victims contempt,
into this swirling world of rage and
pop-pop-pop go the guns. Rat-tat-tat. I can feel
the air moving around me as the bullets
fly. I hear them absorbed by flesh and bone and walls.
My thoughts are the sound of
shattering glass. Someone, somewhere, lets loose
a primal cry. Then
under my hand, the softest
splinter. Is that a foot? An elbow? Is that
the soft nudge of hope, the insistence
of something beautiful yet to come?
There were, after all, people waiting
to give blood. Their blood for blood, their life for
life. There were 200 Muslims bowing
in prayer for victims, candlelight glowing in place
of gun fire flashes. We are them and they are us and
all around are gentle nudges reminding us of something
beautiful yet to come. Will we bring it
into being? The labor is never easy.
There will be blood. Yes, there will be
blood. But there will also be a rushing
of waters
the crowning of a head
the first glimpse of powder on a new face
never seen before. There will be
the slipping into the world.
There will be screaming. Yes, there will be
screaming. But there will also be hopeful
tears smiles and bulbs blooming
the cutting of that which joined us
a rapid latching on
a sense of awe that even when evil rises in the middle
of the night, a new birth is coming.
I leave my hand there on her belly. I fall
asleep, the undulating waves of –
what is it, hope? –
living, breathing future
pressing on my finger prints. An elbow, I’m sure
of it. Or perhaps a heel, born
to crush the very head
of this persistent evil, perhaps a gentle hand, born
to usher in a fresh peace.
It would be so much easier to wait a week before writing this post. In a week I will know a lot more. In a week I could write a strong piece in the vein of a “disappointed-but-not-giving-up” writer. Or maybe it will be a shocked, celebratory piece. It all depends on the news I get this week. But here, now, on this muggy evening in mid-June, four months after my agent began shopping my novel around to publishing houses, the in-between is hard to navigate.
Still, I think I should write this post. I think we need to share more in-betweens with each other. I think we need to be willing to say, “Look, this is where I am, and it’s not where I want to be, but will you come along, whatever might happen?”
* * * * *
I’ve received a few very kind rejections during this process from publishing houses who can’t figure out how to market the book or are uncomfortable making predictions on how it will perform. You know. Where they say things like “beautiful writing” and “wonderful voice” and “talent” yet at some point throw in the “but.”
But for all of the rejections and silence, my agent and I have gotten somewhere. Three publishers are interested, and one is even considering The Day the Angels Fell at their pub board meeting this week. So. I will know one way or another by Wednesday.
I know I’ve been on a strong “don’t give up” kick recently here at the blog, but, seriously. Don’t give up.
When I was 22, I was rejected by 5 MFA programs. That’s right. Five. I still have the rejection letters in a file somewhere. I wanted to get a masters degree in creative writing, but no one would take me. I applied to the best-of-the-best programs and a few of the average-of-the-most-average. Thank God they said no. I didn’t have a clue who I was as a person, much less as a writer.
For the next nine years – yeah, nine years – my writing life consisted of writing in my journal non-stop and regular rejections of my short stories by various literary journals and magazines. It was a steady diet of rejection, of “no,” of “you’re not good enough.” I wrote in my journal and then, when the sting of previous rejections had faded away, I’d write another short story and send it off. Months later, a form rejection. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Why didn’t I quit writing during those nine years? I’m not really sure. I had no outlet to the rest of the world – there were no blogs, no online magazines, no way for strangers to easily find and read my work. There was very little affirmation or encouragement. These days of easy access to readers is a both a blessing and a curse for writers. But I continued writing, gathering all the words, filling all the journals, and lining the journals up on my bookshelf, one after the other. “One page a day,” I’d tell myself, and that’s what I did.
Then, when I was 31 years old, eight years ago, I got the chance of a lifetime: I co-wrote a book for a real, live publishing house. During the last seven years, I’ve co-written over 20 books for other people, and I self-published a few of my own. But I’ve always kept that dream. I always wanted to be a novelist, published by a publishing house. I think that will always be in my mind, always something I aspire to. I no longer look down my nose at independent publishing. I think it’s a wonderful option, one I will probably use again in the future. But to have a publishing house love your work enough to bring you in, to publish your book? That’s always been my dream.
And now? I’m so close. But you never know how these things will go.
Maybe it’s because I’m almost 40, or maybe it’s because I’ve got five kids and one on the way, or maybe it’s because I no longer feel the pressure of trying to be a young prodigy…whatever the case, no matter the news I receive, I know I’ll keep writing. Not because this is the closest I’ve ever come to having a traditionally-published book, but simply because I’m a writer. I write. It’s what I do.
So. Enough about me. Maybe you feel like you’re stumbling along in whatever it is you do. You probably wish you were further along or higher up, better known or appreciated more than you are. Trust me when I say that you have no idea how the creative work you are doing today will come into fruition ten years from now, or twenty years from now. You just have to keep doing what you’re doing. Get better. Work harder. Study your craft. Keep making mistakes. Keep getting rejected.
It’s what I’m doing. It’s what I’ve been doing for the last 17 years. Maybe you’re just starting out, or maybe you’ve been on your path for 17 years. Or maybe you’ve been walking much longer. No matter. Let’s walk this road together.
After nearly seventeen years of marriage we sometimes
spend our Friday nights in the basement, going
through boxes of old stuff,
trying to decide what to keep
and what to cast off.
It’s like the ocean floor down there,
where everything settles after being shaken,
shipwrecked,
sifted.
You go through plastic bins full of children’s clothes,
preparing for this next baby, number six, and we
smile at the sight of clothes the other children wore:
a yellow rain coat; those monkey pajamas; boots
covered in cartoon insects with big eyes. Artifacts
from some other life, reminders of
this long and winding road. You sigh. You fold
each piece with care
and gently place everything here
or there
to keep
or to cast off.
I unearth the boxes of yearbooks and old
journals, binders full of short stories I wrote. In those days
I was certain publication was just
around the corner. Yet here I am,
so many years later, on the cusp of perhaps a book,
or perhaps not. Still waiting.
This is the way of things, the subtle gathering of years,
the persistent belief that words, thought through,
will find their way to the surface.
And then I see a notebook from October, 1997, when
I first laid eyes on you. Noticed you for the first time.
I wrote seven words at the top of the page
of my American Lit Before 1900 binder:
“Fact of the day: she’s from Ohio”
How little we knew of one another.
I read the words out loud to you, and you smile and almost
cry and we laugh, thinking back to who we were.
Who were we? Who would we become? We
had no idea.
How could we? Yet.
Yet.
Yet here we are in the basement of a row home, 20 years
later, somewhere
in the city, the sound of five children running the wooden
floorboards above us, the amniotic movement of another child
twisting and turning inside you.
Here we are, sifting through two decades.
This has been the way
of these years, the keeping and the casting off.
The sense that somehow, that which matters most
will find its way to the surface.
