In one hour and forty-nine minutes, it will be 2020 in North Texas.
But I’ve mentioned before that I consider September my new year. And so, this entry is not a recap of the year…nor is it a list of resolutions and goals I wish to accomplish in 2020.
At the moment, with the exception of Not About Lumberjacks, all other writing is doing exactly what I hoped it would be doing at the turn of the calendar year.
Still, I can’t help but feel like I’m about to take a big leap into 2020…
That One Evening…
I met Ray Bradbury at Southern Methodist University on a chilly evening in November 1990.
At the time, I was attending a community college, where I took my only creative writing class. Our professor encouraged us to attend all talks at the SMU Literary Festival that week.
I grew up a couple towns over from the town where Bradbury was born. I read Dandelion Wine on a yearly basis. I saw a facet of all I wanted to be as a writer in Bradbury when I was younger. So to hear him speak was wonderful…to meet him after his talk and discuss our Green Towns in Northern Illinois was something I never imagined would happen.
But the talk was even more spectacular. Bradbury talked about growing up in Illinois. He talked about imagination and comic books. Everything he said…it was as though he were speaking to me.
Somewhere during the talk, he dropped one of his more famous analogies and quotes…a story about creative people on the edge of a canyon looking at the other side, where all they wanted waited for them…if only they could get across.
Bradbury talked about those who stood on the edge talking about how one day they would finally build a flying machine that would take them across the canyon, but posited they would die beside raw materials never assembled. He talked about others who would take the easy route and walk along the canyon’s edge, but die before reaching their goal. Still, others would be fortunate enough to have a flying machine built for them and carried across by help.
For the rest of us, he said this:
Sometimes you have to jump off that cliff and build your wings on the way down…
Wile E. Coyote
When I was younger, I had another hero: Wile E. Coyote (I admired his tenacity). Over the years, I realized it takes so much more than a desire to achieve a goal, but at the time, I liked that he always got back up.
I used to take bigger chances. Most of the time, they resulted in a little puff of dust as I hit the canyon floor like Acme’s most loyal customer. But other times I found a thermal and got a taste of something bigger…rising high enough to know, with just a little forward momentum, I’d finally make it across the canyon.
In the end, though, I always ended up at the bottom.
Leap of Faith
I can say with confidence that 2020 will be my most important writing year since 1990, when I decided to take writing seriously. There are two things that will either happen in the next year…or they won’t.
If they do, all those leaps of faith will pay off. But if I hit bottom, they will still pay off.
I’ve reached a point where I’m comfortable simply writing. Anything beyond writing to the best of my abilities is a bonus.
I’m tired of leaping.
2020 will be the year I finally make it to the other side of the canyon, or decide there are worse things than being happy living at the bottom of such a beautiful place.
* * *
City Photo: Denys Nevozhai
Canyon Photo: Clay Banks
. . . while those of us look at your achievements already and wonder what canyon you have yet to cross.
As always, thank you, Paul. Each year, I become a little more content just writing. I think, at this point, if I either had a day job I adored or somehow became independently wealthy, I’d give up shooting for publication.
I know with publication comes camaraderie with other writers, but I have that already…in replies like this from you and others; in replies and correspondence with a few writers for whom writing full time is what they do. I’ve never been interested in fame — I’ve always just wanted to spend my days doing what I love most: writing, hiking, spending time with my wife, reading, playing Dungeons and Dragons, and sometimes poking my head up and actually being social. I’ve been able to do that very thing in recent weeks, and I know similar weeks will come with vacation time, or times in between contracts if I stay a contractor.
I suppose the canyon analogy works in this case because, when I was younger, it was an all-or-nothing thing. And I was realistic about things, giving myself twenty years to make it writing full time — that’s not a window of time I think most twenty-year-olds would come up with. (I see people online amazed that a year or two in, they’ve not “made it.” And I’ve seen many others give up entirely after a couple rejections.
Hell, I don’t even have the hunger for more that I once did when I worked in factories and warehouses and looked toward writing as a way to make money. While I’d not mind a little bit more money (because I’m the sole provider in our household), we have enough, and with that…writing is much more a pleasure than a way out of back-breaking work on a concrete floor in the heat.
So you’re right: I have no canyon to cross.
But I got a running start and have some momentum right now, so I’ll give it one more shot and report back sometime this year how it all worked out!
When I first announced my ambition to write (perhaps a mistake in telling anyone), the people who didn’t write but knew all of the truisms assured me it would take 10 years of practice before I could expect to be published. I managed to get it done well before the 10 years were up (fiction and nonfiction) but then that wasn’t enuf. I had to get more and better stuff published. And I have, but I’m never sated.
Love the Ray Bradbury story – wow. Cheers to a productive new year. You are on a roll.
Indeed! I will always write and strive to improve.
I stopped writing short fiction for years because I focused solely on novels and non-fiction. Now…while I know it’s probably a wise move to have a larger list of short fiction credits when shopping novels around, I record and release things as a podcast because I enjoy it. I’ve always been a bit torn between simply writing and being content with the effort, and submitting work and hoping to see it published (and make a little money, too).
As I get older, I tire a bit of the chase. And because what I’m currently working on is several books, if nothing happens with the novel, the options then become trying to write something else that might end up published, or finish a story I love, even though it will end up going nowhere. At that point, I’d write the next books, even though I’d know the first book was passed on and I’m writing something unlikely to be read by more than just family and friends. (Although, I’d probably make another feed on Not About Lumberjacks for novels I’ve written, and release books that way.)
It was a great evening. After Bradbury was done speaking, he was alone backstage, sitting in a chair. I’d like to say I wandered back and talked to him behind the curtain, but I waited in line with others. But…when I got up to him, I mentioned where I grew up, and he smiled and said, “I have friends, there!” And for a short moment, we chatted about Northern Illinois and the effect that region had on us.
I hope your year is productive as well. Some days (today, for example), I just want to hide out, write, and ignore the news and the world…or listen to back episodes of Otherppl 🙂
Life is a series of canyons. I’m jumping big this year too. Or into it. TBD.
You are doing amazing. No matter what, you ARE a writer. You write. You create. That is half the battle. You do that AND support your family. That is not easy these days.
Thank you, Lesa! And all the best in your leap this year. I know much changed for you at work, and can only imagine how weird it must feel to step away from a long-time thing!
And I like the series of canyons analogy. Quite a bit. Because the notion of just one thing has always struck me as strange. Bigger things are made up of so many little things, so that’s far more accurate!