Fiction | Irish-Americana

Her brittle knees creaked like the rusted hinges of her front door, which stood on the edge of fifty acres of pristine New Jersey wilderness—hard to believe, I know—for more than seventy years. She’d carried seven lives inside her while shouldering the weight of her own and her husband’s. Even at eighty-seven, she’d never felt tired in the conventional sense. It was always as if there never was enough time. In the summer of 1960, the world wouldn’t wait for her fourth daughter’s growing pains to stop waking her up, screaming in the middle of the night; or in the winter of ’58, for a third Chevrolet station wagon to materialize in the dirt driveway; or in the fall of ’39, for a Second World War.

Where had it all gone before this room? She plodded in, slumped like a fallen Roman arch over the bars of her walker, two sliced tennis balls making a quiet hiss on the high-traffic carpet. Similarly slumped, her husband shuffled beside her, his liver-spotted hand covering the bony flesh of hers. The air was oppressively floral and damp, filled with the clamor of dozens of Irish-American voices, pungent with repast beef and whiskey.

A sea of familiar faces buoyed the couple through the room, lapping over every chair, every inch of standing room. These geese, scattered from their home islands by famine, poverty, and boredom, squawked in a lament easily confused with laughter.

In the box with an airplane bottle of J&B beside his head was her sister’s husband, my grandfather, dead at eighty-seven. That’s twenty-seven more years than any doctor gave his half-drowned heart. Maybe forty-odd years of drinking to So-and-so McCrea’s health paid off.

She shuffled, first to her sister, her attentive husband bowed and assisting, carrying her gray, vinyl purse across his shoulder. From a distance, it was impossible to pick out any words they might have exchanged, but as is often the case in stories like this, a snapshot of a single moment, the deed outweighs any spoken word—especially in the face of insatiable time.

She wheeled, slowly, and tilled the carpet toward the coffin.

“I hope she doesn’t kneel,” an aunt whispered. “If she does, she might not get back up again.”

“Clara! Don’t kneel! Whatareya crazy?!”

She turned her head up toward her husband. Over my grandfather’s body, I swear I saw him grin at her before he grasped under her arms, lowering her tireless, bent body—one that carried seven lives—to kneel before my grandfather, her head nearly level with the casket’s rim. Great Aunt Clara’s husband, a man who flew more than forty bombing raids over Germany, joined her, kneeling there in prayer, as if getting up again didn’t matter. And in the back of the room, I wept, mourning my grandfather for the first time.

The story nobody wants.

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about a story that nobody wants. I made a promise in that post that if it got rejected a fifth time, I'd post it here. This week, I'll make good on that promise. That first publishing credit will have to come from something else.

Ari Shaffir, the stand-up comedian, had his first special air on Comedy Central a few months back. I came to appreciate Shaffir and his story by listening to the Joe Rogan Experience. Shaffir's story is inspirational for anyone struggling through any creative endeavor. The title of his special is "Paid Regular." A milestone for anyone working the LA comedy scene is to go from being an open micer to a paid regular at the Comedy Store, which Shaffir did before he went on to film the special.

I think the writer's struggle is similar. Right now, I'm in my open mic stage, writing for anyone who's interested -- but mostly writing for myself. It's not about the money. Any published author will tell you the money's not that good. It's about being read. Being a published author is a lot like being a paid regular. It means you're a professional with the platform. Your work is out there. You've created something people can connect to. And that's my ultimate goal.

Check back tomorrow for the story.

Intentions | Efficiency.

There was a phrase in a recent episode of The Tim Ferriss Show in which Ferriss described "searching for the lead domino" when tackling a series of problems or tasks. The strategy: Identify the one problem that when solved, takes out all or some of the others. 

Its simplicity is beautiful. What has made this concept so difficult to embrace in the past is my inability to start anywhere but the beginning. I blame it on OCD. But now I don't have much of a choice. I have to be more efficient.

I recently moved back to the burbs again (more on that later in the week), and as a result, my commute doubled. I didn't take a vacation from the blog last week. There was no time to post. Or was there? Was that just Resistance talking?

Consider this week a living experiment in searching for that lead domino. I still intend to get eight hours of sleep, five workouts in during the week and 1,000 words of the book written each night. Can I also update this blog five times? To be determined. But I think it can be done.

Behind the closed door.

In his book On Writing, Steven King does every would-be writer the favor of outlining his process. I love hearing about people's processes and rituals, especially talented people committed to their practice. Because in my mind, writing is a practice, and ideal practice takes place daily and habitually. These are the ingredients for commitment, and commitment is essential for success.

Part of King's effective practice is to write behind closed doors, literally and figuratively. As in, he doesn't let the world into that first draft. The first draft is for him. And he also doesn't let anyone into his writing space. It's just him, the work, and Metallica on the stereo. 

Like my grandfather, I work best in silence. So I can't relate in that regard. But I do get the closed door thing. Not that I have a particularly busy writing space. Or that I get interrupted all that often. But I like the idea of the closed door, the minimized distractions.

I think it's in How To Be Alone where Jonathan Franzen talks about his writing habit (or maybe it was in a New Yorker article). He talks about getting the most obsolete laptop he can find. Then taking an ethernet cable, connecting it to the Cat5 port, then cutting the cord.  And for good measure, hot gluing the cable head into the port, rendering the machine incapable of everything but typing. He works in a drab New York office with nothing on the walls. Just him and the work. Distractions minimized.

I'm not so easily distracted, but I might go to that extreme to enhance my focus. I think in some ways my problem is the opposite of King's and Franzen's, really in two ways.

1. They're published and I'm not.
2. I have trouble letting things out from behind the closed door.

It's hard not to feel exposed and vulnerable when I let these things out into glaring daylight -- even the the inane navel-gazing that takes place on this blog. I'm not sure that's something I'll ever get over. And I'm not sure it's something I should. 

Comic books, and why I'm a grownass man who loves them.

I made what's likely to be my last trip for a long time to my favorite comic book store yesterday. It had been about six weeks since my last visit, so my haul ended up costing me more than any grownass man should spend on funny books.

I came to comic books late in life, and I'm still a novice compared to most fans with a serious habit. I gravitate toward DC and a few smaller publishers, like Image. For the most part, I'm not a Marvel guy. After several years of steady consumption, I recommend that every writer -- and serious reader -- study up.

When I read comics, I plow through the dialogue first before I take in the artwork. Often, dialogue is the only type of textual narrative device that you'll find on a page. The art handles conveying the exposition and description (we'll return to that). Comic books are an excellent case study of good and bad dialogue. The cringe-worthy stuff, in the words of my college writing mentor, hits you in the ear like a spitball. The good stuff unravels without effort -- like a conversation.

I have to force myself to stop and appreciate the artwork. The lack of pictures has always been the appeal of reading, to me. With the right words, I can conjure the images in my head. I like the notion that my image of Holden Caulfield is not your image of Holden Caulfied. With a comic book, you don't have that option. You're forced to appreciate the harmony (or discord) of words and art. When the two are in sync, you gain a finer appreciation of the vivid images your prose is supposed to create. It gives the writer something to strive for. 

If Harold Bloom reads this (and I suspect he won't), I don't expect him to walk to his local comic book store and buy The Dark Knight Returns or Kingdom Come in trade paper (though he should). But there's still hope for you, isn't there?