Goal: To examine moment when change was possible, but declined.
What to do: 1. Think of a time when you (or a character) made a negative decision: chose not to do something, go somewhere, not to act in a certain way.
2. Write it down precisely: where were you (or your character), what were you wearing, what did you say and do?
Alice LaPlante, I have gone with you on this journey to the Land of the Written Word for three chapters, but here in Chapter Four -where the hero of the story should begin to see the dark storm clouds of approaching conflict on the not-to-distant horizon- I find my conflict is with you. Here is sit in black socks that have been on my feet so long the bottoms are hard and shiny like Grandpa’s slippers, and a yellow jock strap, thankfully clean since no one likes rotten crotch, cursing you and your E.D.-the-moment-after-I-finish-sewing-this-poppet husband to spin off your axes and languish like the timeline in which I unhesitatingly replied “YES!” to your existential writing assignment as detailed above. For in the end, Dear Lady of the Book, my defiant “No!” flies at you like sneeze spray torpedoed from the puggish nose of Andrea Bocelli; I will not accept your invitation to change!
The salty bouquet of Fritos wafts across my laptop, heralding my dog’s arrival. One can almost sense the drool. Sudden and somewhat moist weight on my thigh draws my attention, and I see he is resting his alligator-sized head on my lap as if to say, “Give ‘er hell, Dad!” Oh, dear Hogan, it is given.
The early settlers of Erie, PA had little to worry about from the American Indians living there. By the time the French had declared the area their property, the Erie Peoples had already lost a war with the Iriquois Nation, its members killed or dispersed to find haven with neighboring tribes. Whatever remnants were left behind would have gone mostly unnoticed by the French, who busied themselves building forts and watchtowers to defend their landhold against the British in the, how I wish I were kidding, Beaver Fur War. When the War was over and a town started to grown from the settlement, marked, unmarked and disappeared graves of Native peoples gave way to factories and stores and houses and backyards and, of course, churches and bars. Locals joke that after killing someone in a bar fight, you can cross the street for absolution. The real punchline is that you’d most likely only have to cross the bar.
People without imagination nor humor often refer to “Eerie, PA” without knowing that the dead lay everywhere citizens step. Nor do they know that in the weeks after the Autumnal Equinox as nights grow longer and days grow colder how werewolves pass through the area on their way to winter haunts. People who unluckily meet the packs have to beg the Cousins for the lives and make bloody promises to keep their paths a secret. The oldest cemetery, in the center of town, embowers a crypt in which a vampire is said to sleep. It can easily be spotted by the tangle of spray-painted occult symbols (some of which are real) and scorch marks inflicted by a zealous believer that mar its marble walls. Ask locals about the tall man in the black overcoat who walks the road between Waterford and Edinboro, and they’ll tell you how he vanishes as soon as you drive past him. And though the gypsies have long since abandoned Erie and Axe Murder Hollow has been built over by developers, the druids are still around.
Number of siblings I have… 1
How many grandparents are still alive… 0
How many of my parents are still alive… 1
How many nephews I have… 1
How many dogs I’ve had… 2
How many cats I’ve had… 6
How many hamsters I’ve had… 3
Number of serious boyfriends I’ve had… 7
Average length of serious relationships… 9.1 months
Number of times I’ve been in love… 3
How many terabytes of porn I’ve downloaded in four years… 1.3
Number of times I’ve read The Mists of Avalon… 8
Number of times I’ve watched Zorro, the Gay Blade… 46
Number of times I’ve watched Emmet Otter’s Jug-band Christmas… 104
Number of times I’ve watched Forrest Gump… 1
Number of times I’ve watched American Beauty… 0
How many jobs I’ve had since age 15… 26
How many cities I’ve lived in… 8
How many states I’ve lived in… 6
How many places (houses, dorms, apartments) I’ve lived in… 21
How many countries I’ve visited… 7
How many languages I’m fluent in… 2
Additional languages I’ve been exposed to but am not fluent in… 4
How many video game systems I’ve owned… 5
Current Xbox gamer points… 3365
My grandmother taught me… don’t doubt children who see things.
There was the stump of an apple tree in my grandparents’ backyard that was quite old and soft in the center. My brother and I -sometimes our cousins when they were visiting as well- would use it as a table or as a ersatz trampoline or a place to put our feet and count off who was It with rounds and rounds of King Sayer. In my mind, the stump was roughly the diameter of a redwood, knowing that it wasn’t in actuality any bigger than a large pizza. It had as many uses as we had ideas to task it with, then I got the idea to pick away the rotting center to make a fishbowl.
And that’s when things got scary.
As I was removing wood chips from the stump and tossing them to the ground, I uncovered part of something that -from what I could tell- looked like a toy bee, like the center spinner on a See n’ Say. I remember thinking, “How did a toy get in here? And who could have done it? Did they know I would find it? Is it for me? Oh, boy!” I started to sweep away the debris to get to the toy, but when I touched it -as plasticy shiny as it was, it was warm to my touch. And then it stirred and began to hum, buzzing like a real bee, but too large and too not natural. I waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaailed in that high-pitched screech that terrified five-year-old boys will later deny they can do when they turn seven. And ran in the house to my Grandma, who was struggling to get up from her place on the white living room couch. I threw my arms around Grandma’s waist and we toppled back to the couch. I blubbered out my story as best I could, but it was no more coherent than, “Something… *sniff* in the stump… it… it.. it BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
My Grandma put her hands on my head and called out, “Mike! Michael!” My Grandpa came from upstairs. “Mike, get rid of that stump in the yard. Now!” He didn’t ask why or what I was crying about or anything. Grandma was in earnest He went down to his basement, got his axe, and destroyed the stump. I could see him chopping out the back from my Grandma’s lap. She had no reason to accept what I had said, had tried to say, but she did. She took action because she believed I was telling the truth and because she loved me. There’s really nothing in the world that matters so much to a child.
I’m a writer who doesn’t know how to write.
I still can’t fully explain the difference between Constructivism, Structuralism, and Post-modernism, and now – God, help me – there’s the New Sincerity to worry about.
I know how a story is supposed to go, and sometimes follow the “supposed to” too slavishly.
I have a better-than-average vocabulary, but often fall back on breezier words like “like”, “nuh-uh”, and “srsly”.
I can spot a theme in someone else’s work at 50 paces, but get lost exploring mine.
I think about my own writing a lot and how to improve, write more, write wider, but I don’t do much about it because I’m the only voice in my head and it’s hard to grow in an echo chamber.
I’ve been a lucky amateur so far, but if I ever want to be a better-than-Twilight writer (“better” in the literary sense, not in the financial success sense, however nice that would be), something had to happen.
And it did: I’m part of a writers’ group now, which may be the most difficult thing I’ve done in quite some time. My assignment from my peers, based on a writing sample is to “[w]rite about the things that you fear most. Be intimidated by the subject that you are writing about. Go outside of your comfort zone and explore the emotions/feelings/memories that you’ve maybe ignored or hidden.”
Right. That is so easy for me to do. Writers are all about putting themselves out there to be better writers. Nothing is hidden. Nothing is out-of-bounds. That’s me.
Ha. No, it’s not.
Let me tell you a story.
When I was a junior at IUP, I decided to spend the summer working at school rather than come home because I would be closer to my boyfriend at the time and we could spend the summer being in love and sickening our friends. The place I had been living was not available for the summer, and truth be told, I was going to leave anyway and find my first on-my-own apartment. Like any college town, Indiana had dozens of postings for summer sublets with the possibility of longer leases in the Fall. I pulled I don’t know how many tabs and left messages for all of them to have no one call me back. here’s what I said, “Hi! My name is Sean McGath and I’m calling about the room for rent. I can provide references if you need them, and I am going to tell you up front that I’m gay and have a boyfriend. I just want to be up front about that before we get too far into this process. I also want to tell you that we’re not screamers, so you’ll never know when we fuck. My number is XXX-XXXX. Thanks!”
Yes, I was that gay guy.
I am no longer that gay guy. I’m not even that guy anymore. By design. Yes, I was being honest and out there and truthful. But can you see where I went a step too far? I did, too. Not immediately, but eventually, the forthrightness and bluntness and words that would gush out of me like water from a firehose were crimped to a trickle. Now, I am demonstrative, not verbal. Putting actual feelings down on paper or across electrons is unseemly because it assumes that they are fit for the public to see or hear about and discuss. Or that anyone would even care to. I have probably lost a lot of dates because of this. Not for lack of trying. If you look at the post I made about a guy I have a crush on, it’s obvious I’m floundering to say something important and to say it right; the cracks in the crust that the words fall into to be dissolved in the lava below are huge and embarrassing.
Now I am compelled to write about me, which is something I have not wanted to do for a long time. And it’s going to suck. And my entries on this site are going to be wretched (maybe someone will even have the nerve to post and tell me so), but I’m going to do this for me. And my future millions. Which I’ll use to buy my family something pretty. But I’m not telling you what.
