Writing is the crossover, the "goes without saying" of my life. It's the muse that plays well with others—providing song lyrics, story lines for cartoons, etc. It's also the muse that, as a child, I was least shy about. I detested having anyone see a drawing in progress, and I was painfully shy about singing in front of an audience. Writing was different, I don't know why; all three offered equal joy. I loved writing assignments at school. And, as my classmates will confirm, I spent many a study hall engaged in writing ongoing stories about myself and my friends, filling wire-bound theme books slyly concealed under my homework (not so much!).
But there's nothing quite like the experience of writing a novel. Smack dab in the middle of those dreadful 80s, I wrote what I suppose was a novella—it came out quickly, it really wasn't very good, and it was so derivative of my time and place and the people in my life, that I had no desire to show it to anyone. Still, I recognized that there were a few redeeming passages in it—so I put it away, figuring I might work with it later.
Every now and then I would come upon it and edit it, change a few things, character names, and so on; then away it would go, back into hiding. This went on for about ten years, until my already-prominent Anglophile leanings, which had been simmering on high for months, came to a boil. Once again I found the manuscript, and something clicked. I changed it drastically, keeping only one or two elements of the original story—and a novel was begun. I finished it about three years later and embarked on the journey of agent-hunting, object: publication. After sending many queries, attending workshops and speaking with professionals from the publishing business, I was told that the major American publishing houses tend to cater to the lowest common denominator; they were interested in quick, easy reads for lazy readers (exact words, seriously!). My book, apparently, has two strikes against it for such a demographic: it's long, and much of its dialogue contains heavy British slang and dialect. I was told that readers wouldn't have the patience for such things. (I said nothing but thought, "What about A Clockwork Orange? What about Trainspotting?") Regardless, the novel reached semi-finalist status in the 2001 William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition, and I've received encouraging comments and advice from the pros. At the time of this writing, I continue to investigate options (university presses, self-publishing, eBooks). Naturally, I hope it's published someday. But the experience of writing it was a high point in my life, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Read an excerpt from the novel
Travel Journal
Lyrics from the CD EP
