The creative process for FRIED WINDOWS (and many of my other books) depended on listening to music. Not only does that get me in a creative mood but also it connects me to sources of inspiration, including memories of other times. Where I was the first time I heard a song and with whom I was enamored return, almost as if I am here again. Usually I know exactly what I was doing. Sometimes I remember the song I was listening to when I wrote a particular passage. I tend to listen to older music. It’s from my times. I listen to some newer stuff, too. I’m still a rocker to the core and respect good music.
Although it might be possible to assemble an official soundtrack for each of my books, FRIED WINDOWS was the first time I specifically planted Easter Eggs in the text: lines borrowed from songs, portions of song titles and such. The most overt references are to The Beatles and their music, because the fab four has always been my favorite group by far. Still, there are references to some other Sixties and Seventies artists and their songs from formative years as a writer.
For me, the line between music and literature blurred early on. Like many who have the calling, I felt it in my bones and sought a means to properly express what lurked within. At first I played bass guitar and sang in a rock band. It was one of those HS garage bands (though, in fact, we actually practiced in basements and bedrooms more often than garages). It wasn’t my band, just that I was a member. My true importance might have been that I had access to use my dad’s pickup whenever we needed to haul our stuff to a gig. It was Dave and Rick’s band, brothers who played guitar and drums, respectively. They were pretty good at it, having started playing music much younger than I did. Another member, Chris, played bass before I came along. The entire reason for adding me to the mix was for him to switch over to rhythm guitar, which he claimed to play well. In fact, he claimed he could play lead guitar better than Dave, which was certainly not the case. Those were seed of the underlying conflict that, at times, could be a dynamic force in making all of us play better. Yet, over time, Chris became more a member in principle than fact. After a playing a few fairly important gigs with us, he seemed uninterested in practice. He was spending more and more time with his girlfriend, addressing his hormonal issues. After that, it was Dave, Rick and I who showed for practice. And for many of our later performances we staged a trio.
Along the way, I wrote a poem or two that we turned into a song lyric. Obviously, I wasn’t good enough at it to become professional. But I did my best. Then, early in my HS senior year, there was the one overly ambitious project I did with the help of the other members of the band and my other best friends, Brice and another guy named Rick who everyone who grew up with him called “Fleahead”. We proposed to set the epic poem, Beowulf to music–sort of. And in February of 1974 we actually recorded it for later playback in class. Brice and I received A’s, mainly because no one had ever done anything like it.
With that as the preface to my post high school life, I suppose it is only natural that I have included music in my writing.
Most of my recent writing has been lighter and fluffier, than the dark and moody sci-fi that first I hammered out on my typewriter. I’m that old. I actually composed several of early drafts on a Smith-Corona electric.
Honestly, there is a measure of darkness that creeps into all of my work. There is a good bit of realism in the telling and, let’s face it, life isn’t all about flowers, marshmallows and soft landings. FRIED WINDOWS and BECOMING THUPERMAN both have positive themes driving them, but there is a shadowy element, which will be more fully fleshed out in the sequels.
Right now, the way it is working out, the next installment of Brent Wood’s sojourn involves a trans-dimensional version of New Orleans, a hotel that serves as the transition zone between life and death for legends Rock music has immortalized. In the sequel to BECOMING THUPERMAN, Will enters the creepy old, deserted house further down the street from where he lives and, in the process, he winds up face to face with a much older version of Brent Woods. The series are interconnected in some ways. For example, Will’s mom went to school with Terry Harper who appears here and there in other books where Brent is a main character. Terry is also a minor character with a major effect on events in THE WOLFCAT CHRONICLES, new series coming Fall 2017—wheel within wheels.
Here’s the overarching theme of everything I write: there is magic in the world and, though it is concealed from most of us, it is probably the only thing in the world that is real. Because of it, anything is possible for those who know how to access it. To others, the magic may appear as ironic underpinnings of serendipitous happenstance but it is always there as the binding force that keeps everything together. When you think about it, that’s a pretty great premise for writing books.
My earlier stuff suffered through frustrations in adulting. It’s no secret that usually life doesn’t turn out exactly the way we want. Sometimes that is a good thing, because we cannot foresee all the pitfalls ahead and the other consequences of what we do in the present. I’ve taken some mental adventures in time travel alongside my characters, going back to fix this or that and wrestling with the aftermath. You know about that theory. Change the past and you change everything else. It was an enlightening exercise, though, and beneficial to me as a writer. In the end, I realized that the present is the only moment that is essential to the telling of any story. The past fills in with backstory elements, like flashbacks or another, older character’s remembrances. The future is a wispy dream full of potential and hope but little, if any, substance. It is completely malleable for the purposes of plot. You can change the future with a little help from friends.
After a few forays in time travel, through the catharsis of sharing experiences with my characters, I arrived at a level of peace with how things in my own life turned out. It wasn’t always great but it’s acceptable. And sometimes it has been fun. And I know that if too many things had been different I probably wouldn’t be a writer. Also, I might not be alive. And, I wouldn’t know all the wonderful people I’ve met who are also authors. I don’t think I’d like to be stuck in a world without the interactions with creative others.
A lot of people I know, those who have been with me for long enough to have witnessed the phases in my evolution, probably think that somewhere along the way I lost it, totally. I didn’t, not really. You see, that would presume that I ever had any of it in the first place, right? No one had to drive me crazy since, as someone who appears to be born to write, I was always within walking distance.
There was an extended period during the 80’s and 90’s that I was practical, or a least pretending to be pragmatic. That damned near killed me, not once but at least twice. After many years of avoiding the truth, it finally became clear that I was intended to be a writer, just that I had been avoiding it ever since I threw away 20,000 pages of utter crap that was my journals and feinted starts for books. Once I discovered that all I needed to do was start writing without a care in the world for whether anyone would ever read it, I was on my way. Sounds easy when stated like that, I know. It was anything but, I assure you. Doing anything creative can be painful, but it is also rewarding if you do it right.
I used to give a couple of craps about what others think of me. Lately, not so much. Along the way, I figured out that I couldn’t afford the attention I was paying to keeping track of what others think. So, I don’t care that people think I’m crazy, or that I’m a fool for turning my back on a promising career in management—heavy on the promises but not the rewards.
Now, I ride a bike—the pedal kind. It gets to and from my other job, the necessary evil I need to pay bills until…whatever and whenever. What I do apart from writing pays bills so that I can carve out enough time and space for writing. I’m too fond of food to be a starving artist. But it became vitally necessary in pursuit of my art to pare expenses to a bare minimum. I’m fortunate that I figured out how to do that, even if it is a daily struggle.
Certainly, riding a bike is good cardio and it reduces my carbon footprint. I have environmental concerns like everyone should. Who wants to swim in one’s own toilet and sleep on one’s own trash heap? But, being totally honest here, that’s not why I ride a bike. The real reason I bike everywhere is that I don’t have the expense of a car: gas, oil, maintenance, insurance and loan payments.
I rent a room in a house. I live with three other adults. It’s an arrangement of convenience and we get along well because we stay out of one another’s business—in as much as that is possible while living in the same house and sharing the space of common areas. That works well for me in what has become my minimalist adventure. Since my kids are grown and on their own and my ex-wife does whatever she does, I’m on my own for the first time since I was in my late 20’s. Occasionally my path crosses with others from the past iterations of my life. I even run into my ex from time to time, usually around holidays, but not often enough to be a major bother. There are some waves along the way but usually everything works out.
No one in his or her right mind approaches art with the intention of making a living at doing it. At best, you can only hope that writing will supplement income derived from doing other things. But if you really, truly and honestly want to be a writer for a living, you have to give up a lot of other things—maybe even everything else—until you arrive.