Tuesday 12/31/24
I don't normally say I'm proud of anything I've created because that's not how I operate. Each time I write a work of fiction, I expect it to be the best thing anyone's ever done--with anything--and then I execute. I have expectations for myself and the work and I meet them. Then I do the next, the concurrent, both. I keep going, I keep doing it.
But I wanted to put up an entry here in acknowledgement of a story I just finished, which came together quickly. Each year, I endeavor to write a story to give to people at Christmas. It's not limited to Christmas. I wouldn't do that. For me, a work has to be for all-time.
I didn't think this was going to happen this year, simply because I'd run out of time. The something very special came to me one night. I lay in bed putting it together in my head, woke up the next morning and was at the desk within a minute of opening my eyes, and the story was written.
I then worked on it each day. It got 500 words longer. I kept working and working and working. And then I had something that's so good, so moving, so magical, so powerful, that I found myself taken abac, and as I said, I have those expectations for myself and my work.
The story is called "Thank You, Human--a Bedtime Story," and it's going to be a part of There Is No Doubt: Story Girls.
There's no one before me just as there will be no one after me who could have written this. You couldn't have something more different than all of the lifeless, MFA-machined nothingness that the people of the publishing system produce. You can't even call both what I do and what they do writing. They're totally different things.
The story transpires wholly in dialogue between a mother and her four-year-old daughter as the former puts the latter to bed with a bedtime story. Every line is between quotation marks. There's no third person narrator serving as master of ceremonies, saying so and so had this look on her face, or so and so moved in such and such a way. And it's a very physical story, too--body position is important, and movement--but all of that has to be conveyed naturally---that is, not expositionally--and there isn't anyone else who could have done that.
The mother tells her daughter a story about a female penguin who is four apples tall and a woman we presume is a scientist. That's one story. The other story unfolds through the dynamic we experience between the girl and her mother. You could say it's a story about four "girls," but it's also a story about all girls and women, and really all of us. The design of the story is so sophisticated, and yet, a child could understand it and a genius could think about it every day of their life.
Other characters find their ways into these stories--daddy, grandma and grandpa, Toby the dog, a boy from the girl's preschool. It is true--I am so proud of this work. It starts in media res--we come in after the story about the penguin and the scientist has been going for a bit. Very rarely do things have an official beginning. They're always kind of already going. That's life. It doesn't do to clear your throat at the front of a story. The beginning and the start of the story are not the same things. Writers usually don't understand this. But even though this story starts in the middle--there's no once upon a time--a child who is either reading the story or having it read to them isn't left behind. I made it so it'd be that way. Very carefully. With great intention that was then carried out in the workings of the story and the language and the absurd level of sophistication of the design. And yet--and because of this--it's so easy to read.
Then there's something else. The story is designed so that it brings people closer together. Even physically. They are likely to read it together, taking up parts. They're going to end up being these characters.
Where would you ever see such wonder and magic with all off the slop of this system? What this is isn't even allowed in that system. I sent this story to Image--a so-called literary journal of faith--primarily for legal reasons, so I can say things I will say on here in a string of exposing entries that easily prove what is undeniably, indefensibly discrimination. But there is no one in the system who wants the world to see the likes of this, because it's so far beyond what anyone in that system can do or offer the world. The world, unfortunately, just doesn't get to see this right now because of yet I do not have a way to get this to the world, however much the world might make of it if the world knew of it, was able to experience it.
I'm not sure how many times I've read the story, but each time I was moved to tears. Even if it was for the fifth time in a row as I tried to make sure everything was just right. With what I'm doing, the way I do it, every last letter is so important; every last bit of black of every last letter. Everything in there. The shapes, the shapes within the shapes, the notes, the white, what's happening in one part of the brain and what is felt but not seen in another.
I sent it to some people I know--most of whom acted like I didn't send it at all (without so much as a thank you or any acknowledgement whatsoever; because that's how people are; if something is stupid, and it comes from an ordinary person, they'll say something; if it's something of substance, from someone who is not an ordinary person, they won't; the more substantial that thing is, and the less ordinary the person behind it is is, the less likely anyone is to say anything; that's just how it works; some of these same people would acknowledge, say, a picture of a puddle I posted on Instagram; but something of this beauty, depth, and love that was also offered as a gift to them and theirs?--nope; it makes me feel horrible, but I already feel horrible, so its just horrible on top of horrible; and it took real work on my part to get this done when I got it done)--as per this idea of gift giving, with this letter:
Hello, all,
Here is this year's story for Christmas, which is called "Thank You, Human--a Bedtime Story." As some of you may know from the blog--and if you're not reading the blog, the single longest work of literature in history at four million words and counting, then what are you waiting for?--I try to write a story appropriate for the season and then give it to people at Christmas. I didn't do one last year. The year before was "Best Present Ever." I wouldn't write anything solely to give it as a gift, admittedly; just to give it as a gift. Everything I write is for my books. Then again...in the bigger sense...But I do make an effort--which for me means a huge effort--to have such a story as I just described at this time of the year. This one here will likely go into There Is No Doubt: Story Girls. It's a story about four girls, I guess you could say, one of whom is a penguin, but it's really about everyone, because it's by me. You may wish, after you've read it, to read it aloud with someone; I think you'll know how that should probably work. Anyway. I intend to spend Christmas working on "Finder of Views" for Big Asks: Six Novelettes About Acceptance, and later you will think, "I can't believe there was ever a human who could write that, and that this human sat there alone on one Christmas working on it, which was the same Christmas they sent me 'Thank you, Human.'" But I am me, and this is who I am. I wish you all peace, and that you may be the best that you can possibly be. Colin
On the subject of Christmas and gifts, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote this:
"Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it restores society in so far to the primary basis, when a man’s biography is conveyed in his gift, and every man’s wealth is an index of his merit."
He doesn't mean bleed as in blood; he means giving of one's self in a manner that is also more than one's self. (And merit--wow, what a concept. Imagine that, eh, publishing?)
He's correct. And this is also what any truly great work of writing does. And any truly great work of art. Such an idea has never and will never come up in an MFA program, with students or instructors, because those people just don't get it in the least and it's not something they could ever do and it's not why they're there. None of them are there--and not one of them writes--for what is the actual point of it all.
Which is this. And what this story does.
A writer/professor texted me to say that it was sensational, which meant something to me. My sister read it with my eight-year-old niece--each taking a part--and said, "We both gave each other a big hug at the end, and it made me feel so connected to her."
That's what the story is supposed to do. It's about connection and fostering connection and lifting people up and helping them become who they are or can be.
To quote the story: "Gurple."
The funny thing about what I just wrote there is that for someone who has read the story, or for someone who has read the story later, whenever that is, that word alone--that made up word--will be enough to make them cry after the fact.
That was and is something else. Truly something else. I just wanted to acknowledge that with this story here for the final entry of this journal of the year 2024. I love this story so much.
“But what about the penguin? What were they doing?”
“What they were doing was the last thing they were going to do together. In a way. But in another way, when a person does something for someone, that thing doesn’t stop. It goes on and becomes a part of all of these other things that the person who was helped is able to do and maybe gets to be because of what that other person did for them. Or what they do for someone.”
“Or something?”
“Hmmm. Yes. I hadn’t thought of that, but for something, too. Anything that helps someone or something.”
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