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After an evening of reflection and a few wonderful conversations with my good friend Max, I’ve come to quite a few conclusions. Not all of them are about writing or my own work, so I’ll save them for a later post and get down to the meat of it.

I’m finally, seriously, going to go ahead with publishing my novel. The first step in doing so, though, is finally admitting to myself that I’m not going to publish it as a novel. The work is a memoir, one covering about four years of my life, that I had always planned as releasing as a novel. I planned on changing some of the names and places just to make it a bit less obvious, but anyone who knows me would be able to figure it out rather quickly.

The way I see it now, there really is no point in doing that as I would just be lying to myself and my readers by trying to pass the work off as fiction. It’s a true story, all of it, and it’s a wonderful story. That’s the reason I wrote it. I thought it was a story worth chronicling and preserving in writing, and as a writer I had the means to do it. Who knows, maybe revealing that it is a true story will add some impact to it for my readers. I can only hope that will be the case.

So this is it. This is my formal, official announcement, that I will be pursuing the publication of my currently unpublished memoir, It’s a Love Story. I am likely to follow the same route that my good friend J. Elliot Riley did with his novel, Dangerous Clay, and publish the book for e-readers with a print on demand version, but of course that is all speculation at this point.

At some point in the future I’ll post a few glimpses of the memoir for you all to read as previews. Hopefully they’ll generate some feedback and interest in the work.

Come to think of it, It’s a Love Story: A Memoir has a nice ring to it.

I take it you’ve seen at least one sports movie in your life. Something like Remember the Titans or The Mighty Ducks, one of those movies about the dysfunctional team that pulls it together to win the big game and make history.

Did you ever notice that in those movies, once the coach has finally garnered the respect of his players, they have some sort of montage or music scene where we see the team training and going “back to the basics?” Writing is the same way.
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Although I have written a novel that I have done absolutely nothing with (it sits on my computer staring at me anytime I open my “Writing” folder), I feel oddly compelled to share the start of my next work with you all. For reasons unknown to me, I feel as though I have to let It’s a Love Story (the aforementioned first novel) sit and ferment for a while before I release it to viewing eyes. Fear not, though, as this is not me embracing “total avoidance.” To be perfectly honest, I feel as though It’s a Love Story just isn’t finished yet, like there is more work to be done. As some of you already know, it’s an extremely personal story, which probably fuels my desire to leave it in the dark until I feel it has reached a specific point.

My second novel, however, is one that I want to share with people as much as possible. I wrote the first chapter (that I will share with you after the jump) about two years back and didn’t look at it again until a year ago. Looking for something to scrounge up for my Creative Non-Fiction class I picked the the first chapter (which is very loosely based in non-fiction) and presented it to my class. To my surprise and pleasure, it was a hit! The class was roaring with approval and I had never before received such an onslaught of compliments regarding my writing. It was truly a victorious day for me.

Before I make the jump to the chapter itself I must share the tale of how this story came to be. It is rather elegant in its simplicity and I love sharing the moment with others. About two years ago, while waiting for a game of poker to kick off between my friends and I, I was sitting in my backyard engaged in a conversation with three of my friends. We were sitting around the circular glass table that my family still owns when the conversation eventually broke into two separate ones. I was engaged with my friend directly in front of me, while my friends to my left and right were engaged in each other. For all intents and purposes our conversations were criss-crossing each other yet unable to intrude upon either.

Then it happened. The two conversations came together in a wonderful moment of linguistic beauty. In the conversation I was not apart of, my good friend Mike said what later became the opening sentence to this chapter. Immediately after his sentence concluded, I said what was to become the second sentence of the chapter. Together they formed a perfect combination of both seriousness and hilarity, and it was at that moment I became determined to use those sentences to form the opening line of this upcoming novel.

Enjoy.
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In his most recent blog, my good friend Max Cantor discusses the relationship between marketing and products as it pertains to creative people. As he puts it, “all creative people–hackers, writers, painters–are tempted to engage in the conceit of ‘marketing avoidance.’” I can certainly say from my own experience that I share this sentiment and would even challenge it further. For some creative types, especially writers, I feel there is another level below “marketing avoidance.” Although “marketing avoidance” is certainly detrimental to writing as a profession, that level just below can be far more damaging to a writer as a whole.

The way I perceive it, there are three levels of avoidance that a writer can engage in. The top level, and least damaging to avoid, would be “critic avoidance.” Moving down the ladder we come to the already discussed “market avoidance.” The third level, however, is the most dangerous to a writer and should be avoided at all costs: “total avoidance.” Every writer has experienced it at least once in their writing career, the horrible moment in which you want to hide your writing away forever, leaving it only for archaeologists to dig up long after you and your descendants have long since passed and can avoid any kind of judgement.

While this kind of mindset may be fruitful for those to come one thousand years in the future, what good does it do you now? What is the point of writing if you are not showing it to anyone?
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