Re-introducing myself

Dear Readers,

Substack advises its writers to re-introduce themselves from time to time because many subscribers are new—and they are entering into things mid-stream, especially considering that I started this newsletter more than two years ago.

Also, I’m currently at a writing retreat (a very rare thing for me) in Chautauqua, and I was telling a few of the writers here a story about my first experiences as a “real writer,” and they urged me to write an essay about a couple of stories I told about my early days.

Experiences that were spent in a chicken coop …

But first some context. Before I ended up in the chicken coop, I had the good fortune to study for a semester in France my sophomore year in college. It was good timing because after that semester, I had to declare my major, and my choices formed the forked path that has taunted and riddled me my entire life in one way or another: 1) to be an Economics major; or 2) to be an English major.

Money vs. art. Practicality vs. love. A new car vs. a rusty jalopy. Security vs. risk (and adventure). Or something like that.

When I left for France, things were tilting toward the Econ major part of myself, but then I spent the semester sitting in cafes reading novels written by expat authors about living expat lives and scribbling deep thoughts in my journal—in a very expat way—and I thought to myself, “Sitting in cafes and writing and reading is a pretty good life.”

It seemed as simple as that. So I decided to be an English major. And I decided to be a writer. So when I returned that summer, I decided that I wouldn’t get a job, I’d go to take care of my ailing grandparents and live on their nearby farm. And write.

They’d both gotten too old to live on the farm, and the farm house was too dilapidated to live in, but my grandmother, in a final desperate attempt to stay on the farm, had converted a chicken coop into a little shack with electricity. A one-room shack with a window overlooking the fields.

They lived in a little apartment in the nearby town, New Virginia (population 99 or so), where I slept at night. I outfitted the chicken coop with an old desk and a mini fridge, and I decorated its walls with stray pieces of art.

It was a cozy set-up for creative activities, my first home as a writer. My only tasks were to pick up lunch from the local diner for my grandparents and to take care of 20 or so sheep each day (let them out to graze in the morning and get them back into the barn in the evening … I loved my life as a shepherd/writer).

It was any idyllic summer of writing for the most part. I’d read Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast while in France, and it served as my primer for being a writer. It included wisdom I still think about:

“I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.”

"I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.”

“The only kind of writing is rewriting.”

A Moveable Feast was the beginning of my lifelong meditation on the creative process—the beginning of this newsletter, you might say.

The no. 1 rule I learned that summer: to show up everyday. So I walked from my grandparents’ abode to the farm each morning, sipping a cold bottle of Pepsi on my walk of a mile or so. Like Hemingway, I’d write in the mornings, and then I’d have a fine lunch and spend the afternoons “replenishing myself” by reading for the next day of writing.

Enter danger

On one of these afternoons, I walked out into the nearby field, and I discovered a dead rabbit. I paused to look at it, because it was odd to see a dead, uneaten creature just lying there, but I didn’t think much of it. I rounded up the sheep, like always, counting them as they entered the barn. But I had plans that night: I’d decided to sleep in the chicken coop that night.

It seemed like an innocent enough thing to do, but throughout the night, I heard all kinds of noises. Real or imagined, things hit the roof of the coop. With the banging, the wind, the commotion, I didn’t sleep at all.

When I got up the next day, I opened the door, and … the dead rabbit from the field yesterday was lying right on the door step. How could that dead rabbit have ended up right in front of my doorstep. Perfectly placed.

My grandmother collected antiques, using her meager social security income to go to estate sales with the goal of buying three of each type of item, one for my brother, sister, and me, to furnish our houses someday. A noble pursuit, but one doomed to failure because many of the things she bought either rotted in her house and barns or were stolen. In fact, all 99 people in New Virginia and beyond knew that her house was full of valuable items for the taking, which led me to think …

There was a man living in the house. He saw me staring at the rabbit the previous day. He put the rabbit in front of my door to scare me away.

I called the country sheriff, a man on a career track to be Andy Griffith from Mayberry RFD, who arrived on an otherwise uneventful summer day ready to make it eventful.

Except as I told him the story of the rabbit, I could see trepidation color his eyes. He didn’t want to go into the house. But he knew he had to go into the house. For some reason, I accompanied him, and for some reason, he allowed it. I followed behind as he held his gun in one hand and his flashlight in the other (more like Barney Fife).

His hands were trembling. My hands were trembling.

We walked through the dark house, anticipating a dangerous thief, and I wish there was a dramatic tale to recount, but we didn’t find anything. To this day, though, I think there was someone hiding in the house. I didn’t spend another night in my shack. I looked at the house warily each day as I wrote, feeling someone watching me.

How does this all serve to re-introduce me and this newsletter?

• I learned how to be a writer that summer, to show up and write even though occasionally someone might leave a dead rabbit on your stoop to scare you off.

• I enjoyed writing my stories that summer, but when I showed them to someone to read, she didn’t really get them. But I didn’t care. I had decided to be a writer no matter what, and I knew I’d get better with practice.

• My reader who didn’t get them wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t a good writer. No one had ever told me I was a good writer. No one would compliment my writing for years. But I felt it in me—I felt stories taking shape, a life taking shape, and I wanted to tell it all. When I graduated from college, English major in hand, I decided to be a writer—with no Plan B.

So here I am, nearly 40 years later, after waiting tables, working in bookstores, teaching, being a journalist, a podcaster, an editor, a publisher, a nonprofit executive director, and even an elevator man dressed as a cowboy at a furniture convention, doing anything I could to support my writing and find a writing home.

I’m poor in money, but rich in friends, experiences, and words. I’m a happy writer, which is an odd thing to say because there are other adjectives I would have used in the past before “writer”: desperate, needy, frustrated, envious, alcoholic, solitary, and maybe even lost.

But a big part of my happiness is feeling found, or finding myself, rather. And finding myself with other writers, including the writers who subscribe to this newsletter. I’m thankful for you.

That’s what this newsletter is really about: finding yourself as a writer. And not letting yourself be scared away by dead rabbits.

Because some quotes—by me!

“An artist is by definition a menace to conformity.”

"Good writing requires courage—first to give voice to the truth at the heart of every story, and then to share it with a world of readers. The only way to achieve that is through an openness of spirit that can feel dangerous—or even be dangerous."

"If you put off your dreams today, you create the momentum to put the off all the way to you deathbed.”

Quotes from my book, Pep Talks for Writers.

Please support this newsletter!

I’ve now written more than 120 free newsletters over the years. I love doing this. I want to continue doing it. If you can afford to pay for a subscription, please help me out.

End notes

What I’m reading: The writing retreat I’m at was organized by one of my personal inspirations, Kwame Alexander, and I came here to work on my memoir. I’m reading his wonderful memoir, Why Fathers Cry at Night, which is a lyrical hybrid of bracing, truth, poetry, letters, and recipes. It’s a guide for me to go deeper. To not be afraid. To share.

What I’m watching: Oh, my. Holy moly. Baby Reindeer. One of the best series I’ve seen in a while. An instruction manual in the messiness of being human. Except there are no instructions, and no manual. Beauty, empathy, aspiration, need, truth, lies, drugs, sex, abuse, trauma, love, confusion, and much, much, much more. Read this piece in Vulture.

What I’m listening to: Cucurrucucu Paloma, bu En Vino. I don't need to tell you any more than its lovely title. May all of life be Cucurrucucu.

What I’m photographing: The strange things you find in a wealthy resort …