In the Winter of 2004 I followed Carrie to New York to attend graduate school at Columbia University. Everyone thought that I had just completed my English degree at the University of Arkansas Little Rock and, to be perfectly honest, I had tried very, very hard. I had withdrawn the semester prior after a series of unfortunate events involving my introductions to generalized anxiety disorder, panic attacks, and migraines from being poorly medicated. It would be negligent to overlook my own laziness and bad management, so let us throw that in there too.
This image was pulled from a large pdf backup of the first blog I ever had, Imperium Regalit. The images are garbage, but all of that stuff was lost in a hard drive crash on the last PC I owned. Here I am in an undisclosed Ithaca stairwell smoking with a large cup of rotgut whiskey and water.
When I say that I kept this from everyone, I mean everyone. Never have I ever protected a secret so well. Not even in the dim light of the handful of Little Rock bars I would haunt, at the end of nights surrounded by strangers and filled with whiskey and beer, had I unburdened myself of this knowledge. No one knew but me. So, I decided I would go with Carrie to New York and start over. What a better place, right?
But, my plan had a detour. Dear friend and former Stella Bella accomplice, John Hicks was living in Ithaca and working on his PhD. He invited me to live in his spare bedroom for a pittance, to enjoy the solitude and cold of the gorges, and to write my novel and keep him company in the dark of the north before making the dive into New York City life. Carrie wasn't crazy about it. She rightfully questioned the logistics of going from living two hours apart in Memphis and Little Rock to living six hours apart in the Northeast.
More terrible resolutions from Imperium Regalit but worth including because Carrie and I were BABIES. Also, Carrie called these my “Dirtbag” sunglasses.
Proof that work was being done (more from Imperium Regalit). I still use yellow legal pads. This was the inception of my “many piles on the made bed” organizational method.
But, I was going to write my novel. I was going to contribute my verse. I spent the months leading up to the move meticulously outlining and planning, ready to begin page one after I got settled. I packed everything I owned (which was a handful of books, a computer, some clothes, and a guitar Mark Stuart and I had sold back and forth a half dozen times) and drove my father’s hand-me-down Ford Taurus to Ithaca.
I did write a novel though. Or, at least, I wrote a wandering and verbose first draft of a novel. I know it was garbage. I have gone back and reread parts of it and it is embarassingly adorable. There are parts, glimmers of it that read well. There are passages, I will proudly admit, that I admire and feel unable to achieve at this point in my development as a writer. But the rest rambles without a destination.
I post this not as a brag, but as a request. I post this because I know that I am creature of starts and new ideas and very, very rarely of completing or following through on things. I am a beast of elaborate plans and systems for success that are fated to be abandoned at the first hints of frustration. I have spent my life trying to improve on this, but my systems to improve only remind me of the cyclical permanence of my self-fulfilled fate.
A lot has happened since my first attempt, though. Most of the important and impactful events of my life have happened. I impressed myself a few times and have grown into a someone I am more proud of being. I have seen success in a few places and gained a modicum of respect from my peers and friends. This, more than anything, means the most. I don't know if you people know how much this means. I am a writer beyond just the moniker meaning "one who writes." I have published poems and short stories and a mass of banal articles for local publications. I get paid (a little) to write. Hundreds of hours in workshops and the guidance of some pretty staggering folks has helped, I think.
So I am doing this. I started it in late January and I have been making progress. I have drafts of three chapters and much more outlined. I have spent showers world building and rushed out soaking in a towel to scratch down lines and ideas before they went away (Like I said, I am better at it now). I am aiming for at least 250 pages for this project and judging by my previous vicious editings attempts, I think that means that I need to hit 345 pages of a draft. I am working on it.
I feel like it is hubris to discuss too closely a work in progress, but I will say that this novel is set in midcoast Maine and considers collective grief vs personal grief, our responsibility to use the time we have in an accepted-to-be-meaningful manner, the duty to those who have come before us to bring us here, Tolkien, the Challenger, and maybe just a little bit of Magic the Gathering. I am excited about it. It is fun to think about. Writing is torture, but the work is rewarding.
I am getting up early to chip away at it. I am squeezing it in before my work day begins. I am in Maine writing about Maine and I will be damned if that isn't one of the privileges of my life.
This is where it is happening. Ben Wojtyna built the most delightful and interminable desk I could hope for and working here is a dream and I don’t really want to write anywhere else.
My mother has often asked me to revisit that first novel attempt, Irish Catherine, which was loosely based on her mother. I know that I never will. I learned almost as much failing on that as I did in my entire MFA program. It was an effort and I am ok with that. Right now, I am listening to Broken Social Scene's record You Forgot it in People which would soundtrack each of my Ithaca writing sessions in 2005. There is a continuity, a narrative, if you will, in all that we do. Nothing is by itself. None of us are by ourselves in this.
So, bug me about my novel. Ask me how it’s going and I will also try to share unprodded. Hopefully before the fall I will have the manuscript that I have been waiting my entire life for. Thanks for reading, folks.
"We encourage all who endevour." -Christie Hodgen