Life is Daily
My mother is fond of the saying, “Life sure is daily.” When I was younger, the sentiment seemed so silly to me. Of course life is daily! We live day in and day out! But the older I get, the better I understand. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that I’ve painted myself into a corner. This is not one of those writing situations where it feels like there’s no way out. What I’ve done is set the stage for another monumentally emotional and difficult scene that draws on disparate elements and experiences of my own life that I have to mine for this next section, and I’m terrified of it.
My main character, Paul, is about to have a heavy conversation with the auntie who raised him, and family secrets will be revealed. He will also have to confront elements of his past that everyone around him has worked to ensure he doesn’t have to engage with. He’ll also have to confront the suffering and injury of someone he dearly loves, and I wish I didn’t know what that feels like.
This work is so much fun. I’m so fortunate to be able to do it, but sometimes it’s brutally hard, and this is one of those. I feel restless, out-of-sorts, and a little angry with myself that I was not consciously aware of what I was preparing for as I set this scene up. It’s not absent from the outline from which I’m working, but I wrote that outline before my brother died, before my other brother went through a health crisis in January that brought me in a rush to his bedside in Atlanta even as the terrorist attack was unfolding in New Orleans.
I’m 45 years old, and on Monday, my father turned 81. I revere him. He has taught me so much about what it means to be a man, what it means to show up for your community, your family, your loved-ones. One thing I’m coming to terms with at this stage of my life is the mortality of my loved ones, and stepping into the role care requires of me. Dad is still sharp, still active in all our lives, but I’ve reached the age where I can’t look to him, to the rest of the elder generation to take care of me, of all us younger ones, the way they used to.
I don’t know what audiences will make of Dead End Boys. I’ve heard it said that creating work specific to one’s own life and circumstance is the best way to approach broad appeal. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like a choice to do that, but I know it is. It is true that in order to write fiction anyone cares about, I’ve had to create work that’s about more than itself, but it was never required of me to be a professional fiction writer. That’s a choice I made because of the encouragement and instruction I received, the way my favorite (and least favorite) stories made me feel over the years, and the movement of my spirit. I could have done any number of things if I hadn’t committed myself to this so fully that it made me no good for most other things. This novel is just as personal as my last one, even if it will be shorter and sleeker. Will as many people enjoy it?
Today, I signed the contract to teach writing at Buck’s Rock Performing Arts camp all summer. I’ll be going straight there to join Kechi after teaching at the Stonecoast Summer Residency in Maine this June, and speaking at commencement, and then from there, we’ll head to Chicago where I’ll begin the Litowitz MA/MFA in the Fall. All of this is wonderful, but it’s also terrifying with all the grief, the pain, the uncertainty in our lives. We’re currently preparing to move out of our Baton Rouge house, months earlier than we originally intended. Sometimes it feels like there’s been no break from the earth-shaking life events since 2020, and I’m just lucky that so many of them have been positive, that I came through alive and with my abilities still on the upswing. I’m tremendously unfortunate that I learned a long time ago that when the work feels frightening, that means I’m moving in the right direction.
Well. Wish me luck.