Writing in the Green Light

Posted on May 22, 2012 by fsdthreshold

Imagine showing up for work at 6:30 a.m., and your boss says, “It’s a beautiful spring day. Instead of working here, go get your AlphaSmart Neo, head out to a park, and spend the day writing.”

Well, that’s not exactly what my foreman said on Monday. It was actually more along the lines of telling us how a crucial belt had broken at 1:00 a.m., and the company didn’t have one to replace it, so all of us line workers would have to go home. But of course, what I heard was the gist of the first paragraph.

Frick Park, Pittsburgh

As far as I’ve been able to tell thus far, Frick is the King of Pittsburgh Parks (though, granted, I haven’t yet visited Schenley). Named for Henry Clay Frick, the park officially opened in 1927. It has expanded greatly over the years as surrounding acres were acquired. Now it’s a woodland paradise of trails for hiking and tables for writing.

Inspiring scenery abounds in Frick Park.

To reach my favorite writing place, I follow the Homewood Trail and then the Tranquil Trail.

This is near the top end of the Homewood Trail.

I’ve been to the park on weekends before and thought a Monday might be less crowded, but it was only slightly less so. It’s a popular park!

Here's my "office" in Frick Park.

This little table is just far enough off Tranquil Trail that the runners and dog-walkers aren’t passing just beside me, though dogs will often come running up to say hi — which is fine — I like dogs. One lady who talked to me called this roofed table “the Schoolhouse.” She said it was placed here by a Charter School, and the students sometimes study here. She said, “Well, you’re kind of doing schoolwork, too!”

The AlphaSmart Neo, faithful workhorse of first drafts, is pictured here laying down part of Chapter 12 of the novel-in-progress.

A good friend and fellow writer told me yesterday that he has finally joined the ranks of AlphaSmart Neo users! I’m telling you all — the Neo is unequaled!

The emerald glow of spring lights the writing spaces of Frick Park in Pittsburgh.

I stayed in the park for about five hours on Monday and turned out 1,846 words. That’s not spectacular; I was writing a slower section that’s moving into the next point of tension. But it’s spectacular for a day when I thought I’d be working the paper line at my job!

Sunlight dapples a stone wall at Frick Park.

I even had the lunch I’d packed for work!

Middle-May in the Uncanny City: not a bad season!

When I was in Frick Park on Saturday, I encountered a large black snake about three feet long. He (?) crawled across the path in front of me, coming up the hill to investigate a ditch beside the path — or maybe he was returning home from hunting downslope. I waited for him to get past. That’s the first snake I’ve seen in several years.

Can one take enough pictures of stone walls in the forest?

What you see below is what seems to be a deliberately-constructed shelter of tree limbs leaned against a tree trunk:

Who built this lean-to structure in Frick Park?

Here’s another view:

Or is it a shelter at all? Maybe it's just sticks leaned against a tree. But there is room for a smallish person to huddle inside.

Frick Park belongs on the list of Pittsburgh’s best locations. Lord willing, I hope to spend a lot of time there this summer! I’ve hardly begun to explore its miles of trails.

Frick Park, Pittsburgh

 

 

Hardhats

Posted on May 10, 2012 by fsdthreshold

The machines were running smoothly today. (For any readers who don’t know where I work, please refer to the blog entry before last, the one entitled “Green Star Rising.”) Wet conditions have a tendency to jam the belts. When the system goes down, the bosses usually send us downstairs to do cleanup work until it gets running again. We would all prefer to be working the lines as usual. Cleanup involves finding work to do even when there’s sometimes no work to be done, and various passing superiors will give you conflicting orders, and you’re not sure which ones to obey. You pretty much obey the orders of whichever superior is watching.

Anyway, today all sorts of stuff came down the chute. I saw a rubber snake go by (fortunately, I could tell at a glance that it was rubber). There were lots of clothes: shirts, pants, shoes, boots, hats . . . An unfurled umbrella twirled along my side of the belt, so I grabbed it and closed it before stuffing it into my trash bin. A spool of wire bounced from the inflow, with the wire’s end snagged somewhere above. The spool wasn’t close enough for either Blue or me to get hold of, so it danced and spun at the mouth of the chute, hopping and hopping as the wire unwound, presumably wrapping around and around the spindle above. When all the wire was gone, the spool rolled over to me, and I put it to rest. I’m sure someone at some point will have to unwrap all that wire from the machinery.

Today was the first day I felt that I needed a hardhat. At least twice, objects of substantial weight bounced off my head — probably pieces of glass. And there were many smaller pings. A new guy working behind us, farther down the belt, said something hit him on the head even at that distance. Blue says as the weather heats up, the trash is looser and bouncier, so we can expect a lot more of this in the days to come.

Generally, you can hear objects before you see them. When there’s an ominous boom or crash on the belt, Blue and I duck our heads and turn away, especially if the impact is followed by shattering. Then we look back to see what has emerged. Sometimes it’s unidentifiable machinery. Sometimes it’s broken furniture, a heavy can, a bottle, or a metal pipe. Today I encountered the floor mat from a car.

I saw my third Greenstar rat today. This one looked bigger and heavier than the first two, and was in less hurry to get away. Some of the guys on another line were talking about a rat that scurried down their conveyor belt! They said it headed right for one of the men, and his eyes got as big as his hardhat! Maybe I should get myself some little stickers and put one on my hat each time I sight a rat . . .

But anyway, the incident I really wanted to write about occurred toward the end of the day. The man working behind me fished from the trash an American flag. Amazingly, it looked pristine, the colors vibrant. (Most of the trash is grimy.) The guy who found it was amazed, wondering what to do with it. (I understood his feeling — the other day, a Native American dreamcatcher rolled into my hand, and I didn’t like the symbolism of throwing it away, so I placed it on the “shelf” behind me — a horizontal steel girder against the wall where we put things that may prove useful.)

Well, Blue asked for it, and very earnestly told me, “Get that flag for me.” The guy who found it said, “It’s only got thirteen stars.” Blue said, “I don’t care.” So the first guy brought it to me, and I handed it across the belt to Blue, being very careful not to let any part of the flag touch the dirty conveyor belt. Blue was equally careful.

To fully appreciate the story, you’d have to see the solemnity with which we did it. All hooting and yelling over the noise stopped, and the others stood quietly and watched. I also know from an earlier conversation with Blue that he will take care of that flag and find a way to display it with honor. It may sound corny to you, but as I reflect on the day, it was one of those American moments when what’s being done transcends the time and the setting. Here we were, three guys of three different ethnic backgrounds, laboring among the refuse of a major city. In a place where men joke, horse around, and speak in the coarsest language, we worked together very seriously — almost ceremonially — to keep our country’s flag from going down the garbage chute. I wish you could have seen it.

It was a good day at work.

Excelsior!

Posted on May 6, 2012 by fsdthreshold

“Excelsior!” is a word our Latin teacher loved to write on his course syllabus. It reminded us to strive ever upward, to do our best and then some. Two writer friends (Gabe and Nick) and I also use the word as a closing greeting when we correspond.

Marquee Movies tells me that the “super moon” tonight is a once-in-eighteen-years phenomenon, bigger and brighter than a usual full moon. Maybe the moon had an influence on the “excelsior” writing day I had today — this, by grace, was a Saturday as Saturdays should be done!

Grandview Park on Mt. Washington

Thanks to the new lifestyle patterns imposed by my job, I was able to get going and be out of the house by 9:00, something I never would have dreamed of doing a month ago! But when my weekdays start at about 5:20 a.m., sleeping in till 8:00 felt positively luxurious!

There is no machine for writing first drafts like the AlphaSmart Neo, whose praises I have sung before — a full-sized keyboard, visible screen, virtually endless battery life, portability, durability, simplicity, compatibility with either a PC or a Mac . . . and no distracting Internet connection. The Neo is a true friend who says, “When you’re with me, you’re writing.”

The entrance to Grandview Park

So I packed up my Neo and my notes on the novel, stopped at a Sunoco station for breakfast and coffee, and drove up to Grandview Park on Mt. Washington. The entrance commands a fine view of downtown Pittsburgh.

The view from Mt. Washington

That would be the Monongahela River, I guess. In the center on the horizon is the Cathedral of Learning.

Downtown Pittsburgh

I’m told that that building on the left has been used in the Batman movies.

The Confluence

That yellow bridge is the Fort Pitt Bridge, which I most often cross. The Allegheny joins the Monongahela at that point to form the Ohio River, which flows up toward where I live.

Outdoor office

First I hiked through the woods, looking for a good place to write. I found this picnic table and set up shop. I wrote here for a couple hours, then hiked some more. The rain held off. Eventually, the sun came out, and it was a perfect summer day in early May!

Civilized upper section of Grandview Park

Grandview Park is located on a forested mountainside above the river. So at the top, there are park-like sections such as this. But below, trails wind through the wild wood.

Down into the greenwood

Crumbling human-wrought blocks and stairways mingle with natural outcroppings, all blanketed by trees and leaves.

The beauty of wood

Bars across the sky

The beauty of light

The beauty of wrought stone

Green walls in shadow

The beauty of pathways

 

Emerald vaults

The beauty of natural stone

 

The beauty of roots

 

The beauty of the forest floor

 

Evidence of a fire against the rock wall

 

Washed-down soil comes to rest

The beauty of cloven rocks

The beauty of oak and maple, beech, elm, sycamore . . .

 

Root city

Above the trail, an old grandmother oak spreads her apron of roots. She mutters tales to all that has life and breath around her.

So I wandered back to that same picnic table, having found it to be the best writing spot in the park after all, though I searched far and wide, and found many a spot that was best in another category. I wrote more, stopped in briefly at home, then packed up a folding chair and drove to St. Mary’s Cemetery on the hill-top and wrote more there until dusk.

All told, I turned out 3,519 good words today — a feat I have not accomplished since Japan, when I had half of each week for writing. It was a day outdoors, where the birds sing and the light glows. It was a day at the keyboard. It was a day immersed in the imaginary world of my book. The best of three worlds!

Excelsior! All glory and thanks to God!

May 5, 2012: writing in Grandview Park

 

 

 

Crossing into Spring

Posted on April 29, 2012 by fsdthreshold

Here we are on the threshold of May, and I’m delighted to report that I have started writing again! I mean, actually writing — as in putting words onto the screen, not just thinking about it or feeling like it! The fulness of time has come, I’m finding the life rhythm again, by grace, and I’m excited about The House of the Worm. Perhaps the great engines turning in the House of the Rat (Greenstar Recycling) are helping the story wheels to turn. (I still haven’t sighted a rat there, but one of the guys told me that he spotted one sitting in the doorway of the grand recycling hall while we were outdoors on lunch break. He said he looked carefully to assure himself it wasn’t a cat. That’s how big it was. There is a cat that slinks about through the building, who is of such a color that s/he blends in to the surroundings and is nearly invisible. The cat has a haunted aspect . . . which probably comes from living alongside giant rats.)

Before I forget: I discovered the word “littoral” the other day. As an adjective, it means “pertaining to the shore of a lake, sea, or ocean.” As a noun, it means a littoral region. It’s from the Latin litus,  meaning “shore.” So I plan to drop “littoral” into conversations when possible, as in, “I littorally went fishing.” Or, “This is a littoral rock.” When writing such things, I have to hold the computer’s automatic spell-corrector back. It thinks I mean “literally” or “literal.” I think people will frown at me for various reasons.

Anyway, with many thanks to Daylily for providing them, here are some photos of our recent book event:

Frederic S. Durbin and Dorothy VanAndel Frisch, April 21, 2012

This event took place at Beyond Bedtime Books in Pittsburgh on April 21st. I was present to do a brief reading from The Star Shard and to sign copies, and Dorothy VanAndel Frisch brought her keyboard and amp, and she played and sang the book’s two songs that she set to music. Her performance was amazing, and the audience was spellbound. For accompaniment to “The Green Leaves of Eireigh,” the composer chose a harp effect, and for “Blue Were Her Eyes,” a guitar that evoked a distant time and place, and may well have been the voice of those unnamed stringed instruments played by Bobbin and Argent in the book. Both choices were ideally suited to the settings, and Dorothy has a beautiful voice. The day was rainy and cold, but the narrow walls of the bookstore opened that afternoon into the wide lands through which the Thunder Rake rolls, bordering Faery itself. Good times! It was a tremendous honor to meet Dorothy in person for the first time. And I’m still in awe of the fact that a composer of her caliber has taken the time to set poems from this book, so that readers can go to their instruments and play for themselves the songs of The Star Shard!

Dorothy VanAndel Frisch performs music from THE STAR SHARD at Beyond Bedtime Books, Pittsburgh.

This Thursday, there’s a concert in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. (See the home page of my web site for details!) A high-school women’s choir is performing Dorothy’s “The Green Leaves of Eireigh,” which she has arranged for full chorus and instrumental accompaniment! I wish I could be there to hear it!

As for writing again after a long dry spell, here’s something I wrote just this evening to encourage a writer friend who is struggling and blocked on a project:

“Sometimes stories just require their own time. All in all, I think it’s best not to worry about them. We keep on living, loving, reading, doing our things, and in time, the stories emerge like arrowheads from the soil of plowed fields. (Does that analogy make sense? My uncle collected hundreds and hundreds of native American flint arrowheads from his fields — he was a farmer in the Taylorville area. When he plowed in the spring, the arrowheads would work their way to the surface. Then if there was a rain right after plowing, the arrowheads would be washed off and gleaming white against the brown-black earth. Writing is like that. We need the time, the plowing, and the rain. The plowing is the dark, churning storms of our lives, the harrowing . . . there’s actually a farm implement called a harrow! The rain is God’s grace, which cleans things off and makes things shine. It can make things obvious that we’ve been missing.)”

Crossing into spring . . . yes, the Christian play on words is a conscious one there. We’ve passed Lent and have Easter shining behind us. We walk by grace, and the harrow comes, and then the rain.

 

Green Star Rising

Posted on April 18, 2012 by fsdthreshold

So, I just finished my third day of work at Greenstar Recycling. The staffing boss took some convincing that I really wanted to try it. He warned me that the job would be “unpleasant”; he warned me that I would be working with “mostly felons” — many of the temp guys there have just gotten out of jail. I knew it would be dirty and gritty and minimum-wage.

I did not expect to fall in love with it. But that’s pretty much what’s happened. You may not believe me, but it’s absolutely true: I’m having a fantastic time! I’ll describe what my day is like, and maybe you’ll get an inkling of why it’s turned into another of those “shining moments” as mentioned in the last post.

I get up at around 5:15 a.m. Can you imagine that?! Me, FSD, getting up at that hour? Yes, my day has made an almost perfect flip. I wake up pretty close to what used to be my bedtime, and I go to bed (when I can) at 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. — which used to be when I thought the night was just getting started. I suppose it’s healthy, though, living more according to the patterns of the sun.

At that hour, my apartment is still pitch dark, though I can hear birds singing. I have an espresso-maker that friends gave me as a housewarming present, and they also gave me a giant cup that holds the whole pot, plus water to thin it out. There’s not a lot involved in getting ready. Why take a shower when you’re going to be working in a mountain of garbage? Why wash your hair when you’re going to be wearing a hardhat all day?

The hardhat . . . this is the first time I’ve ever worn one for a job, and I love it! I wear jeans, the typical Fred-type shirt, dusty steel-toed boots, a safety vest, earplugs (the machines are noisy), plastic safety glasses, and two pairs of gloves.

That’s two pairs, because sometimes I have to grab jagged metal or what turns out to be broken glass. I wear an inner pair of wool-like gloves (probably synthetic or cotton) and an outer pair that are rubberized and extremely tough.

And I wear the hardhat. An excellent trick I learned from watching what other guys do is to tie a bandana over the top of my head first. That keeps the hardhat firmly in place (my first day, it was always sliding down over my eyes). The bandana also serves to keep the earplugs in; otherwise, they’re constantly popping out. I got ordered by the foreman on Day 1 to put my earplugs in — they had come out and were dangling. The noise level isn’t that high, but the plugs reduce it, and I’m sure that’s better for the ears.

Those of you who know me know that I’ve always loved to be dirty. Of course I like being clean, too — but as a kid I was usually covered in Midwestern dust. I find it very satisfying to be filthy. It gives more meaning to being clean afterward, more appreciation for it. It’s like the changing of the seasons. We need them all.

I must say it’s enjoyable to walk around in a hardhat, carrying grimy gloves, and being dusty. It imparts a kind of calmness and peace — I’m not sure I can explain that, or even that I fully understand it. It certainly makes me feel extremely male. It’s very gender-affirming. Guys, if you want to feel especially glad to be a man, try wearing a hardhat and steel-toed boots for a while! It’s a mystery, but the world looks a little different. This is my city, and I’m working in it.

I think the powers-that-be at Greenstar are noticing that I work as if it were my trash that I want to recycle the right way. I’m not just doing a job for someone else. This is my trash!

So I grab my hardhat, lunch, and those safety items I just described, and I leave in the pre-dawn glow. The air is cool but not unpleasantly so. There’s a newness to the light at that hour. In my backyard, the foliage trembles with bird-twitters and with the awakening morning. The first couple days, the staffing boss drove me to the job. Starting today, I drove my own car, which does make things easier.

Another plus: the location is only about ten minutes from my apartment. Greenstar is located on Neville Island in the Ohio River. Much of the island is an industrial wasteland of cracked gray concrete, rusting fences, wiry gray grass, and acres of warehouses. It’s like going to work in Mordor. Or again, it’s like the setting for various video games. The sun casts its early, rosy effusion across the towering walls of the vast recycling center.

I trudge along a track (more mud than gravel) between buildings, passing through a stream of guys getting off after the third shift. They’re carrying their hardhats, wearily making their way to cars or the bus stop across the street. I clamber up into the office trailer, tuck my lunch bag into an unobtrusive corner on a table, and find my punch-card. This is a challenge, because there are many columns of these, all in slots, and the people who monitor them are always rearranging them. I stick the card into a slot and pull a lever down to stamp the card with my arrival time.

The foreman is a tall, young, lean fellow who never smiles, but he’s nice enough; he knows that you have to maintain some distance from the troops if you’re going to command them. His hardhat is white. Those of the common laborers (like me) are yellow. He tells me where to go. I’m happiest when (like today) he puts me up on the paper line, straight across from the wiry gentleman in blue who trained me. We work in a gigantic building — a cavern of corrugated steel — up on a deck of metal flooring, atop a flight of grillwork steps. Our boots pound it with a boom, boom, boom when we go up or down. My favorite place to be is at the station closest to the chute where the garbage comes out.

Now, I don’t know the name of the man who trained me on Day 1, and he doesn’t know my name. I would guess he’s probably about five or ten years older than me. We’re of different races, different parts of the country, but we’ve developed the mutual respect of guys who work very well together. For our purposes here, I’ll call him Blue, because his customary outfit is loose blue denim and a blue bandana. He gave me a few instructions on our first day — which wasn’t easy, because of the roar of the machinery and the fact that we were wearing earplugs. But still, he got his points across, and I picked it up quickly — it’s certainly not a hard job. At the end of that first day, Blue said, “Is this really your first day? Man, I hope you come back tomorrow!”

Before I tell you what our job is, I need to tell you how the garbage arrives at Greenstar. On the second day, part of my work took me out in back — I was clearing trash away from the back fence, and I saw loads of people’s recycled materials being brought in. Imagine a truck with an enclosed bed about the size of an ocean-liner. This bed is packed — packed — floor-to-ceiling with junk. A hydraulic arm tilts the bed up, up, up . . . I’m not exaggerating, but it made me stare open-mouthed. It was like a vision of the Apocalypse — or like the Red Sea closing upon the pursuers — something bigger and grander than we are normally given to see in this life. That truck bed rose up, up, into the sky, like the stricken Titanic standing on end and about to slide into the depths, and a torrent of trash vomited forth, glittering in the sun, roaring and crashing, filling a concrete holding bay. As I worked, these trucks kept arriving. So that’s what we’re working with: an endless supply of garbage. Infinite garbage. Garbage that has no end.

And the dust of the place! It gets into noses, into ears. You taste it. It grays your clothes. I have to wipe off my safety glasses many times a day.

But for all that, I am in awe of what a weirdly beautiful place Greenstar is. The mountains of cast-off objects surround a cluster of enormous buildings like dirigible hangars. The sunlight illuminates dust-motes. There’s the purplish dimness of very large indoor spaces, combined with moving belts of trash, going up, going down, like the crazy stairways of an Escher drawing. Blue and I work as part of a team of eight guys plus a supervisor/belt operator. That’s two belts. I think there are two more belts on the other side of the building, with eight more guys. (There must be more than this, too, because I keep hearing men tell about working in rooms by themselves, where they don’t know when it’s break time.) Then there are belts in other places that deal with sorting cans and bottles.

Anyway, here’s what happens. Blue and I face each other across the conveyor belt. The trash comes tumbling down the chute, and we sort it by hand. Our line is the paper line, so we are supposed to remove anything that is not paper. To my immediate right is the cardboard shaft, which plunges away to the center of the Earth; that’s where I drop cardboard. To my left is my waste bin, and to the left of that is the shaft for cans, bottles, and plastic bottles.

I realized immediately why safety glasses are important. The cascades of trash spew out with crashes and plumes of shattered particles. Occasionally we’re sprinkled with glass, and once with potato chip fragments. You don’t want to have your mouth open as you work. I think this is supposed to be trash that people have left in the official recycling bins, separate from general trash, but we run into just about everything. One guy at lunch today claimed that he (once) saw a dead deer come out of the chute. So far, I haven’t encountered anything that bizarre. There have been several chunks of hair that I hope were wigs, and I did have to decide what to do with Mermaid Barbie.

Some of the guys claim it’s hard on the back, but if you do it right, it’s almost a graceful dance, like t’ai chi ch’uan. If you have good hand-eye coordination and learn to move efficiently, you can accomplish just about everything with a sweeping, side-to-side movement. I was tired the first day I did it, and somewhat tired from that outdoor cleaning on Day 2; but now, after Day 3 (back on the paper line, where I belong), I’m not a bit tired! I have studied the face of Trash. I know its expressions now. I know where cans and bottles hide.

The day truly flies by when you’re working the line. I am totally serious, but the task is so engrossing that I feel a pang of regret when it’s break time or when the shift ends. It’s like being called by your mom to come indoors. I think, “Aww, can’t we play in the trash for five more minutes?” I don’t voice that opinion, of course. I don’t think it would be a popular one. But really — there’s nothing about this job that I don’t enjoy. I’m pretty much enjoying myself every minute I’m there, whether working or on break, and how often can we say that? I couldn’t say it about teaching, and I always thought my position at Niigata University was the best job in the world.

You have to understand, most of the guys working the line don’t really want to be there. They’re not excited about it, and many of them have to work or go back to jail — they’re released on condition that they work. In that context, a person who wants to work and has reasonable dexterity is like a superhero. Several of the guys have asked me how long I’ve worked there, and they can’t believe I’ve just started. Several people have told me that I do a good job. I heard Blue bragging about me to one of the new guys today: “My man here has only done this for two days!” The guy answered, “I know! I’m glad I’m working behind him!” (The two guys on the belt behind Blue and me are there to pick out the stuff we miss, because when it shoots out in mounds, it’s impossible to grab everything.)

I was never good at sports — and this, for the first time in my life, is like being really good at a sport. It’s both exciting and calming to be able to work the belt with skill and flying hands. It is an art form. I don’t have any illusions about being a “role model” for the younger guys. Most don’t care. But I do believe I’m a wholesome presence there. If I inspire anyone to do anything with a little more energy, that’s something.

Blue talks about the trash going “over the falls” when it has passed away beyond our sight, like the Moldau: “When the stuff goes over the falls, if the bosses see cans and s*** in it, that’s when a white hat comes upstairs” (meaning that we would get a firm talking-to).

So, yes — part of why I’m having so much fun there is that after three days, I’m already respected. After months of not being wanted by any employer, it’s so good to be able to work and be recognized for that work. I think what impresses people (and maybe this is partly due to my Japan experience, where manual dexterity is greatly valued) is that I can do several things at once, and I can do separate things with my two hands. I can snatch two crushed cans, send them flying at their chute, and before they get there, I’ve launched a plastic bottle after them, swept three plastic bags into the trash, plucked a coat hanger out of the pile, and tipped a cardboard box into the pit with both my hands full. And that’s just my rightward sweep! I do the same thing going back. Blue says I have talent!

We’re pretty good at coordinating our efforts on the stuff that comes right down the middle of the belt, which Blue and I can both reach. But sometimes in the frenzy of the moment, we tear soggy cardboard in half like a wishbone, or sometimes one of us scoops up something that the other is going for. Blue was joking today about how those moments are like Lucy pulling away the football that Charlie Brown is trying to kick. Sometimes we “Lucy” each other.

It’s funny how I don’t see garbage in the same way anymore. If I encounter a plastic bottle, I have an urge to throw it to my left. The various trash items, when I see them outside of work, seem like playing pieces to me. Aluminum cans are the prize. The lords of Greenstar watch the fluctuating price of aluminum as if it were the gold market. PET bottles (plastic) are ubiquitous, but I don’t mind them, because they go down the bottomless shaft and don’t pile up. Plastic supermarket bags are the scum of the earth, because they go into my trash bin, and they (along with the other trash) fill it up all too soon, and I have to break away from the game to wheel my bin down the gantry and upend it into the trash shaft. And I hate leaving the game even for forty seconds. Blue and I stagger our bin-emptyings so that we don’t leave the station at the same time.

Cardboard is my favorite. I am probably too fond of cardboard; I want to save it all, that it may be recycled and live again. When I look at a moving sea of trash, all the pieces of cardboard glow at me now, and I dive after them with a blur of hands, shunting them safely down their shaft. Cardboard, after all, brings us good things: care packages, books in the mail . . . cardboard is one of the prime universal toys of children. What can’t be done with a cardboard box? Save the cardboard!

Our shift is from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., with two half-hour breaks. (At least I think they’re 30 minutes each. That’s about what they feel like, but I’ve never timed them.) The last 15 minutes or so is a clean-up time. On the lunch break, some of the guys crowd into the trailer to eat at the cramped tables. Others sit around the outdoor tables and stone blocks in the space between the trailer and the building. I choose to be outdoors (on these nice days). I slide into the trailer only long enough to unobtrusively retrieve my green apple and bottle of water.

I’ve noticed that guys at work sites don’t cross their legs when they sit, even as men typically do it, with the whole leg sideways and the ankle resting on the opposite knee. These guys keep both feet on the ground, or sometimes they’ll cross their ankles. So I’ve learned the proper way to sit in this context!

The guys sit around talking, eating, joking, and bumming cigarettes. Once in awhile someone flips through a porno magazine scavenged from the line, although technically we’re not allowed to scavenge. (You’d be amazed at how many of those go by. If the magazine industry is in trouble, it’s not the porn mags!) A kid today was telling me how minimum wage is so much better than what he was paid for the job he did in jail. He said this morning he almost lost his hardhat on the belt and had to scramble after it. He wondered if he’d get fired if it went over the falls. I said I didn’t think the bosses would be too happy. I told him about the bandana trick. He wondered if bandanas were expensive. I told him I used a handkerchief. He decided he probably had a handkerchief.

So that’s what the new job is like. I’m enjoying having, for the first time in life, a job that I don’t have to bring home with me. There are no papers to grade, no grades to figure, no lessons to prepare. Teaching has wonderful, glorious moments, but also a lot of headaches and a lot of chaos. With this job, there’s no chaos except the cornucopia of the trash itself. Yet for all its unpresentable state, the trash doesn’t change; it just comes on and on in an endless river, and it needs sorting.

Like all such pinnacle experiences, my time there may not last for long. My resume is still out, and I have to do some serious thinking and weighing of possibilities. But for right now, I’m enjoying life as a line-picker on Neville Island. And my man Blue will tell you I’ve got a talent for it!

Shining Moments

Posted on April 14, 2012 by fsdthreshold

We all have them, and we don’t stop and reflect on them nearly enough: those moments in life when you realize, “Whoa! I just received a treasure of an experience . . . I was just granted the gift of taking part in something wonderful.”

This past Wednesday I had the privilege of making an author visit to the Fox Chapel Country Day School. What made this an unforgettable joy for me was that the 24 fourth- and fifth-graders already knew The Star Shard and were highly enthusiastic about it! Their library media specialist is reading the book aloud to them. They’re currently about halfway through it.

Before my visit, the children had drawn their own renditions of the Thunder Rake on posters, often in full color, and these were displayed all around the library when I arrived! Can you imagine how much that meant to me? Here is a story that first came into the world through my mind and fingers. And here were a group of young readers who’d never met me, yet who were immersed in that story, eagerly following Cymbril on her adventures, and clearly fascinated by the Rake. I couldn’t get enough of studying the details they’d put into the drawings: the structures, the layout, the various characters in different parts of the wagon-city. Many showed the Urrmsh rowing in the Pushpull Chamber. Most depicted Loric on his perch, guiding the craft. Most included Cymbril prowling somewhere with the cats, exploring the halls and levels. There were crank baskets, Bale, Rombol’s mansions, countless shops, and often the fat frog, who in some cases looked very big indeed . . . One picture showed Cymbril screaming in the dark corridor (“AAAAAHHHHH!”), giving a terrible fright to Hysthia Giltfeather — and simultaneously causing the Curdlebree sisters to get scalded and dyed (“AAAAHHHH!”).

Here in Pennsylvania, Giant Eagle is a prominent supermarket chain, and at least two of the Thunder Rakes included a Giant Eagle store among the shops. (Every town needs one, right?) One Rake also had a Target.

These readers had never seen the story in Cricket, so their visions of how people, things, and places looked had not been influenced by Emily’s wonderful artwork. It was fascinating to see their different concepts of the Rake. Some imagined it as a gigantic house of many rooms. Some conceived it as a jumble of buildings stacked upon buildings. Some took the “moving town” idea literally and drew it as an outdoor landscape, a sprawling plot of green fields, hills, ponds, roads, and buildings here and there, all set upon tremendous wheels! That’s the terrific thing about written stories as opposed to other media: they allow for these variations. Every reader makes the setting his/her own.

I took along my large set of Emily Fiegenschuh’s illustrations (being careful, of course, not to take any for parts of the story the children hadn’t read yet), and I’ve never seen an audience more interested in anything! The students were as eager to examine them as I was to pore over their Thunder Rake drawings. They loved Emily’s versions of Cymbril, the cats, and the Armfolk, and they nodded in intrigued approval at her Rake. “It’s like an ocean liner,” someone said.

They had a slew of great questions for me. Would the Rake be able to travel in water, like a ship? How did I get the idea for the story, and for a Star Shard? How easy was it to get the book published? Did Emily ever draw the Curdlebree sisters? Did I get to have any input into how characters looked when Emily was drawing them? Would I like to see The Star Shard become a movie? What was the first part of the story that I thought of? How many books have I written? How does it feel to have your book published?

How does it feel? It feels indescribably good, of course. But it feels even better to have a roomful of readers excited about your book and drawing pictures of things from your book. A book’s being published is a grand affirmation, to be sure. But it’s still a kind of solitary experience, still a little abstract. It’s readers who make it real.

We went on to talk about the names of characters — what they mean, what they sound like, and how I came up with them. I read a page or so aloud, so that they could hear how I read the story. We talked about how to pronounce “Urrmsh” and “Urrt,” and they had fun trying it! (And they sounded pretty good!)

We went over some principles of good writing, studied an example of how to improve a story, discussed other ways (they had excellent ideas!), and then the students got to try it with a story-beginning that really needed improvement. I was deeply impressed with their creativity, their interest in the subject, their maturity level, and the skills they already had. I could tell they’ve had top-notch instruction. I did my best to encourage them to keep reading and writing, because Story is the most exciting thing in the world. When you write, you spin something out of nothing, and a new tale exists where one didn’t before. You’ve made the world different and better. Your words can reach people in other places and other times, traveling on and on.

Thank you, Fox Chapel Country Day School! Thank you, administration, students, and the kind and amazing librarian who put the event together!

Three days later, I’m still wondering at the memory of it. I was there! With my own eyes, I saw those pictures of the Rake that those children drew! I heard their questions, signed their books, saw their good writing. Life fuzzles by, and we spend our days with our noses in our cares and duties . . . but now and then we can’t help but sit back and take notice of what’s just happened. Miracles tap us on the shoulder. Like daffodils among the mud and bricks, shining moments come.

Story Hour

Posted on April 5, 2012 by fsdthreshold

If anyone missed the tremendous interview Patty Templeton did of me in the previous post, it is now also up on her library’s web site here.

So, I’m back to Pittsburgh now after a little over a week in the Midwest — in my hometown, in fact — where it was a great privilege to be given charge of the Story Hour at the Taylorville Public Library on a Saturday morning. Many, many thanks to the librarians there for their kindness and generosity in allowing me to do that on a very short notice!

Initially, I wondered what I might be getting myself into. I was told that the usual audience at Story Hour was children ages 3-7. Gulp! The typical Cricket age begins at 9, so I knew the listeners would be way too young for any story I’d written.

Friends are among our greatest blessings in life, and I thought immediately of my friend Maggie Murphy, who specializes in writing for that very young age group. I dove for my keyboard and typed “HELP!” Now, you know Maggie: she’s a regular contributor to this blog, albeit under a different name. Anyway, Maggie graciously came to my aid, sent me a whole palette of her stories and permission to choose among them for ones I might read aloud, and gave me some invaluable pointers on how to interact with such a young audience. Everything she sent me would have worked beautifully, but I chose her stories “The Halloween Costume Countdown” (Ladybug, October 2009, delightfully illustrated by Leslie Tryon) and “The Fairy King’s Puzzle” (Spider, June 2007, illustrated by Yoshiko Z. Jaeggi). Both of these tales are a joy to read aloud, requiring different voices and with just the right crowd-pleasing payoffs — and better yet, the latter encourages the listeners to solve a fairy puzzle. Both were quite well received!

I remembered one more gift that helped: for my birthday in 1992, a friend in Japan gave me an extraordinary picture book called Frederick, by Leo Lionni. (It’s a Caldecott Honor Book, an ALA Notable Children’s Book, and a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book of the Year.) I started off the program by reading it, and the kids were rapt as they studied the pictures. Even the moms leaned forward a little, holding their breath! I’ve always been partial to the book because the main character, a mouse, has my name — even if it’s misspelled — AND he’s a writer . . . or a storyteller, anyway. While all the other mice are busy stockpiling food for the winter, Frederick sits and absorbs the sunlight, the colors, and the words of the world. The others think he’s lazy . . . but when bleak winter comes, and the food runs low, and spirits ebb as the mice are huddled in their cold, dark burrow, then Frederick’s preparations sustain and cheer them. Through his stories, he gives them the warm sunlight, the colors, and the words.

Next, I used several large prints of Emily Fiegenschuh’s illustrations to introduce The Star Shard. I didn’t try to read any of it, but I let the kids know what Cymbril and her friends were like, and how it was to live on the Thunder Rake. The Urrmsh are always a hit.

Between Maggie’s two stories, we did something I called a “Stretch of the Imagination.” Because the youngest kids were getting a little restless, I had them all stand up from the cushions they were sitting on. I urged them to close their eyes — or not, depending on which way they could imagine better — and then, in our minds, we all became really, really tall — so tall that our heads shot up through the crowns of the trees, out into the brilliant sunlight where the butterflies bounced over the leaves. We all physically stretched as we did this, reaching, rreeaacchhinnggg toward the sky . . . we looked down on the tiny houses, kept stretching up . . . and we grew up through the clouds, into a world of whiteness, fluffy clouds like snowdrifts . . . and in the distance, a huge, gray castle . . . probably the Giant’s castle from “Jack and the Beanstalk.” So as not to bother the Giant, we quickly shrank down, down, scrunching ourselves up as small as we could manage, tucking in our arms and legs, getting smaller and smaller . . .

So small, in fact, that we tumbled through a crack in the floor and ended up in a rooty, earthy place under the ground, where a lantern cast yellow light over the bare dirt. In one corner, a little man in a green coat sat making a shoe, hammering the sole onto it with his hammer, tap, tap, tap. The man, with his red hair and beard, looked up at us and winked.

And we got bigger again, bursting up through the ground, and suddenly we could run faster than any creature in the world. We all ran in place, but in our minds, we outran gazelles and cheetahs. We leaped over rivers, over the green hills, over mountains . . . (Remember illustrations of the Seven League Boots?)

And finally, we were ourselves again, flopping back onto the cushions, and we heard another story.

For the last part of the hour, we moved over to the tables and divided into two groups. I got a volunteer mom to join each table to help keep everyone focused. Then I brought out some wondrous Objects that would help us tell our own story.

We revisited Emily’s illustration of Cymbril and the two cats at the rail of the Rake, and now I asked the children to imagine that it was a different girl. What should we call her? One girl (the first whose hand went up) suggested (after a lot of thought) “Rapunzel.”

Okay. Rapunzel had three cats. You can only see two in the picture, and here’s why:

The cats’ names were Faith, Hope, and Charity. Charity was the bravest. One day, a wicked witch passed along the road in front of the cottage. She was dressed in black rags that flapped in the breeze around her like black flames, and her nose and chin jutted out so far that they nearly met. (The kids went, “Eewww!”) The witch kicked at Charity, and Charity hissed at her. The witch glared angrily and cast a spell on Charity, turning her into a black stone. (At this point, I pulled out a curious, large, smooth black stone that my actual dad actually found once; he always thought it was shaped like a human heart.)

The witch said, “Now you’ll be another part of the path in front of my house,” and she flung the stone into her cart, which was full of other stones, all of different shapes, colors, and sizes. So the wicked witch hobbled on down the road, pulling her cart full of stones, and poor Charity was a smooth, black stone atop the pile.

Faith and Hope wrung their paws, and Rapunzel wrung her hands, and they all consulted together on how they might rescue Charity.

Enter now the two groups of kids: the first table was given a detailed figurine of Gandalf (though 3-7-year-olds don’t recognize Gandalf when they see him, so he was an old man leaning on a staff) and a brass hunting-horn. The second table was given a wind chime made of seashells and a troll doll made of moss. Table 1 had to figure out what Rapunzel and the cats did next to help their friend; Table 2 had to finish the story. Both tables had to use their two Objects as a part of the story. We brought out crayons and paper; if the youngest kids didn’t want to  think up story ideas, they could illustrate what was going on.

After we worked for a while, we heard the tables’ reports. It seems that Rapunzel and her cats, hurrying along the road after the witch, met a wise old wizard who, from his belt, pulled a golden horn. When he blew it, it gave them magical courage and speed. The second table wasn’t quite sure how the wind chime and troll fit in, though they drew some excellent pictures of both. Inspired by the first group’s idea, a girl thought that when you heard the chime clinking in the wind, it would make you brave, too. One little boy suggested that Rapunzel hit the black stone, it broke apart, and Charity emerged unharmed and safe again!

Something I noticed is that, in a way, it’s easier to do a program for very small children, because you simply can’t get into theory. At that age, most haven’t learned to write on paper yet. So it becomes all about Story, and we’re all born with an instinct and a longing for that.

God bless the storytellers of every age, and those who love them!

 

BLACK GATE Interview

Posted on March 22, 2012 by fsdthreshold

The incomparable Patty Templeton has interviewed me for Black Gate, and you can read it here. That’s pretty much the news, because I can’t possibly add to the job she’s done. A thousand thank-yous, Patty!

But since you’re here . . .

I was in Giant Eagle the other day, shopping for groceries (a friend and I habitually refer to the supermarket chain as “Giant Nazgul,” and the name has become so ingrained in me that I frequently call it that in mixed company, and I get some funny looks . . .) — and the latest issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction caught my eye. Seeing Peter S. Beagle’s name on the cover, I glanced inside . . . and sure enough, the story of his that’s in there is “Olfert Dapper’s Day.” I had the unforgettable joy of hearing the author read this new story aloud at the most recent World Fantasy Convention. Mr. Beagle is a true virtuoso with words. This tale moved me more deeply than anything I’ve heard or read in many a year. Do yourself a favor: while this issue is still on magazine racks (the March/April issue), go to your local newsstand, bookstore, or Giant Nazgul, and acquire your own copy. The man is one of the very finest living fantasists, and this is a gem of a story, a pearl of great price. Its like is not often seen in the world.

In that interview, one of the questions Patty asked me was about writers’ quirks. It’s a fascinating question. Something I forgot to say was that at one time, before my former computer gave up the ghost, I had seven different keyboards for it. I made a little “apartment complex” of file boxes to store them all in, and each month, I would give my room a thorough cleaning and dusting, and I would plug in a different keyboard. It helped me start the new month with a feeling of change and renewal. Some keyboards are small; some are large. Some are conventional; some are ergonomic, shaped in interesting ways. Some have firmly resistant keys. Some have keys that make a loud, satisfying click. I had a “skeleton keyboard” that was transparent, and you could see all the inner wires and workings. I had one that the Japanese maker dubbed “Stealth Keyboard” — perhaps useful in covert ops? The sentries on the other side of the bushes don’t know you’re writing? I had one covered with a soft, rubbery, separate veneer layer that protected the keyboard if you would spill a cup of coffee or a bucket of paint on it. I think it was designed for use in garages and warehouses, where operators might have oily or dirty hands. I had one I called the “Cricket” keyboard and one I called “Blapadap,” because of its sound. I won’t even get into the fleet of mice I once had . . . Those are all long gone now, retired along with my old, dear PowerMac, my first computer that served well for seven years. For my current computer, I only have three keyboards and one external mouse. I’m a responsible adult now.

But other writers are weird, too! E.B. White seems to have been a little like Adrian Monk. Before he could write, he would straighten the pictures on the wall and the rugs on the floor. “. . . Not until everything in the world was lined up and perfectly true could anybody reasonably expect me to set a word down on paper,” he wrote. I had a calendar one year that showed a picture of the converted boathouse he wrote in: all wood, wood-colored, unadorned, with a rough table and uncomfortable-looking seat, and a sort of hatch that offered a view outward. There was nothing at all in the room to distract him.

Truman Capote, as Patty mentioned, wrote lying down. Virginia Woolf and Thomas Wolfe wrote standing up.

Faulkner claimed that the tools of his trade were “paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey.”

I read once that P.G. Wodehouse affixed a roll of paper in a bracket over his typewriter, so that he wouldn’t have to keep stopping to insert new pages. He would then cut the typed-on roll into pages and tape them to the wall in a row all around the room. He would stroll around reading over them, and if the writing seemed to sag at one point, he would physically lower that page, fastening it lower.

Schiller used rotten apples: he’d cram a stash of them under the lid of his desk, and if he got stuck trying to think of a word, he’d raise the lid and inhale.

Garrison Keillor has said that computers make things too fast and easy, that the writing suffers when it pours out too quickly; when writing with a pen or pencil, writers have a little mental space for editing before committing marks to the page. (It astounds me that Tolkien wrote all of The Lord of the Rings by hand, and then typed it all with hunt-and-peck typing because he couldn’t afford to hire a typist.)

But Flannery O’Connor had good things to say about the typewriter. It was more personal, she said, because “you use ten fingers to work a typewriter and only three to push a pen.”

(For some of these facts, I thank Helen Sheehy and Leslie Stainton for their many On Writers and Writing desk diaries over the years.)

 

Life Finds a Way

Posted on March 15, 2012 by fsdthreshold

I think I’ve got the wording right. That’s a quote from Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton: “Life finds a way.” You can try to breed dinosaurs to be all female, but you’re up against the power of life, which was designed to be pretty tenacious.

Look what I discovered in my backyard yesterday, amid the general Mordor-like desolation:

Life Finds a Way

I’ve been watching the green blades of the leaves for a week or more, wondering what might come up. Does anyone know what these flowers are? Crocuses is my best guess, but it’s only a guess. They couldn’t have been arranged any more perfectly if they’d been planted. There are precisely three, facing in slightly different directions. Faith, Hope, and Love, I suppose. All around them is brown and gray earth, twigs, half-buried bricks, mud, and trash that I pick up when I can.

Here’s something else I like:

The Hill at the End of Broadway

This hill rises at the top of my steadily-rising street. It’s at one end of my daily walk. We who grow up in the flatness of central Illinois think there must be something more to hills than a heap of earth. There must be something inside, right? This one always makes me think of Moria or a great dungeon as in Dungeons & Dragons — especially since there’s decrepit stonework at the bottom, and what seems to be a brooding entrance. Surely there are dark halls beneath the trees! Surely “older and viler things than Orcs” sleep in the deep places of the Earth. What else could this hill be for?

"In Hollow Halls Beneath the Fells"

Don’t the roots of those trees look pretty Middle-earth-like? The place I buy gasoline is up this road, and I always enjoy driving up between these dungeon-concealing hills. This past winter, there was a frozen waterfall of icicles on the left.

Another Hill

This all reminds me of these lines from The House of the Worm, my work in progress:

She peered curiously across the river. “Have you ever been over there?”

Paddy pushed his hat back a little and studied the wood with a wistful, loving gaze. “We surely tried, when we were boys. There’s hardly a path, even for a rabbit. The tangle marches on and on like that, guarding its secrets, for thirty miles and more, till it finally ends in the downlands, which roll on from there to the sea.”

“There could be lost cities,” my sister breathed happily.

“Ruined castles,” I added. “Tribes with green skin.”

“Quite right, too,” said Paddy seriously.

 

Sigh . . . So many books; so little time!

One more interesting landmark a few blocks away:

Stowe Tunnel

It needs no explanation, really. We didn’t have road tunnels where I grew up. When you have tunnels, you have a little bit of Moria, a little bit of the fantastic, in the most dreamless and urban neighborhood.

Finally, it’s the Ides of March. I don’t know if anyone’s keeping track, but that final ARC contest of mine closes at midnight tonight. If you’re playing, let me know your totals!

And may spring grace your surroundings!

Day 7 of STAR SHARD WEEK: Into the World

Posted on March 13, 2012 by fsdthreshold

I know, I’m playing fast and loose with the term “week” — but we have here a week of posts related to The Star Shard, do we not?

Be sure not to miss Day 7 of STAR SHARD WEEK on artist Emily Fiegenschuh’s blog, where she exhibits some of her favorites among the 39 illustrations she did for the story in Cricket. (I think I have 39 favorites, but Emily was able to narrow it down for herself.) If I had to choose only three expressions for Cymbril that I truly love and that I think convey her character, I would choose (in no special order) Emily’s picture of Cymbril in the grape arbors, the one of Cymbril at the Rake’s railing with the two cats, and the image of her singing between Argent and Bobbin. (That last one makes me want to write a book starring Argent and Bobbin — their adventures would make another tale unto itself! Great illustrations inspire stories. I’m intrigued by that partnership between visuals and text. Each can give birth to the other. Much of the writing I’ve done has been triggered to some degree by my memories of pictures I saw in books as a young child.) Another of my absolute favorites is the picture of Loric refusing to abandon Cymbril when her foot is caught . . . and another is the one of Cymbril singing her heart out at a market, while in the foreground, the crowds are fascinated by Loric’s Fey-ness. (In that last picture, I’ve always admired how the mom and the two girls are so clearly related — how do artists do that?!) See? If I keep going, I’ll get to 39 favorites, so I’ll stop on that topic.

Today I had my first experience of carrying The Star Shard out into the world and talking about it with others. I visited Redeemer Lutheran School in Verona, Pennsylvania. (Yes, I believe there are exactly two male teachers at the school: they must be the Two Gentlemen of Verona.) I worked with the sixth-grade writing class for an hour, and then I worked with the combined seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-grade writing class. The students were a joy to speak to — receptive, interested, disciplined, and full of great ideas.

I was greatly blessed to have along prints of Emily’s illustrations, which I showed as I was explaining and reading selections from The Star Shard. We talked about some principles of good writing, noted them in some examples, and then the students set their skills and imaginations to improving a story that needed a lot of improvement. We celebrated the innovative ways in which they did that. It was a great deal of fun, and for me as the writer of this story, these days are bringing me a kind of completion of the circle. The Star Shard has left the nest.

Isn’t that an interesting aspect of all art? Its path is quite analogous to the parent-child relationship. It begins with the artist (or writer, in my case). For a long time, the artist through whom the work enters the world is the only one who spends time with it. Then some other people get involved, helping the originator refine it. But then, for most of its life, the work’s relationship is with the recipients. True, the originator is stitched into the fabric of the work; it entered the world through that person’s mind and perceptions. But if, for example, The Star Shard endures for awhile, readers will, collectively, shape it a lot more in their imaginations than I ever did.

Do the math. I’ve lived with “The Star Shard” in its two forms for eight years. Now the novel is launched. Like a parent, I can do no more to influence it — it must stand on its own, and people will know about it only what they find in it. Copies of the book are being sold all across the U.S. Let’s be extremely conservative and say that only 1,000 readers ever read the book carefully. Let’s say that it remains in their minds in some form for the next eight years. That would total me times a thousand. See what I mean? Most of a creative work’s life is lived among its recipients. And that’s amazing to me — that’s staggering. It makes me physically tremble. There are people in the world I’ll never meet, people I’ll never hear from, people who will hardly notice my name on the cover — but who will spend some time with Cymbril, Loric, Urrt, Miwa, and the others. They’ll smile at the funny parts, turn pages to see what happens, escape from their workaday lives into a world of fantasy for a few hours, and perhaps feel a bit warmer when they read of loyalty and friendship.

When that happens, we artists of every stripe are among the Storytellers. As Paul Darcy Boles said, “We are all storytellers, sitting around the cave of the world.” Story is ancient, as old as we humans are. It is fundamental. Universal. We need it like we need our food and sunlight, and it links us around the world, across the millennia.

I told the kids at Redeemer today, after seeing their show of hands regarding who liked what: Whether you like books, manga, movies, TV shows, or video games . . . it begins with Story. It begins with writing down the ideas that come into the world through us.

You go, Cymbril! Fly high. Write home once in awhile. Stop in when you can and tell the old man your own stories. And then go out again, as far and free as you can.