I've been fortunate enough to have had some terrific honors bestowed upon me. Fifth-grade spelling bee champion. Sixth-grade student council president. I mean, do I have to go on? We're talking biggies here.

It was just about this time of year in 2017 that, perhaps, the one that means the most to me came around. The Billings Education Association—the union for public school teachers in the place I call home—honored me as its Friend of Education.

It was deeply meaningful to me for several reasons. One, I'm a child of public education (thank you, Birdville Independent School District and Smithfield Elementary, Smithfield Junior High (now middle school) and Richland High School). Two, public school teachers have had a profound effect on me at every stage of life. They've been mentors and influencers and friends. I was born to one. I married one. Three, I truly believe that public education is a compact we must hold with each other, no matter how fraught things get (I'm not terribly optimistic about how things are going in that department, but I still believe in the compact). Public education is the ultimate investment in our future, together.

I could go on and on. I have, in fact.

Whatever the teachers in my town felt in calling me their friend five years ago, I send it back in triplicate to them. English teachers at West High School here in Billings were instrumental in getting 600 Hours of Edward on the approved curriculum list at the high school level, and for years now, some of them have been teaching it. It blows my mind, still. And the bargain I've made, straight along, is that if you want me to visit the classroom, to talk about writing and creativity and life beyond high school, tell me when and where and I'll be there.

The pandemic, as you might imagine, took a bite out of that bargain.

And yet, there we were last week, a handful of English classes at West—juniors and seniors—and a creative writing club, and we were working through one of my favorite writing exercises, The Word (I am not its inventor, by the way, just an enthusiastic adopter). Each class, I'd have the kids tell me their name and give me a word. We then ran a random-number generator to choose a single word that the entire class had to use as inspiration for a short story. Writing time: 20 minutes.

It's a hell of a thing, I'm sure, to show up one day at school and hear that some dude you've never met before wants you to spend most of a period writing. But these kids did it, and their enthusiasm, generosity, and talent leave me hopeful for their futures and my own. For every period, I wrote alongside them, ending up with nearly 3,000 words of material, by far a busier day than I usually have.

I'll spare you the whole passel of short stories (unless you really want to read them), but here's a taste:

Lightning

When we got the dog—a 48-pound, 40-inch-long, 14-year-old basset hound—I named him Lightning because, among other things, I was into irony.

Lightning’s name was Dexter when he was stuffed in a kennel at the humane society, on account of his previous owner, an 84-year-old woman named Mildred, up and died one day and Dexter was found sleeping in the small of the back of her tumbled-over carcass, and Mildred’s kinfolk didn’t want him. And you might say that if a dog has borne a name, any name, for 14 years, he ought to be allowed to keep it for the rest of whatever time he has left. And, OK, that’s a fair point, but Dexter is a crappy name and no more fitting the hound he was than Lightning was. So I changed it. My prerogative.

We didn’t get off to a good start, Lightning and me. First night, I put him up on the bed, and he walked around behind my shoulder, I thought he was snuggling in, and he lifted a leg on me. New house, new bed, new people—I guess I can’t blame him, but come on, man. He pooped on the rug the next day—the good rug, that was the problem, not that frayed thing in the den—and I thought, well, Lightning, you ain’t long for us if you don’t straighten up and fly right soon.

I needn’t have worried, as it turned out. I’ve come to believe, in the looking back, that the speed of him—opposite the name we’d hung on him—was the secret to his longevity. That dog just wasn’t in a hurry for anything, which kept his heart rate low and his blood moving agreeably. “Lightning, dinner,” we’d say, and we’d wait for the lumbering, this long dog who could have two feet on different sides of a corner, and he’d come into view and he’d eat at a luxurious pace, like a cow working its cud. “Lightning, let’s get in the car!” Same thing. That dog moved in a way that would make a sloth say, “Damn, that’s one slow-moving animal.”

Ironic, then, that the event for which he gained his fame around our house, the reason Judy would grip him by those jowls, unbidden, and say, “You’re the best dog ever, yes you are,” was a moment of alacrity. Megan, our youngest, just a baby, crawling for the curb and the traffic beyond, we’re bound up in watching Mitchell show us his batting stance there in the front yard, and she’s nearly to the asphalt, and here’s Lightning, moving at his bah-doop-dee-doo pace and he snags her diaper in his teeth and pulls her back.

That’s a good boy.

We said goodbye to him last night, the fadeout that we’d seen coming and were still flabbergasted by when it arrived. Lightning, staring up at us, our expectant faces in his, our tears surfacing, and here’s that old floppy-tongued kiss, the one we’d had a thousand times and would never have again, and he’s gone, gone, gone, not so much a flashing discharge of electricity but a shattered star lighting up our days and nights.

After writing and sharing—the kids were great about that, too—we talked about what I like so much about this exercise, that in the letters and meaning of a single word, there's a fuse that can be lit and burned down into a burst of creativity. It's one of the most magical things I know of, how you can tap into memory, word association, imagination and pull a story right out of yourself. It's entirely egalitarian. You don't need permission. You don't have to wait for someone to judge you worthy. You just need time and inclination. You need a pencil and a piece of paper and the willingness to get busy.

​And the thing is, long before I ever thought about these things, long before I ever knew what a writing prompt was, long before I ever imagined trying to build a life around words, I had teachers who pushed me, who had lamplight and were willing to show the way, who truly and honestly believed that each child in their care had purpose and something to offer. On the surface, I don't have much in common with those kids I met last week—I'm older than their parents, in many cases, and from a generation that must seem decrepit and dated to them. And yet, the successors of those teachers I remember with such fondness and admiration are in the classroom now. Still pushing. Still guiding. Still believing.

​How lucky we are. What a shame it would be if we lost it.

Love it! What's the next question?

No, seriously, the great Chris La Tray asks some provocative questions and ponders the meaning of National Poetry Month (which we're now in) in his latest Substack piece. 

Quoting Chris:

This might be the wrong place to ask this question since you glorious subscribers are obviously anything but ignorant philistines in such matters1, but is poetry really an “important place” in the lives of many people? The running joke when it comes to poets is they are the purist practitioners of literature because they obviously aren’t in it for the money. Which sucks when you think about it. So I have to wonder: how many people really engage with poetry on a regular basis? How many people actually buy it?
​
The stuff that goes on around National Poetry Month is worthwhile, I just wish it wasn’t relegated to one month. April rolls around and people get all performative with their love of poetry, share links to poems published online or whatever, but where does it go from there? I encounter many people who tell me, “I don’t get poetry.” That’s fair. I didn’t “get” it for a long time either. When poetry had a bag dropped over its head and was rolled in a carpet and hauled off to the ivory towers to be enjoyed by only a stuffy few the connection to its roots was severed. I contend, though, that there is poetry for everyone. Everyone.

I'd like to just endorse all of the above, if I may. 

I, too, have heard the "I don't get poetry" bit, and I've probably even said it, although I will say, in my defense, that I was young and inexperienced and kind of ignorant. What I often say, now, when I hear that is, "Well, you listen to music, don't you?" That's poetry, man. And it doesn't have to be Patti Smith or Michael Stipe or Nico—but it should, it should be all of them and many, many, many more. Find the writers and the voices that not only speak to you but also impart something you're not going to find in whatever bubble you live in. Find the words of those who live other lives, have had other experiences, see the world with eyes different than your own. Find something that smacks you in the head with a ratchet. Something that moves you. Once you've got that, everything else is just a matter of form, be it song or sonnet or haiku or slam or whatever.

By inclination and profession, I go to a lot of literary readings, and given a blind choice—go listen to an unidentified poet or an unidentified writer of prose—I'm going to see the poet a hundred times out of a hundred. For the sheer chance of having your doors blown off, of being wowed by the substance and the sonic gelatin that holds it all together, nothing beats a poetry reading.

​Seriously, listen to Robert Wrigley here and tell me you don't want more. Tell me you don't want all of it.

One of the luckiest things about living where I do is that the place is thick with great poets. Great poets. Just the other day, we attended a reading by Tami Haaland, former Montana poet laureate (and our friend), and Elisa said it was "exactly what my heart, mind, and soul needed today." Yeah. Mine, too.

My brother-in-law, a well-regarded musician and recording engineer, in answer to a question of mine about what makes him sit up and say "holy (very bad word)" when he hears a voice, said this: "The emotion the musician channels."

So it is with poetry. That's the beauty. We needn't confine it to a month in spring. We need it every damn day.

Go get some at your local indie bookstore. Or use mine.​

Elisa and I are just back from a two-week vacation, one spent doing all the things one should do when granted such a release from ordinary life. We saw our favorite basketball team (a loss, but whatever), we ate good food, we hugged loved ones and old friends, and we explored a bit of the Texas coast. A damn good time.

And then, to finish it off, we headed to Santa Fe and said goodbye to Jon Ehret. Somehow, the world has kept on spinning since he left us on Aug. 21, 2021. He's often on my mind, always in my heart, and badly missed by everyone who grew to love him. On a late-March day in New Mexico, we raised a toast. It was beautiful. He was beautiful. And it made me wish, again, that he could have been at the table with us, noshing on good food and reveling in good memories.

I met Jon when I was 20 years old. I lost him when I was 51. We packed a lot into those 30-plus years. Just not enough. It would have never been enough.
​
Saying goodbye, though painful, was a gift. His celebration of life brought out two men I knew at a crucial point—at the same point, roughly, that I met Jon—when I was a youngster who needed some direction and role models in a career I'd chosen but didn't quite know how to get myself into. In 1990 and 1991, I was working as an agate* clerk in the sports department of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Jon, just out of grad school, was an editor on the sports desk, particularly gifted at page design, the discipline I fancied for myself and yet had never really done**. Frank Christlieb was a copy editor on that desk. Steve Waggoner was a copy editor and layout man. All three of them were heroes to me, along with an entire crew I can still mostly name, all these years later. Hille and Ed and Darrell and Dano and Doug (RIP) and Bullet and Sven and Lisa and Susan and Joe Mac and Joe and Coach and Tod (also RIP) and Brian (yet another RIP) and even my stepfather, Charles Clines, though we never made much of our connection while at work; we were too circumspect for that.

So, there I am, Saturday afternoon, waiting outside the venue where we're to say our goodbyes to Jon (dammit, I still cannot believe it), and Frank is the first one I see. It's been upward of 30 years since we've lain eyes on each other, but thanks to social media, it's instant recognition and a hug. Waggoner comes, too, and it's the same thing. Thirty years gone, but time, for a few moments anyway, has stood still and let us greet each other. Ana, his wife, same thing. She was there all those years ago at the Star-Telegram, and she was there Saturday, and it was nothing short of wonderful to see all of them.

And it was the next day, on the first leg of a two-session drive home to Montana, that I realized how Jon had blessed me with another gift. I got to hang out with those folks, to hear their stories and to tell mine, and maybe to impart in some way how much I was affected by being around them when I was a little pissant editorial scrub. Not because they condescended to me (they did not) or because they were especially nurturing (they sometimes were, but they had jobs to do that didn't involve nursing me along), but because they provided an example: Here's how the work is done, here's how you take it seriously, here's the difference between being diligent and being lazy, and here's what it looks like when you've done well. I carried that stuff with me to other states and other newspapers and other jobs***, right up until 2013, when I left the print business. I hucked those lessons onto my shoulders when I resumed my career as a journalist****. I was lucky, indeed, to have such role models at such an age.

And we were all lucky to have a friend like Jon.

As for the celebration of life itself, it was bittersweet, as such things tend to be. Jon was well loved by many, and they came out to toast him. Elisa has a really nice remembrance of him at her blog. You should read that. I gave one of the eulogies, which I'll mostly leave to the air that carried it, but there's one part, at the end, that I need to remember for the next loss that takes me to my knees. You live long enough, and they come:

I could rage against the fates that took him so young—when he had a son to see deeper into life, and a wife who loves him so and with whom he made common cause, and birds to tend to, and veterans to honor, and talents yet to be mined and developed, and chicken wings yet to debone.

And yet, I don’t. I’m not angry at the universe for calling him back to stardust, no matter how unfair the timing might seem. How could I be angry, when it’s the universe that gave him to us in the first place? He is my brother. He has been that since the first day he and I looked at each other and mutually acknowledged, yeah, OK, I’ll take a few spins with this wacky bastard. That was our call, our decision, and the vagaries of life and loss have no say in it.

Jon's still here. He's not accessible in the way that I would prefer, but he's with us. And we are with him. Always.

End notes
* — Agate, dears, is the small type you see in newspaper box scores and the like. At a major metro paper like the Star-Telegram in the early '90s, it was a full-time job to compile agate, set it, take call-ins over the phone, make a dinner run for the editors, etc.

** — I ended up winning some nice page design awards in my newspaper career, and I've done the design work on an esteemed quarterly magazine for nine years now. It's nice when aspiration meets opportunity.

*** — I went into all that in a Substack post.

**** — See this.

Hello, 2022 ... and all of you here to see it. It's been a trip, huh?

Just before Christmas, in a final furious week of drafting, I finished the first pass at a new novel, which I'm calling Dreaming Northward. It is, as I expected given the brisk pace of my finishing kick, both a fully satisfying arc and a manuscript that needs a lot (A LOT) of work. That's how these things go, at least for me. I write them to see I can get from here to there, then I spend a lot of time cogitating on what I've done, then I rewrite to more fully expose the story I think I'm trying to tell, then I revise, revise, revise to really hone whatever it is that I have. (Followed, of course, by even more editing if—knock wood—the thing gets published, followed then by a beautiful, finished book that I immediately wish I could have another crack at.)

Anyway, I hope to share it with you ... sometime. Probably 2023. We'll see. A lot left to do.

I mention this because my friend Jeff Deck reminded me of something on Facebook today. Here are Jeff's words, which are much more eloquent than mine:

I'm Random Penguin House author Jeff Deck, and I have an important message for you today:

Getting published by a major house will not make you rich.

It will not pay your mortgage. It will not clear up your skin. It will not get rid of those love handles.

It will not make you a bunch of friends, nor will it get you laid. It will not make your distant parent say they're proud of you.

It won't relieve you of the onus (and cost) of marketing your book yourself, either.

What it will do is get your book into physical bookstores. And potentially improve your chances of getting a second book traditionally published. But mostly it's the distribution thing.

Many people fix their eye — and their hopes, and their self-validation — on getting published by a major house. My wish for you is to recognize the value in your work no matter how it ends up being published, whether via the Big Five (Big Four?), a mid-size or small press, or self-publishing.

Recognize the value in it BEFORE it's published, too. The work you put into your story is real. The time you spent improving your own skills along the way should be recognized, and celebrated.

Goals are important for motivation. But you are "worthy" *right now*. And you will continue to be worthy every step of the way.

Writing is a long journey, even (especially) after publication. No matter which publishing route you choose. Belief in your own value — and a daily celebration of your own work and words — will sustain you along the way.

Every word is absolutely true, by the way. I often tell folks that they should celebrate having done the work as much as they celebrate anything that flows from that work. Sometimes, they think I'm bullshitting them. I'm not. The work is sustaining. The rest is ... the rest.

The rest

Received some lovely news yesterday. And It Will Be a Beautiful Life was the bestselling book for 2021 at my local independent bookstore, This House of Books. I'm grateful to the bookstore—where I'm a proud member-owner (it's a co-op)—for being such a wonderful supporter of not just my work but of the many, many fine regional writers who are doing such important work here. And I'm grateful to the folks, near and far, who bought a copy from THoB and kept the oxygen flowing to an independent bookstore. The cultural life in my town is much the richer for its presence.

If you'd like a signed copy of the book, THoB will be happy to fulfill that desire. Simply order online and mention in the comment field that you'd like it signed, and I'll hop into my trusty blue Toyota, drive downtown and sign it for you.

And, hey, if it's a paperback you want, I have good news:

The paperback version releases in May, and you can preorder through THoB (I'll be happy to sign those, too, once they come in), through your local independent bookseller (please!) or wherever you get books.

Dispatches from the staying-in-touch department ...

Will the pig run again?

I've written before about my occasional life in pipeline inspection — an association that inspired an entire novel — and had been looking forward to getting out there again in the spring, after the usual wintertime slowdown. Well, maybe, but also looking like probably not. The company for which I did work recently shuttered, and there's an industrywide slowdown, so I may be on the obsolescence end of progress (or regress).

I can't say I'm particularly heartbroken. Pipelines are a destructive, invasive way of delivering extractive sources of energy, and for the future of the planet, it's high time we develop alternatives that are well within our grasp but beyond our political will. On the other hand, there's a practical consideration: We already have the damn things, and we're using them. The job I did was essential to the safety end of matters. Let's hope that continues until we can pull those things out of the ground and return the land to those from whom it was stolen.

I will miss the travel to exotic (read: remote) locales and the chance to meet people in their natural habitat. But that can be enjoined in other ways, obviously.

Union strong

I recently did something I should have done a long, long time ago: I joined the Authors Guild.

So here's where I cop to self-interest: I began to consider the possibility earlier this year when, quite apart from any involvement from me, my former agency descended into founder-vs.-founder contretemps and my meager royalties from long-ago books started showing up late or not at all. My former agent, also caught in the crossfire as her old shop melted down, was a champion and an ardent defender of my rights, it should be pointed out, and she got my situation squared away, for which I'm eternally grateful. But it occurred to me—again, when my self-interest was compromised, an entirely human condition that I'm trying to rise above—that in this whole solitary business, you have to grab a little solidarity where you can get it and stand strong with those who do what you do.

I'm also reminded of something wise I once heard said by A.W. Gray, a well-regarded crime novelist but better known to me as the father of my boyhood best friend: "The people who need unions the most are those who don't have them."

The rustling around of some of my writer friends tells me November is coming, and that means National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). And sure as the swallows return to San Juan Capistrano, someone (or several someones) in my circles will openly disdain the whole exercise.

If I wished to be casually dismissive of someone's point of view—to suggest that they haven't legitimately arrived at their thinking—I could certainly do that, but I think not hearing each other has caused us enough problems. My own view is that a communal writing experience, in which thousands upon thousands of people set aside some time and try to create something, is very much a good thing. Perhaps the attendant expectations often get wacky—no, you're probably not going to write a finished novel in a month, and no, laying down 50,000 words and "winning" NaNoWriMo doesn't ensure publication, and no, the act of drafting is not what it's all about—but the expectations aren't the toil or the making of art. You want to spend November trying to pull a novel out of yourself? Bully! Do it!

I won't join you, though, for reasons I'll get into below. And my getting into them might just illuminate what a NaNoWriMo participant can expect from the experience. On the other hand, what do I know and who am I to say? Well ...

1. I've Been There and Done That

In 2008, prompted by my friend Jim Thomsen, I committed myself to a month of writing and had what has turned out to be a dream trip. I drafted my first novel, what eventually became 600 Hours of Edward, in those 30 days. (Actually, it was 25. No, no, wait, it was 17 on account of the off-days; see the breakdown below.)

This, a bit regretfully for me, has become a sort of boilerplate in any account of my subsequent fiction-writing career. It shows up in reviews, gets asked in interviews, etc.: Here's the guy who wrote his first novel in 25 days and got it published and it eventually became an international bestseller and it's just that easy!

It's not just that easy. I've written nine books since then, not a one of them as commercially successful as the first, all of them better pieces of writing (in my estimation), and I've come to view what happened in November 2008 as a one-off, a writing project never to be replicated by me in quite that way again. I had an idea, I gave in to the mania of writing it as quickly as I could because of the format, and I had the good fortune of writing something that has connected more broadly than anything I'd written before or am likely to write again.

I'll take the win and say I've already played the game.

2. For Me, It's About Not Writing as Much as It is About Writing

NaNoWriMo's pitch to prospective participants is pretty irresistible: They say we all have a novel inside us. Commit yourself to finding out.

As far as it goes, a fine idea. And every November, people find their people, fellow writers who are trying to meet the challenge. There are supportive text exchanges and writing get-togethers and coffee klatches, and these are all wonderful things. Writing can be such a solitary, doubt-filled endeavor. NaNoWriMo brings community to the fore.

The thing is, writing novels has helped me learn to embrace the solitude. It's also made me realize that some of the best work I do happens when I'm not at the keyboard, pushing my word count ever higher. It's in the quiet consideration of things, reflecting on the characters and worlds I'm trying to create. It's in feeling the rhythm of the world around me and participating in it. It's in letting the well refill.

All of which is to say that ginning myself up for a writing dash in November is far less important to me than listening inward and doing the things I need to do to stay engaged with my work and with the larger life I have that supports it.

3. The Whole Word-Count Thing

OK, look, I get it: NaNoWriMo is selling "get that novel out," so there has to be an attendant metric by which you measure how successful you were in meeting the challenge.

Word count is just so lacking in so many ways because it puts the wrong objective forward. I can't speak for professional writers who disdain NaNoWriMo—by now, I should be on record as very much pro-the-spirit-of-NaNoWriMo-if-not-necessarily-the-way-it's-sometimes-applied. But many people who've spent a lifetime developing craft, absorbing rejection, trying again, getting better, breaking through will view word count as one of the least important things they do, far less vital than getting the arc right (which will, by its nature, produce the words), clarifying theme, achieving empathy, sharpening the prose, etc. That NaNoWriMo considers 50,000 words success can just feel a little thin when you know just how hard it is to write something worth publishing.

For what it's worth, here's how my word counts proceeded in 2008 (first number is the cumulative total, and the parenthetical is that day's work):

• Nov. 1, 2008: 5,763 (5,763)
• Nov. 2, 2008: Off
• Nov. 3, 2008: Off
• Nov. 4, 2008: 11,183 (5,420)
• Nov. 5, 2008: Off
• Nov. 6, 2008: 13,721 (2,538)
• Nov. 7, 2008: 16,963 (3,242)
• Nov. 8, 2008: 20,439 (3,476)
• Nov. 9, 2008: Off
• Nov. 10, 2008: 23,085 (2,646)
• Nov. 11, 2008: 27,293 (4,208)
• Nov. 12, 2008: 30,744 (3,451)
• Nov. 13, 2008: 34,558 (3,814)
• Nov. 14, 2008: 39,886 (5,328)
• Nov. 15, 2008: Off
• Nov. 16, 2008: Off
• Nov. 17, 2008: Off
• Nov. 18, 2008: 43,846 (3,960)
• Nov. 19, 2008: 51,811 (7,965)
• Nov. 20, 2008: 54,816 (3,005)
• Nov. 21, 2008: 60,837 (6,021)
• Nov. 22, 2008: 63,957 (3,120)
• Nov. 23, 2008: Off
• Nov. 24, 2008: 73,208 (9,251)
• Nov. 25, 2008: 79,175 (5,967)

I look at those totals now and feel sheepish that I felt compelled to keep the record and to commemorate it. Why? It wasn't the total that was driving me; it wasn't the prospect of "winning" NaNoWriMo so I'd have a cool pixelated badge I could post here 13 years later. I wrote like mad because I had inspiration on the hook, and having never written a novel previously, I didn't trust myself to let it come to me in a more moderated way. I cannot conceive of an 8,000-word writing day now. I'd probably collapse if I tried it.

But here's the truth: I'm no less excited about my current project than I was about the book that became 600 Hours. I just don't feel the need to sprint. Thus, NaNoWriMo's appeal is lessened.

4. So What To Do?

This ain't a hard question. Do NaNoWriMo, if that's what you're jazzed about doing. Don't if you're not.

Whatever the choice, I'd urge reconsideration of what success is, in literary terms. Success is writing that story, in whatever way you do it and in whatever time it requires. That's it. It's a singular success that stands alone from getting an agent, getting a publishing contract, seeing your story in print, selling a hundred gajillion copies. Success is doing the work. Period. Full stop.

My buddy Jonathan Evison, one of the most talented and generous writers I know, wrote some number of novels and buried them in his backyard long before he broke through to publication. They weren't wasted effort; indeed, Johnny would tell you that work was foundational to everything he does today.

​The man speaks the truth.