In November, I wrote a novel. I don’t think it was a very good novel, but I wrote 60,000 words in a month nonetheless. I just started writing for no reason at all, and then within five days, I realized that it was NaNoWriMo, and thought that I might as well keep going at a pace that would allow me to finish by the end of the month. I had 50,000 words down by November 22. I’m working with a partner to revise and edit it now, and it’s turning into a decent one, I think. We’ll have to see when it’s all done.
I used to read a lot. I mean a LOT. I haven’t done so in several years, because I’ve been so busy with other creative endeavors, like Solution Squad. But when I was a kid, our school library had to bend its own rule about checking out books just so I could take enough home to keep me occupied over weekends. It’s funny to think that I wasn’t allowed to read superhero comics at home, but I could read any novel I wanted from my mom’s books or the library. I was reading far ahead of my grade level, and I was often inspired to read novels upon which movies and TV shows were based, especially if I hadn’t seen a movie.
My favorite show in the 1970s was clearly The Six Million Dollar Man. And my grandma bought me the novel on which it was based, called Cyborg. Yes, like the Teen Titan, but written a full eight years before the character appeared in DC Comics Presents #26. I read the first two Cyborg novels back to back, and they were not intended for kids. Steve Austin was a killer, and even came equipped with a cyanide dart gun in his bionic finger. I remember reading The Love Bug, Island at the Top of the World (the original novel, not a novelization), The World’s Greatest Athlete, The Hardy Boys, and a ton more.
One year for Christmas, my stepfather’s mother gave me two hardcover novels as gifts, Huckleberry Finn, and Treasure Island. I didn’t care so much for Treasure Island but Huckbleberry Finn was a great escape from having to spend Christmas away from my own family.
My grandma bought my brother a book for Christmas that I know I loved more than he did. It was Doc Savage: The Sargasso Ogre. This was my first exposure to The Man of Bronze, and I read the whole thing to my brother, who was only four at the time.
When I got a little older, I read Logan’s Run, which would make a nearly unrecognizable movie if they used more of the novel than the 1976 film did. I read anything I could get my hands on, science fiction, westerns, Reader’s Digest Condensed novels, even books that we had picked up from the local flea market, nearly sight unseen.
I remember one particular novel, Brandywine’s War, which was sort of like M*A*S*H for the Vietnam War. Imagine learning about gonorrhea from a novel when you’re 13. I bought The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight by Jimmy Breslin from a garage sale for a dime, the same way I bought all the original James Bond paperbacks. I was always on the lookout for something new to read. I lived in the country, with no cable, no internet, and barely any radio.
I read the novelization of Star Wars months before I finally had the chance to see the movie. Same with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien (years before I saw the movie), and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I enjoyed the novelizations because before the advent of video recording, it was the only way to revisit the movies and I could run the visuals, sound effects, and scores in my head as I read the words.
Then there was the fluke. Superman The Movie was released 45 years ago this month, and the same day the movie came out, there was a tie-in novel–that had nothing to do with the movie other than featuring the origin of Superman. This was a surprise, especially since there was a section in the middle with photos from the movie. Superman: Last Son of Krypton was written by a Superman comic writer with whom I was very familiar, Elliot S! Maggin. He had written some of my favorite Superman (and Justice League of America) comics. This was different than a movie novelization, though. There’s no way that many of the scenes within the book could have been filmed with the technology of the day. Superman taking all of ten seconds to disable a squad of twelve hang gliding armed bandits using nearly his entire array of super powers? It was just as thrilling to read it in prose as it would have been to see it on the big screen. And I could imagine Curt Swan drawing it, or better yet (to me), Neal Adams. This was the first time I had read a novel with an actual superhero in it, and I loved it. I read it three times that year.
I’ve met Elliot, and talked to him a couple of times, explaining how much I loved this novel and the follow-up, Miracle Monday, when they came out. I’m kind of inspired now to write my own superhero prose novel. I hope my efforts compare!
Twenty-five years ago this month, my then-long distance girlfriend took me out to dinner in New Orleans. We had only met face-to-face one other time, two months before when I traveled to visit her. We had by this time spent an entire year talking on the telephone, exchanging emails, sending packages with our favorite books, music, and video. Yes, the Internet was still very young. But during that winter recess, at that dinner, I truly fell in love with her.
We had gone Christmas shopping already, and had exchanged gifts. I only had a few days left before I had to go back home to Indiana. Magi wanted to take me to her favorite Chinese restaurant, and who was I to say no to that? As we stood by the host stand at Five Happiness, waiting to be seated, she reached into her jacket pocket and got a strange look on her face. I said, “What’s wrong?” She pulled from her pocket a small envelope. She had forgotten to give me one last gift. I told her she had already spent too much on me, but she put it in my hand anyway.
In it was a gift subscription to Comics Buyer’s Guide, a weekly trade newspaper that used to be published back in those days. Now, I had mentioned to her, in passing, maybe in March, that I had let my subscription run out and that I really missed it. No, I mean it. I mentioned it once. In passing. Months before. And from out of her pocket, she pulls one of the greatest gifts I have ever received.
She listened to me.
Magi listened to me and made note of what I had said, and months later, gave me something that I missed. That was when I knew it was love. If had had any doubts before that, they were instantly erased.
The following is republished from my old blog on this date in 2017.
What is it about this time of year that gets me now? Is it that everyone concerned (except my brother) is gone now? I think it must be. My dad, my mom, my sister, my grandparents…all gone. Everyone I spent holidays with as a kid, except my brother (who doesn’t remember much of it), is dead.
That’s a lonely thought. But the wonders and the joy and the smells of the holiday are hardwired into my brain. It’s colorful Oz compared to the dreary black and white days of Kansas in the every day nightmare of my childhood. Spending time with the people who loved me most for a glorious week, as opposed to being beaten, belittled, and berated every day. There was nothing better. I know for a fact that if I had not had those respites to look forward to, I wouldn’t have made it out alive. Even now, I weep with joy at the happy memories.
My grandma baking batch after batch of cookies. Ice cream with chocolate syrup and peanut butter as a treat every night. Endless coloring books and comics and silly putty and drawing paper and colored pencils. Sleeping on the hide-a-bed in the living room. Trips to Cadillac and Traverse City, visiting the best bookstores in northern Michigan, and knowing that I’ll be able to choose something new to take back and read in peace without being tortured for reading “those damn comic books” again. An oversized treasury comic bought for the extravagant sum of $1.00, hearing my grandpa chuckle, saying, “A dollar for a funny book? Jesus Christ, Ma,” but knowing that he didn’t care.
Riding snowmobiles for endless hours and warming up by the woodstove and drinking hot chocolate. Egg nog that I helped make from the time I was able to reach the counter while stepping on a stool, with freshly ground nutmeg. Chocolate milk with dinner; the decadence! Getting our action figures out and playing to our hearts’ content while my dad and grandparents sat around the table drinking coffee.
I remember every gift no matter how small. My dad’s tradition was to give us Lifesavers storybooks and McDonald’s gift certificates. The reason behind the gift certificates is so terrible: My mother and stepfather wouldn’t let us eat very much at McDonald’s so in order to allow Jeff and me to order what we wanted, he gave us gift certificates. It didn’t work out. They just used them to order the usual and kept them. Yes, I know, even my holiday stories have darkness to them. Welcome to my world. But don’t think for a moment that the thought wasn’t appreciated. It most certainly was. We knew we were loved, if only for a while.
As I put this last paragraph down, I’m already crying at the thought of leaving each year. And not just tears rolling down my cheeks. We’re talking the ugly cry. My grandpa would slip us each a dollar and kiss us goodbye. He wasn’t exactly an affectionate man, but there was no doubt of his love. One of his favorite things in the world were cordial cherries and I made sure he got a box of them from me every single year. I think it was his favorite gift. By the time we got to the back door of the mud room, we were begging to stay. “Don’t make us go back. Please! We’ll be good.” And my grandma would hold us close, and whisper, “I know you would. You’ll be back soon, I promise. I love you.” And she would have to leave the room before we saw her cry as well. Then my dad would hug us. I knew he didn’t want to let us go. And with hindsight, I can’t imagine the guilt he must have felt for causing this disruption not just for us, but for his own parents who didn’t get to see us except for twice a year. It was not ideal. But in my darkest hours lying in bed at night back with my mother, I know we were loved for a short time every Christmas. That’s why I’ll always celebrate regardless of religion. It wasn’t about Jesus or God for me. I got beatings in the name of God.
It was about family. It was about home. It was about love. And it was about hope.
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. In case you were wondering why I haven’t been posting here this month, I have been hyperfocused on completing a novel. The goal of NaNoWriMo is just to get it out. Just write. And write I have. I have written 30,000 words in 14 days. With a goal of 2,000 words a day, I am a day ahead of schedule. With luck and determination, I will have a 60,000 word novel draft done by the end of the month.
I can then take my time to revise, edit, rewrite, and everything else necessary. But for now, I am just plain pounding the keyboard, trying to churn it all out.
What’s it about? Nothing you would ever expect from me. My wife calls it an adult contemporary novel. In fact, it will be published under a pen name. I’ll pitch it, but I can self-publish if I need to. I have extra ISBNs left over from working on Solution Squad, and I already know how IngramSpark works.
So, I’m taking a month off from my blog. I’m taking a month off from my Mego figures. And I’m going to put a big check mark on my bucket list at the end of November.
The actual milestone date was a couple of days ago, but as usual, our family circumstances dictate that we dance around actual dates when we celebrate.
Twenty-five years ago this weekend, I stepped off an airplane at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans. I was wearing a lavender long-sleeved shirt, a decision that I immediately regretted as I stepped through the exit of the plane. The air was heavy and thick, and strangely warm. I started sweating immediately, but not just because of the heat. I was going to meet the love of my life.
We met online the year before, both of us playing a Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) game called Terris. We were using America On Line to disappear into a fantasy world that bore little resemblance to our own. I was playing a soceror named Antrim. She was playing a shaman named Serafina. Being of low level, we found groups of like abilities and stuck together. Serafina and Antrim were both in the Wizard’s Guild, and while my character threw massive fireballs and wrought havoc with monsters, Serafina was a healer and kept the party alive. The problem with using magic in that word was that it required a lot of rest to recover spell points, the fuel that made us go. To enhance our recovery rates, we would often find ourselves sitting around in the Glade of Spiritual Healing, outside of the main city of Devardec. And there, we would chat–sometimes in-character, and sometimes out-of-character. OOC conversations were often held in “tells,” telepathic communication that the general public wouldn’t hear. It was there that Serafina’s player, who at first didn’t even want to tell me her real first name, and I talked about what we did for a living. She was interested in making a career change, and wanted to know about teaching, which I had revealed as my profession. And that’s how our friendship began, innocuously, sitting around playing a computer game across the country from one another.
As time went on, I spent a lot of time playing Terris. I couldn’t afford to do anything else. My then-wife was doing her student teaching 90 miles away, staying with her parents. She only came home some weekends. That should have been a clue right there that something was wrong with our marriage. We went through marriage counseling, but she quit within a few sessions. It seemed that she wasn’t really motivated to try to save the relationship. I started a new job, still teaching, but somewhere else, while my then-wife did her own thing. It was on my birthday that year, that the final straw broke. My not-so-loving wife decided not to even be home on my birthday and she left early to go Christmas shopping with her mother instead, staying a few days at her parents’ house. I was devastated. I went into Terris to see if Magi was playing, and asked if I could call her. I’d never spoken to her on the phone before. It didn’t seem like it would be appropriate since I was married. But that night, I cried my heart out to her and she consoled me as best she could. It was clear to everyone, especially me, that my marriage was over.
Almost a year later, Magi and I were still good friends, but thought that maybe we could be more. We talked on the phone almost every day and saw each other through personal and professional crises. We exchanged favorite books and movies. I had a long weekend for fall break, and we decided that I should fly to her to meet her face-to-face. When I saw her smiling face looking at me in the airport greeting line, any doubt was washed away. We went to Copeland’s for dinner (I had shrimp creole for the very first time), and we held hands and talked for hours. We were just so thrilled to be in each other’s company. We talked late into the night, and the next morning (I slept on the couch; I was still technically married) I made her my favorite Big Boy Mexican Fiesta Omelet for breakfast. Honestly, I think that’s what made her love me. I make a pretty good omelet.
She took me around New Orleans, sharing with me the best of her city. I loved it. It’s still my favorite city in the world. From Cafe Du Monde to French Market to the Riverwalk, every new sight and smell made me happy. She’d had me read A Confederacy of Dunces, so naturally, I had to eat a Lucky Dog. I ate a muffaletta for the very first time. We visited art stores, including one that had animation cels, which thrilled me. She packed as much as she could into a short trip. And it was made just that much more special because she was the one showing me around. While Magi was at work one day, another friend of ours from the Terris game came over from Bourg to keep me company. We went on a ghost tour of the French Quarter, and were allowed to see the recessed apartments that hide in the middle of the store blocks, behind gated doors. And we all went to dinner afterward. I felt so happy to be surrounded by people who clearly cared about me, especially Magi.
The weekend passed too quickly. Even when Magi was at work, I hung out at her store. I just couldn’t see her enough. By the time I had to return home on Monday, I was having second thoughts about even getting back on the plane. It was like a scene from a movie. We sat in her car, in the rain, and just felt our hearts tearing apart. We were both in tears. She took a ring from her index finger and put it on my pinky. I could smell her perfume, and asked what the name of it was. Spellbound. Of course it was. I got on the plane and returned back to Indiana. I couldn’t even call it home. Because for me, from that day on, my home was wherever she was.
A week after I returned, I walked around in a daze. I went to the grocery store, which also had a perfume counter. I asked if they had Spellbound, and had them spray some on a piece of paper I had with me. I just walked around the store, trying to imagine her by my side. I went to our Borders store, and sat there with a cup of good coffee, thinking of her being at her Borders store in Metairie, where she worked, and where I spent a lot of my time while I was visiting. I knew life would never be the same.
