I am haunted by words.

Not in the frightening sense, or even in that writing scares me. It bewilders, frustrates and confounds me at times but the act of writing doesn’t frighten me.

But I am brought up short by words I’ve written, said or have not written or said and should have. There are some in particular I wish I could take back or certainly take another run at.

I’ve spent a lot of years writing articles, stories, books, screenplays, plays, just about every medium trying to come up with just the right word, the best turn of a phrase to convey my exact meaning. Sometimes the words flow as they should and it’s extremely gratifying. Other times, the words lay there, inert, awkward, not quite right and not at all what I envisioned.

See, that’s the thing about writing. Ideas are easy. It’s having a great idea and not screwing it up on the way to the page that’s the tricky part.

It’s kind of the same with life. I’ve written notes or letters to people and have caused hurt. Almost always unintentionally. Sometimes the hurt is inevitable because of the circumstances or the need to call on behavior that is harmful. But there are times when the words come out in a stream of emotion and what I thought I conveyed was instead interpreted as something else. And feelings were hurt. Distances created. Friendships tarnished.

It hasn’t happened often and only a handful of times over my life. But words are powerful and they can be heat-seeking missiles and once we fire them, it can be very difficult to undo the damage they have on impact; no matter how hard we try to clean up the mess.

This isn’t meant as a confessional. More like reflection and a renewed effort to handle words with greater care.

So, I am haunted by words. By the power they carry to move, transport and change. Words like, hurt, pain, grief, loneliness, why…

But I also love words for the very same reason. They can be carrier pigeons taking possibilities in flight that can bring truth, healing and make the soul soar. Words like, friendship, joy, healing, hope and love.

May our words find the light that brings out the best of what they were meant to be.

I’ve been thinking about my encounters with folks who’ve inspired me. These folks are also known in their particular artistic fields but whatever fame they’ve achieved is an afterthought; it’s their art that has always come first. They have been generous with their time and art; I might even say ‘heart,’ for behind all of their artistic passions is a tremendous heart for people and their craft. My time with them has affected my own writing and artistic endeavors. Here are three that readily come to mind…

Horton Foote. Writer of dozens of plays and screenplays and winner of the Academy Award for the screenplays of To Kill A Mockingbird and Tender Mercies. I was gifted with a lunch with Mr. Foote through a dear friend of mine in NYC. HF (as my friend affectionately called him) turned out to be warmer and more genuine in person than I could have imagined. He regaled us with tales of working in live television, his approach to writing and how much he loved the theater. What I learned from him was that writing from the heart was critical as well as never giving up. And to keep writing, even if it’s into your nineties.

Ann Hampton Callaway. Ann is an award winning, Tony-nominated singer/songwriter and one of the most gifted live performers I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing in person. Full disclosure: she also happens to be a dear friend. But I can tell you that rarely have I seen an audience (whether it’s large like at The Lincoln Center in NYC or smallish at the Austin Cabaret Theater) so in the palm of the hand of a performer. Ann came up through the ranks through incredibly hard work, grit, giftedness and a wonderful giving spirit. And she has a great laugh. What I’ve learned from Ann is that whatever artistic endeavor you’re following, the heart dictates the gift. And being generous in spirit and otherwise, is its own reward. And you cannot beat the woman at puns. I’ve tried but she’s the master.

Wesley Bishop. Wes is a screenwriter who’s made a living at it for over twenty-five years. Wes and I first met when he was an actor at The Oregon Shakespearean Festival in the mid-eighties. I was barely out of college and trying to figure out this writing  and acting thing. Wes was a terrific actor with an undeniable stage presence. But he was also extremely genuine in person. And when I found out he was also a screenwriter I was amazed. Here was a man who was doing (and making a living at) the two things I loved more than anything in the world. I approached him for some advice and help and he gladly gave it, being both firm but encouraging. We lost touch over the years but reconnected almost thirty years later and I’m grateful we did. We’re able to talk on a different level now and I still appreciate his wit, straight-shooting and decency. What I’ve learned from Wes is tenacity; that your absolute best work is all you should show. And if it’s not your best, then keep working on it until it is. It’s a lesson that has paid dividends for me and one  I still have to remind myself of when I’m tired and think the works ‘good enough.’

Thank you Mr. Foote, Ann & Wes. I’m grateful for the inspiration. May I carry out your lessons and hopefully be the kind of example you’ve been for me.

I lost a friend this week.

Actually he died in 2000 and I just found out. His name was Casey and he was my best friend from ages 5-8. I moved across town then and we were never that close again. In 1987 I found him when I was living in the Seattle area. But it was strange and hard. We had very little in common. Our lives had taken diametrically opposed pathways and we had a difficult time finding common ground. Still, the history of our childhood sustained us for a while while we tried to see if we still had the makings of a continuing friendship as adults. It didn’t seem so.

One day he came to me and said, “John, it’s okay, you know. You don’t have to feel that we have to still be friends.”  I felt awful and didn’t know what to say. I said I wanted to try. But we drifted apart and I never heard from him agan.

And then I read his obiturary on Saturday. There was a picture of him at about five years old, with black-rimmed glasses, red-checkered sweater and his dark brown hair swept back with VO5, I’m sure. It was the Casey I knew. The one who laughed and shouted with me from our respective two-storied windows; who would be Batman to my Robin as we climbed into his grandmother’s cadillac and pretended it was The Batmobile; the one who watched Frankenstein with me in the lving room of our house on Cherry Court and then went screaming into my bedroom when the monster went on a rampage. And the one who looked at me with saucered brown eyes and cried, because of his loneliness, of an inner pain and a sensitivity way beyond his years.

I wrote a novel, a detective/thriller/coming-of-age story that had a main character patterned after Casey. I guess it was my way of reaching out to him, to tell him I’m sorry we weren’t table to strike the same chord we did when we were little.

Here is an excerpt from ‘Brother’s Keeper.’ I grieve for you, Casey and I miss you. May you know the rest, peace and joy that seemed to elude you in this life. My prayer is that you are being embraced right now as you have never been. Love you.

*Kincaid was a hyperactive boy with black-framed glasses who lived with his grandmother, for reasons that I didn’t understand at the time. Both his Mother and Father were alive, albeit divorced. He used to get lonely. I’d hear him crying to himself sometimes behind the row of Laurel bushes that separated our two houses. In fact, that’s how we met. I was in the back yard, excavating mom’s petunias with my Tonka Dump Truck Loader when…

…I heard this soft whimper floating out to me. At first I thought it was a kitten. I crawled over and poked my head into the thick Laurel and saw this small, hunched figure.

“Hey,” I said.

He jumped a little, scared. His glasses, which were already too big for his face, slanted askew, his eyes big brown saucers.

And I started laughing. And couldn’t stop.

“Cut it out,” he said, adjusting his glasses.

I tried. I really did. But you know how it is when you start laughing and you know you should stop. I think that flips some breaker in the brain that throws the giggle gear on high. At least it did in my case. All I could do was put my hand up to try and communicate through some six year-old digit language. I waved my fingers in front of me, helpless, in near-hysterics.

“I said cut it out!”

I nodded, in total agreement…just unable to oblige.

“That’s a mean thing you’re doing,” he said rising to his knees, facing me through the tangle of Laurel wood. “You piss-pocket.”

That did it. I rolled over in submission, holding my gut, laughing silently because I had no more air. I’d never heard ‘piss-pocket’ before. Tears streamed down my cheeks and I looked over at my new-found neighbor and he was so serious that a new wave of hysteria over took me. I think I mouthed ’I’m sorry’ before rolling over on my side, shaking from waves of laughter.

And then he put his head down and I thought I’d crushed him. When he looked up I expected a trembling lip and globs of tears. Instead, a crooked smile greeted me and he was laughing as well. He snorted and this made us both erupt. He started laughing so hard he fell into the bush. And there we lay, our first meeting, laughing joyously and uncontrollable on a June morning forever ago.

As we spent more time together, I noticed his crying jags grew less and less. When he did cry, I always felt helpless. He’d come over sometimes and sit on our front steps. He’d prop his chin on his hands and the tears would come. Seems like all I could do was simply sit next to him or put a hand on his shoulder. When I’d ask what was wrong, he wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me. Some things that happen to us when we’re young can’t make their way from our damaged hearts and minds out through our mouths. . .

Every writer has the proverbial trunk where dead and dying manuscripts go to find peace, many often never heard from again. And that’s a good thing. Most of what we write when we first start writing seriously is not ready for the printed world. Every once in a great while a lightning shot out of the blue will ring out, a 23-year-old kid fresh out of Columbia will land his first something on an editor’s desk who scoops it and paying boatloads of cash. But I think it’s fair to say that is pretty rare. It’s also fair to say I hate those young kids.

Master Hemingway said something to the effect that the first million words anyone writes is pure, uhm, dookey. Certainly part of the craft if learning while you go; discovering character and setting and story as you put the words down. That doesn’t mean they always work.

All this to say that I indeed have my own writer’s trunk. There has only been a couple of occasions when I’ve rescued a short story or two from there, still thinking they had something to them and found it was lucky enough to be true and placed them with a magazine. But most of the carcases are still there and I still get a little nostalgic for them, remembering where and who I was when I wrote them. I thought it’d be fun to look at some of the misfit manuscripts:

SHINING ARMOR – A young adult novel that tells the story of a young man and his little sister who go to live with their grandparents after their parents are killed in a tragic car accident. New town, new school, no friends. He has nothing to rely on except his martial arts in which he’s been trained by a Korean mentor who meant the world to him. It’s a story of loss, change, friendship and coming back to oneself. A little bit Karate Kid, A little bit My BodyGuard, a little bit of Peace Like a River before it was written. SA was written when I was 26-27. Still learning the ropes of what it meant to write, still infatuated with the process and rhythm of stringing words together, still giddy with all the possibilities of creating stories from scratch. It got me an agent but ultimately everyone turned it down because they didn’t think it was quite strong enough to sell. A blow but I was still proud to have followed though and completed a whole novel. I can only dream about the energy I had then to write 10 -15 pages a day. Sigh.

HAVE NO FEAR – A screenplay that throws together five young adults who are trying to come to grips with their phobias and the college professor whose malevolence and uncanny powers use those fears to control them. A bad amalgamation of Stephen King and John Carpenter. Some good dialogue but a lot of it is too over-the-top. But interestingly enough, the seed of this idea and a few scenes are making it into a new novel that expands the original idea. We’ll see if that one ends up in the trunk, too.

TO FLY – Another screenplay that was taken from a short film I shot right after high school. A wheelchair-bound boy dreams of flying liking Superman. Yeah, I know. That’s why it’s in the trunk.

GOKE-THE BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL – A scientist and his assistant try to figure out what created a series of strange earthquakes. Worse yet, a creature from the underworld comes after them. There are fires, blood and gnashing of teeth. Almost biblical. It was my first story I gave to a teacher in grade school. She couldn’t stop laughing after she read it. And it wasn’t a comedy.

Every once in a great while I’ll pull out a few pages and remember the younger man who dared to put pen to paper to try to solidify the stories in his head. They don’t always come out the way you want them to. But even the failures are sweet births and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

Have an article coming out in Alaska/Horizon Air magazine. It’s a nice publication and the editor, Michele, is a dream to work with. I got to thinking about the circuitous path of this particular article and thought I’d track it’s journey to publication.

The article is called A Crewcut For Flash, A Little Off The Sides For Green Lantern, though we’ll see if it hangs onto that moniker when it’s published in January. It’s a fun, little homey piece about my memories of going to Norm’s Barbershop with my Dad every third Saturday in the little town where I grew up. My intro to the barber’s chair at three or four created a traumatic experience for me. All I remember is a steel creature with teeth buzzsawing around my neck as pieces of my head fell away around me. Such is the imagination of a preschooler. But one Saturday, Norm hired a partner who took a notice of my interest in comics. As I hesitantly climbed in the barber’s chair he instantly regaled me with tales of the latest superhero who’d come in to get his locks chopped. Firing questions at him about The Flash, Hawkman or Spidey I’d soon forgotten all about my fears and in no time my hair was cut and I learned something new about one of my beloved comic companions. It was a lesson in compassion and joy and one I never forgot.

The memory solidified into a 900 word essay in the summer of 2004. By August I had a polished draft and began submitting it to magazines. It went to some regional magazines and then some other in-flight magazines. Editors seemed to like it but didn’t quite know what to do with it. So I kept to submitting.

And submitting…

2010 brought more rejections and some close calls with The New Yorker and The Saturday Evening Post. I was running out of markets and was wondering if the piece belonged in the fabled writer’s trunk where manuscripts go to live; kind of like The Island of Misfit Toys.

Toward the end of 2011, ‘Crewcut‘ had been submitted 62 times. I don’t know if that’s tenaciousness or denial. But in November, Michele, the encouraging editor from Horizon Airlines with whom I had published several pieces in the past asked if I had anything lying around. Well…

So ‘Crewcut’ will finally be found in the pocket behind the airline seats and pulled out to be periodically read between the serving of peanuts and soft drinks somewhere over the skies of the Pacific Northwest. And Norm’s Barbershop will be remembered and the little piece that didn’t seemed to have a place to live can finally come home.

The end of October means craggy trees etched against an ominous sky, full moons casting malevolent shadows and shutters slamming by themselves in abandoned houses. It also means it’s a great time for a chilling read in the safety one’s home, preferably with cocoa or spiced cider at the ready.

Here are some choice reads:

THE SHINING by Stephen King – Nothing like Kubrick’s film which is good but substitutes the heart and soul of the story of the little boy Danny and his relationship with Dick O’Halleran for elegant tracking shots and Nicholson’s overacting. The novel is at turns familiar, frightening and completely unputdownable. We’re scared out of our minds because King makes us care about the people who are trapped, both physically and psychically. And then there’s that woman in room 217…

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS by Thomas Harris – Completely riveting and every time Hannibal Lechter enters the stage we’re both fascinated and scared out of our wits. A completely satisfying thriller featuring a human monster and a frail protagonist who more than rises to the occasion. A tour-de-force of writing.

GHOST STORY by Peter Straub – A ghost story that takes us into the lives of four men of the New England Chowder Society. Scenes that stay with you, leaving you shaken as if you’ve walked in their shoes and experienced their journey into the supernatural. A literate read that never flags its pace.

I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson – Not like any of the three film versions, the story of Robert Neville, a man like your next door neighbor living in a world we’re imminently familiar with. One of the lone survivors of a catastrophic disease that turns humans into preying vampires, his days are filled with new challenges as he struggles to survive. His nights are sieges as he tries to out-manuever the masses who want to kill him. The novel is filled with terrifying sequences but it’s Neville’s palpable loneliness that Matheson relates in a way that is truly frightening.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens – I know, I know this is meant to read by the hearth a couple months later. But truly, there are some very scary parts to the story, else we wouldn’t secretly root for Scrooge to change his ways. The scene with Marley confronting Ebenezer and then the Ghost of Christmas Future pointing at the grave stone, revealing his name are scary stuff! God bless us everyone, it’s got a good ending.

Good reading and happy shivers

Went to an insightful and resonant storytelling conference this past week in New York City. Lots to digest and mull. One of the significant factors was not just applying it to filmmaking, writing, or corporate branding, but to our own life as well.

The elements of a great story, that is, one that is transformational (for the characters and the audience) parallels the elements and events of our own lives.

I think that’s why I’ve always been drawn, pulled, and just this side of obsessed with writing. It is the act of figuring out your own life. And more often than not it is the painful times of life, when confusion, fear or deep hurt reign that I most find solace in the words that pour forth.

Now there are lots of blogs and webpages on making your life a better story, embracing pain as gift and other things that have universal truths. But I want to focus on one moment during the days of the conference that stands out to me.

Part of our study of transformational moments in story was to experience one. As part of that, we were given the tremendous privilege of visiting the 9/11 memorial. Many of us had not been to ground zero since before the attacks. I was actually a little trepiditious, not knowing how I’d feel. As we approached and wound our way through the narrow guarded walkway with security every few feet, I started to feel overwhelmed….with reverence. I was coming onto holy ground.

As we entered the park-like setting, it was almost generic in appearance. The large tower under construction (said to be the tallest building in North America upon completion) dominated one side but the planted trees and clean walkways that made up the majority of the grounds were plaintive, almost sedate.

Standing in the exact spots where the two towers were housed, were two mammoth, granite square, cascading waterfalls. The water rolled off from each of the four sides into a center pool and then disappeared down another seemingly bottomless hole that no doubt recycled the water.

Surrounding each waterfall were plaques with the names of all the victims from the two towers, surrounding buildings, the pentagon, Flight 77, Flight 93 and rescue workers who died that day.

It was eerie to look at the names as well as watching the perpetual falling of the water; gentle yet insistent.

More than once emotion rose in my throat. I could not help but feel both projected fear and immense empathy as I stood where many took their last breath on this earth. I bowed my head several times, talking to God in words I don’t even remember.

As I looked out again across the memorial, I gave thanks. For so long (and it will continue to be so) harsh, jagged images of the destruction of that day have filled our mind’s eye. But here, at the epicenter of evil and pain, were the raw materials for redemption. The story is still being told. The memorial is an additional chapter that doesn’t run away from the darkness of that day, but rather, moves through it, bringing light to usher the shadows away.

I was indeed transformed that day. A witness to an ongoing story. A story that does what all great stories do: make us run after hope and strive to be better than we are.

Because of my love of film, I’ve always had a dream of seeing something I wrote realized on the silver screen. And I’ve grown to respect the writers who tackle this most fickle of all writing endeavors.

If you don’t count all the little scripts that my friends and I filmed in junior high through college, I wrote my first screenplay at 22. It was terrible. I wrote another at 24. Not much better. And then I kept reading scripts and how-to books and writing.

I completed one a few years later I thought was pretty good. I was proud to have finished it. I had dreams of Daniel Day Lewis starring.

 I contacted a friend who was a professional screenwriter to see what he thought. I was pretty sure he’d be impressed. He tried to let me down easy. He was very kind but also realistic and firm. He called me out on my clichéd dialogue, my unrealistic situations and some structural problems. He told me I had obviously worked very hard on it….but that I would have to work even harder. It was hard to take. But it was also dead-on advice.

I’ve written several more scripts since that time and had some close calls with production and development but nothing that made it all way through the Hollywood labyrinth into production.

I have good friends who write scripts and I know of their toil, their momentary euphoria and their heartbreak. And I have one friend who’s made a living scriptwriting for over twenty years. A monumental feat in my book. Couldn’t be prouder of him. And it turns out he was the one who critiqued that early script of mine. Looks like he knew what he was talking about.

So to Chuck, Brian, Glenn, Susan, John, and Wes: May your words be spoken back to us in cinemas around the world. Moreover, may the worlds you create, transport us as only good stories truly can. 

Here’s to you

I recently had a short story come out in a magazine. It’s always a thrill to see something in print but this was made especially so because the magazine commissioned an illustration to accompany it. And it was beautiful.

It fascinates me to see how an artist interprets a story. This particular one captured the plot (junior high-aged boys living their hopes and fears after school), setting (rooftop) the season that plays a pivotal role (Autumn) and the subplot (parents fighting) to a particularly effective degree. I was actually astonished because it was obvious the artist put much thought and care into the painting.

The story is called ‘Sky Door’ and illustrates the poignancy of friendship in the early teen years as it converges with character and major life issues. The story was rejected, let’s see…23 times before it was accepted for publication. And the amount paid was surprisingly good, considering the market for short stories is not just small, but minute, and growing more so. If the publication proves anything, it’s that perseverance often has the last laugh; even over talent and genius.

Of course, I have lots of stories that haven’t made their way from the dark yet. Some will, I think. Others are best left in the basement. But at the end of the day, they were all personal discoveries for me. That’s one of the unwritten joys and riches of writing. Often you don’t know how a story is going to end or even come out (truly). You’re unspooling it at the keyboard much like the reader is taking in the print, line by line. I know that sounds mystical and very elbow-patch-on-my-tweed-jacket-and-puffing-philosophic-on-my- pipe, but I really mean it. I think one of the wonders of a really good story is that the reader is spontaneously surprised, touched, frightened, or cackling with laughter just as the writer was as he or she uncovered it and watched it flow from their own heart and mind and spilling out onto the page.

It’s a wondrous process and one I give thanks for. Writing can be lonely and maddening. But it also bestows the persevering writer with marvelous gifts. Including the gift of discovery of the words that come forth.

I don’t know about you but I had a blanket who became a faithful companion. He went with me everywhere. Whether it was in the mud with the Tonka trucks, across a kitchen floor freshly minted with flour as Mom made Tollhouse cookies or simply on the couch with me as we watched Batman & Robin Ka-Pow The Riddler or Penguin, Boo Boo was always there.

That’s right, his name was Boo Boo. Boo Boo Down, to be precise, which was his formal moniker but when it was just him and me it was Boo Boo. He never fussed, always kept me warm and could put me to sleep in an instant as he gently wrapped around me.

I wax on about Boo Boo because some of my fondest memories are reading those first books you never forget entangled with my think, fuzzy friend. Harken back to your first memories and I’ll bet the pages of a book or two spring to life in the CinemaScope of your mind.

For me three books stand out. I’ll give a special shout out to The Giving Tree because I think it’s almost the world’s perfect book; compelling, succinct and incredibly moving. But I didn’t discover it until into my young adulthood so it doesn’t really count in our discussion here. The three books that laid their graphic images upon my hungry and impressionable mind were:

Curious George - He always seemed to be smiling didn’t he? Even after he was scared and ran into the arms of The Man in the Yellow Hat, he’d quickly get into mischief again and we joined right in with him. There is an irrepressible air of joy and security about that little monkey and his wonderful adventures.

Where The Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak’s unique illustrations take us from the safety of bed into the domain of creatures both fearsome and lovable. And for a time, we get to reign supreme with them. Sendak captures pure imagination on the page and I always found myself looking at the pictures over and over again.

The Books of PD Eastman – Go, Dog, Go, Sam And the Firefly, and Are you My Mother kept me riveted for hours. Even when I knew how the story was going to end. I loved being on the journey with those illustrations and stories. And besides, you just wanted to shout out to that little bird that the steam shovel couldn’t possibly be his mother. I mean, c’mon.

How about you? What childhood books are still stored in the treasure-trove of your memory?