Why we write

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Sometimes you write a poem

I’ve always loved the idea of writing poetry, but I viewed my attempts as the equivalent of chopping at rocks with a chisel. I suppose this comes from reading so many things of beauty as a literate person who went on to study all kinds of literature in college. You feel a fool for even making an attempt.

However, a person walking through a museum never sees the thousand scrapped canvases that preceded the masterpiece.

I do not profess any particular skill in this medium, though like many writers, perhaps I make up with passion what I lack in other areas. Regardless, a man celebrating his wife on their 25th anniversary should be given a little grace, in my opinion. And so, here we are.

A breath, taken away

Not for a day

But forevermore

As I remain

Entranced

Within a love

I dared not dream

–

The years pass

Still, I am enamored

Both lost within a love

And found

A man, content

Never searching

Filled with incandescent joy.

Sometimes, you write a poem, and it flows effortlessly from the wellspring of inspiration and love. And usually, that’s more than enough. Happy 25th Anniversary, my love.

Mike

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© Michael Wallevand, October 2023

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Writing Exercise: Chew.

Last weekend, we were at a park with Benji, enjoying the trails. He kept pointing and giggling, saying “Chew!”, which is his word for his Chewbacca. We didn’t have the stuffie with us, but this isn’t unusual behavior for him. After a few exclamations, my writer brain switched on.

What if he was actually seeing a figure that he mistook for Chewbacca?

A thrill ran through me, and only a little of that feeling was terror. Then The Idea came.

A heartwarming, family story that lies somewhere between Harry and the Hendersons and Gremlins, with a leaning toward the funny PG horror films of the 80s. Chew, which Benji names the monster after his Chewbacca character, is a tall hairy sasquatch kind of creature with an oversized mouth that makes the name “Chew” very apropos.

I worked out some details in my head as we walked. After my wife explained that they’d hidden Chewbacca at that park before and that Ben was remembering it, I shared my idea.

She told me I had to write it out. That means I’m on to something.

In about 2 hours, I had four and a half pages, or about 2,200 words. The work was divided into three parts. First, the treatment, which helped me set the scene, as well as describe the protagonist, whom I modeled after Benji. Second (and bulk of the writing) was the beginning of the story, and finally, a list of foreshadowing items, which any good horror story needs.

Here’s an excerpt from the treatment. It was important to me to show how Ben’s autism impacts the dynamic of the story. Also, representation matters. As Ben’s father, one my responsibilities is to help the world understand what it’s like to be him.

Benji is a young nonverbal teenager with severe autism. He loves stuffed animals and action figures, but his prized possession is a medium-sized stuffed Chewbacca he calls “Chew”. As this the case for many people like him, Benji repeats the known word over and over and again, occasionally adding a “rowr!” to bring his person to life. “Person” is the term his family uses for any stuffie or other character in Benji’s toybox. You see, for a kiddo with a limited vocabulary, you believe you have to choose your words carefully, often using broad terms to ensure comprehension.

Perhaps his family doesn’t give him enough credit for what he does understand, but they are doing the best they can. As is Benji, who doesn’t seem to mind, except when they are too dim to understand what he is communicating, which is a combination of gestures and repeated words. He might have to repeat “Chew” incessantly and with increasing volume to completely convey his message.

But thirty minutes of the word “Chew”, either resulting from playing with his person or because Benji wants something, can try the patience of even the most easygoing person, and Ben’s parents, while not angry people in their nature, do have their limits.

The treatment describes a bit more about the house, Ben’s brother, and some other details. I remember my typing picking up steam at this point, and the treatment suddenly transitioned into the opening of the story.

…Benji often sits at the window, clutching his Chew. Sometimes the Wookiee dances on the sill; sometimes he leans against the glass, staring into the woods with his person, Benji. “Chew” and “rowr!” are usually repeated frequently. Today, there is a new level of urgency, as Benji sees a tall shaggy figure at the forest edge that he thinks is….

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How do you honor a life? #2

Our family lost our bonus grandma (great aunt and great-great aunt Carol) in August. I’ve always struggled finding the right words at times like these because I’m not great in social situations when emotions are raw. What I can do, however, is write something that helps others manage the loss.

I share this obituary as an example of how a writer helps honor – and celebrate – the life of someone important to him. Some info edited out for privacy.

“Will my father recognize me?” Carol asked.

A telling question, it spoke to one of the people she wanted to see most in the next life. But he wasn’t the only one she longed to see. She also yearned to be reunited with her husband, Maynard, who’d passed in 2014.

Born to William and Marie Oberg of St. Paul on December 20, 1930, she was one of five children. The “baby of the family”, she would often say, and we suppose none of her siblings let her forget it.

She graduated from Johnson High School and worked for a short while at St. Paul Fire and Marine. This was followed by Carol returning to school to learn keypunch, a career in high demand at the time. She went to work for Northern Pacific Railroad, where she stayed there for the rest of her career, finally retiring in 1995.

As many born on the East Side will proudly tell you, there are no good reasons to leave, and Carol was no exception. When she married Maynard Larson, a quiet Korean War vet, they remained in the area, not far from where she grew up. They had been married 57 years when Maynard passed. Together, they were long-time members of First Covenant Church in St. Paul, generous with their contributions and time.

While they never had children of their own, they loved their dogs, Molly and Yorkie, and many of the other four-legged friends the family introduced to them over the years. And if they ever needed a bit more noise or excitement in their lives, they had their great-nieces and their kids, who revered Carol and Maynard as a bonus set of grandparents. For their part, there was more than enough love to go around, and Carol and Maynard attended numerous birthdays and holiday celebrations with their growing family. Carol particularly enjoyed hosting Christmas parties with games.

Carol was preceded in death by her parents, her siblings, her nephews, her niece, and her loving husband, Maynard. She is survived, and greatly missed, by nephew and his extended family.

We recently found a photograph of Carol from 1935, when she was about five years old. She wears her trademark smile, the one that shone her entire life. So, to answer Carol’s question, “Will my father recognize me?”, I think we can take comfort in knowing that, yes, he most certainly recognized you and your smile, Carol. And he’d watched over you as you grew up and held you when you needed strength. We know you feel blessed to be reunited with him and with Maynard, as well as the rest of the family who greeted you when you arrived.

So many people said nice things in response to this. It made them laugh or smile, and while they were also sad, they appreciated how it made them recall the fondness and love they had for Carol. And that is perhaps the highest praise I could receive.

Hug that person you love and never forget to keep doing that. Sit on the floor and play or call them on the phone. We never want to regret that we didn’t have just one more day.

Mike

© Michael Wallevand, September 2023

Similar topic: How Do You Honor A Life?

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Waiting is the hardest part

We’re sitting in Children’s Hospital this morning while our son Benji has a heart procedure. As medical procedures go, especially ones concerning your child, an invasive cardiac electrophysiology and ablation is relatively straightforward and routine.

And yet, it’s a medical procedure involving the heart. Of your child.

It’s a hard thing to watch him wheeled away, even when you have absolute faith in the medical staff. It feels impossible to let him go. And yet, you do.

Then you sit. Then you wait.

And wait and wait.

I thought I might play games on my Steam Deck to pass the time, either some brainless distraction or immersive experience, but my wife wisely suggested I try writing instead. So, I brought the laptop and left the Deck behind. An easy decision, I had hesitation, nonetheless. You see, writing has been hard for the last, hmmm, 18 months or so as stresses piled upon each other. I was out of practice and easily distracted.

As we sat in the waiting area, I set my phone aside and opened the laptop. I’d recently started an alternate prologue for Tildy Silverleaf and the Starfall Omen that brought the reader into the action sooner. The approach was more Show and less Tell, and based on feedback Trusted Readers had provided, I thought it would be better received. As I read through rough paragraphs, the visuals resurfaced in my mind. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that I submerged into the world I’d created.

And I wrote.

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Fourteen weeks and fourteen years

Autobiographical account of our son, Benjamin. Writing can help process things that we struggle to verbalize.

Ben remained in the hospital fourteen weeks after his birth.

To save his life, he was delivered ten weeks early, becoming an April baby instead of the June one we’d anticipated. I’ve never seen so many medical machines in my life, but neither had I fed a newborn with a syringe nor seen a nurse cry for another family. In that time, trauma flourished and threatened to overwhelm a love and joy we thought we’d have.

It seemed like an eternity – no, scratch that. An actual eternity passed as we watched him cling to life in that time, hardly able to hold the baby we were desperate to protect.

10 weeks premature and living in a protective isolette, Benji squeezes Sam’s finger, the 9-year-old big brother who grew up a lot after that.
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Exclude your audience or include them?

I’m always reviewing my writing for exclusionary words. In this post, I’ll be taking a discriminating look at a few paragraphs from my book with the intent of removing discriminatory language. Don’t worry – this wasn’t some prejudicial diatribe I needed to cut. I’d found a trite, gender-centric passage, and I decided to shake it up to turn a trope on its head. Painless right? And kinda fun, kid.

Language is both simple and powerful in its ability to bring people together, but it’s also very easy to exclude broad swathes of people with specific words. For instance, using “men” to describe soldiers or “wife” or “husband” instead of “spouse”. If you’re always represented in the language like I am (i.e. a white guy), you’re less attuned to it and less exhausted by it. And even if you want to write differently, these things still unconsciously find their way into your writing because much of what you’ve read is rife with similar language.

The fixes aren’t difficult, but you have to look for them and be willing to change your way of thinking a smidge to include people.

BTW, if you want to complain about political correctness or wokeism, this probably isn’t the website – or book – for you. I’m sorry to see you go. We’ve got a heckuva a wild fantasy ahead of us and there’s room for humans of all kinds.

I’ll start by presenting the passage in its fixed state, hoping that you’ll appreciate how it reads like a perfectly normal piece of writing, not some screed trying to brainwash you.

She shook her head, clearing her thoughts like a dog shakes out waterlogged ears. “Listen, youths are idiots when it comes to impressing someone they like. They get all sorts of notions in their heads. Probably the storybooks they read,” she said with an eye on Tildy. She continued, determined to say her piece. “Some want to be knights, fighting to prove themselves worthy of marriage and titles and lands. It makes them do reckless things.”

Tildy stared, mind reeling. What in the world was she talking about? And like a smack to the head, she understood and laughed. “You think he’s going to fight for my honor or something?”

The witch looked unhappy. “I have seen many young people rushing to battle for honor or some chivalrous reward. Only some returned, and none were the same, regardless of the prize.”

See? Perfectly normal and not brainwashy at all.

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Writing Exercise: Memorial Day tribute

I planned to delve into writing this weekend, mixing those responsibilities with other chores around the house. I needed to regain momentum on Project Two, which had stalled during the pandemic; ironically, I was also fighting the lingering effects of my own bout with Covid. I knew I would have plenty of optimism when I finally sat at the keyboard, even if I had no idea where to begin.

That’s when Serendipity paid a visit.

Goodnight, Saigon by Billy Joel came up on my playlist, and his lyrics drew me in like I was watching a movie. I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, but your mind’s eye takes over, even as your body goes through the motions of dressing and pouring coffee. I’m not even sure of the sequence of events: my mind connected the song to Memorial Day and a scene where Samor rejoins his companions after they’ve lost someone. There was nothing; then there was something.

I grabbed the computer, put the song on repeat, and 30 minutes later, I had this.

Samor greeted his companions as they gathered to him. Their welcome was genuine, their words warm. But he read something else on their faces that he hadn’t seen before. Or rather, he realized he hadn’t had the skills to interpret the tragedies that lay there. The worry that creased Hochness’s brow; the crow’s feet that used to merrily step away from the corners of Oafsson’s eyes. Even the betrayer Chork, addled as his mind remained, seemed more sedate against the bonds that held him to the litter. A weight drug at them all, anchoring them to the battle where they’d lost their friend and compatriot. The look of survivors, a mix of gratitude and guilt, made worse by each condemning beat of their living hearts.

His past naiveté angered him, but mostly it saddened him. No words seemed important enough, nor considerate or meaningful enough to break the silence of the moment. And so, he took his cue from his friends, yes, that is what they were now, and he embraced them silently and exchanged knowing looks that would have been inscrutable to the person he used to be. In the strength he gave, he felt more returned. They knew he knew. They accepted him and were grateful that he offered to share the burden.

Samor recognized this understanding wouldn’t have come from a lifetime of study. Simple words upon the page were shallow, going no deeper than the ink that sank into the paper – practically lies for their misinterpretation of the awful reality. The knowledge was horrible, and he wished he’d never acquired it. A small voice between his ears reminded him it was a necessary experience for the future leader of Empyrelia, a land destined for war, but he could derive no comfort from that. He hoped he never would.

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Writing Exercise: Sometimes You Climb

A note to our son Sam, as he’s training to be a climbing instructor at Scout camp. I share it here because it was too long to text. Pfft, writers.

Sam,

I know you had your eyes set on the aquatics director role and how you were disappointed when circumstances beyond your control prevented it from happening this year. However, when I heard you were moving to the rock wall, I thought, ”Now THERE is a role that perfectly suits Sam.”

And so, if you’ve forgotten how much you loved climbing as a kid, I wanted to share three climbing-related moments from your life.

The first happened when you were three, which would have been the Summer of 2003. You were playing in the backyard, and me, still a relatively new parent, assumed you were safely contained by our six-foot stockade fence.

You weren’t. When I opened the front door in response to a tiny knock, you stood there, smiling and oblivious to any of the thousand perils my worried parent’s mind instantly conjured, not least of which were the dangers of traffic or falling onto the concrete pad. To your mind, an obstacle three times your height was a trifle. And a fun one.

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I’d been thinking about quitting

I didn’t want to write this post.

I’m sure some of that came from the societal stigma about showing vulnerability and my extreme reluctance to share personal aspects of my life. I think the greater issue, however, was the fear that such an admission would transform thought into reality if it reached the written page.

I wrote a draft of this post in mid-September after a rough couple weeks, when stressors and disappointments had piled upon another. I’d found myself angering easily or venting frustration in situations where it wasn’t warranted. My novel always appeared to be the catalyst: not having time, not being inspired, delivering garbage when I did sit down.

It wasn’t the first time I’d had similar feelings, but these were more acute and my defenses were down.

My writing time was precious and I was wasting it, and this realization was eating me alive.

There’s a betraying voice in your head that suggests the simplest solution: Quit doing the thing that’s causing pain. Just walk away.

Because writing is the primary way I express emotion, my head started drafting a post along those lines. The admission hurt, and that feeling intensified as I fleshed it out, because it reflected the abandonment of something I’ve wanted my whole life.

I sat at the computer that morning with little optimism and a negligibly more determination. I didn’t want to write this post…and I told myself over and again that I was pretty sure I wasn’t quitting.

Then I happened to read the following passage I’d copied from a book, and my perspective changed.

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The Nonverbal Kid’s influence on my writing

My younger son, Benji, is nonverbal and autistic. I don’t share it much because one of my primary responsibilities is protecting his dignity and privacy. And it’s usually not relevant to this site. But like any person important to you, his influence is always there in my writing, nevertheless. In this post I’ll share one of the ways my craft has changed because of him.

Ben has a limited vocabulary, though his communication includes expressive gestures and sounds, not just words. In talking to us (people who clearly are too dim to understand), he’s practically speaking three languages, and often, more than one at a time. It’s not his problem when we can’t figure out the translation; it’s ours.

To an outsider, however, it might create an uncomfortable situation. Not because that person is a bigot who despises neurodiversity, but because they are walking in unfamiliar territory. I liken it to me meeting a Black man for the first time (in my memory, he looks like actor Brock Peters in his Star Trek days). I was just a little kid, terribly shy around strangers, and before me stood a person so completely unlike every person I’d known in my secluded little rural town. At least, that’s the lie your brain tells you. In every aspect that I could see except skin color, he was like my neighbors.

I hadn’t been taught to hate or even dislike Black people; I just had some unintended bias to push past because my world was filled with people who looked like me and had basically the same beliefs and ancestry.

It’s one thing to know there are a variety of people in the world. Seeing them is another. Further still, interacting with them changes your perspective in significant ways. Watching Black people on TV wasn’t the same as meeting them. And meeting one certainly wasn’t the same as having people like him in my daily life.

I choose to believe the same lack of experience is true for people who aren’t sure how to react around Ben. It could be uncomfortable at first, but the smallest effort by them can overcome that. I don’t think they can do it alone, however. As Ben’s father, I believe one of my responsibilities is to help people with this, which also helps him.

Now, I grew up as a Boy Scout and I’ve always cheered for the underdog. I’m predisposed to helping others and recognizing those who are disadvantaged. But there’s a distinction between that and being an advocate. Believe it or not (sarcasm), there’s a difference between adding a rainbow frame to my Facebook picture and standing up to LGBTQ bigotry when people post it. Advocacy requires deliberate action, and I can help by leading through example, by sharing posts like this, and by injecting it into my books.

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