The Disruptions of (Not Necessarily Time) Travel

Posted on by Head Wombat

I’m very much a creature of habit, which it comes to writing. I get up around 5, 5:15, when it’s still dark out. At the moment, I’m working on something new, so I’ll pull out the notebook and write for a few hours until the kids get up.Early mornings

Or I *would*, but the little monsters are up already, greeting me at the door of my office (the kitchen counter) with wide smiles this morning, ready for breakfast and a lot of chat. You see, we’ve just gotten back from Ireland, which is approximately the other side of the planet, which means it’s prime time for playing at 5am.

POTATO WAFFLES, man's greatest invention!
POTATO WAFFLES, man’s greatest invention!

Before we start, I’m just going to state the following: I am not complaining. I’m very lucky to have two monsters who still, at the time of this writing, like me and enjoy spending time with me. I’m so lucky to get to go visit a set of in-laws who treat me like royalty in another country altogether, and I love going to Ireland, spending time in a non-desert climate and in a culture where they’re actually laid back. Also, potato waffles.

But (ahhh, there it is), when it comes to my writing schedule, it doesn’t make the trip quite intact. I suspect it’s lost in the luggage hold, held in some Aer Lingus manager’s office for the first few days, perhaps in quarantine. Or maybe it’s so lost it makes the trip across the Atlantic a few times, availing itself of the booze from the first class cabin, until it finally stumbles onto the tarmac at Shannon, blinking in the light of a grey day, clothes disheveled and face just that bit more stubbly.

I’ll eventually cram some writing time in by force, into some rare nooks. And I also have 9 hours of sitting on my backside on the flight over and back, which is one of the prime ingredients in a successful writing habit. It’s not *quite* the ideal environment, but we’ve got a couple of ideal traveling companions who’ve made the trip so many times it’s old hat to them by now, so I’ll usually get a disjointed hour, at least. So long as the siren call of Aer Lingus’s in-flight entertainment doesn’t call.IMG_9241

Looking down at the Ennis Bookshop
Looking down at the Ennis Bookshop

But coming back is the hardest part, in so many respects. It’s tough to be away from Ireland, anyway, where they’re talking books on Today FM and Clare FM as a matter of course, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. There’s no great green expanse of a field I can stand in, and, occasionally, pretend to be David Mitchell (I don’t do this often, I swear — I do imagine he spends most of his days overlooking the Atlantic, down in Cork, striking various authorly poses in the mist and gentle rain). There are many moments of regret when we consider that an artist’s income isn’t taxed (to a degree) in Ireland, though the tax on the $0.08 in royalties from the Fenway Fiction series is not exactly breaking our bank, at the moment.

And when we’re back and I creep back into my routine that first morning back, more easily, thanks to the 8 hour time difference and the fact that my body thinks 5am is actually 1pm, when I tiptoe down to the usual spot I find, as I’ve already mentioned, a couple of cherubs grinning at me, waiting to be fed. Like a native tribesman who one day comes upon a few men with chainsaws and other implements of clear-cutting, tearing down the forest, tree by tree.

The David Mitchell Field
The David Mitchell Field

So it’s usually a few mornings before the natural rhythm of sunlight and the Earth’s rotation lulls the kids back into their normal pattern, but let me tell you, it’s so unsettling when my normal routine is taken away, replaced by, this morning, anyway, a bevy of lights, the latest Texas album (The Conversation, which isn’t bad at all) blaring, and generally feeling like I’m trying to write in a  nightclub.

 

 

 

SIDE NOTE: NOT PAID FOR BY THE COUNTY CLARE TOURISM BOARD, BUT I WOULDN’T TURN THEIR MONEY AWAY

If you are looking for a destination, you could do a lot worse than the west coast of Ireland. County Clare is one of the most beautiful places on the planet Earth, and it gives you easy access to Counties Kerry and Cork, which are most likely number 2 and 3 on the list of beautiful places. Fly into Shannon or into Dublin and take the really nice new-ish N7 across the country for 2 hours or so and dig yourself in somewhere near Corofin or Lahinch and soak it all in.

Time: A Novel

Posted on by Head Wombat
Time, a novel
Time, a novel

TLDR: Watch this series of videos if you, like me, are obsessed with the theory of time.

Otherwise, read on if you want some history on my early novel-writing efforts and more background on Butterfly, a novel.

 

So a very long time ago I was a graduate from a mostly prestigious college with a degree in a mostly prestigious field. And when I graduated and the spike of panic over having an English degree subsided and I found a different way to make a living I sat down and finished a novel-in-progress called Time, a novel.

At the time I lived in Brooklyn and worked down on Houston and Hudson St in Manhattan. When I was finished with the novel I printed it out at Kinkos (one across from CBGBs, if I remember right, which I may not), chucked a few copies into envelopes and skulked around the buildings near Penguin just down the street from the White Horse Tavern. Nothing came of it. Probably because the book wasn’t all that good. I should re-read it to verify, but I’m trusting my memory on this one.

It was a story, at its heart, about two young folks trying to get lunch. They get kidnapped, separately and together, by a few different groups, including a cosplay-ish Greek/Trojan reenactment group and the employees of a local tinsel factory, for which the male protagonist works. Or did work. It was set in Worcester, Massachusetts, of the Elizabeth Bishop poem, “In the Waiting Room,” the notorious heart of the Commonwealth, birthplace of my own self.

I moved to other companies, not so conveniently located to harass employees of the big publishing firms, and which demanded, or at least occupied more and more of my time. I moved on to another book project that centered around litter on the streets of Brooklyn that, thank God, I put to rest a few years ago.

An aged manuscript
An aged manuscript

Butterfly, a novel, my latest complete novel and the thing I’m shopping around to agents and publishers now (with less stalking… less *physical* stalking, anyway), just so happens to be set in Worcester, Massachusetts, home of the Holy Cross Crusaders, Rotmans, and Turtle Boy. William Murphy, in his post-hockey career, works a job at a factory, which just so happens to be the same tinsel factory the protagonist from Time, a novel works at. The cabal in this particular book happens to be a collection of blacksmiths from Old Sturbridge Village, everyone’s favorite central Massachusetts school field trip destination; a bunch of drop-outs from MIT living by the seaside on a butterfly ranch are another.

But another central theme is that of time travel and the effects of time. I just spent a few minutes, here and there, watching these World Science U videos on Time and would encourage you to do the same. I’ve only just stumbled across the site, but it looks like it’s got some amazing content to satisfy curious minds.

 

And I also wanted an excuse to post that Time cover, which uses the image of the Three Fates statue in the southeast corner of Stephen’s Green in Dublin, which we walked past just last week.

Butterfly: A Trip to Sturbridge Village

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Booklovers' Gourmet Reading - Fenway Fiction
Booklovers’ Gourmet Reading – Fenway Fiction

So Butterfly, a novel is about more than just hockey and people beating each other, and ultimately themselves, senseless.

It’s also about Old Sturbridge Village, a 19th century New England village. Anybody who grew up in Central Massachusetts in the 80s probably visited the Village three, four, a dozen times on school field trips.

A Vernon Hill Three Decker
A Vernon Hill Three Decker

Well, if you’re out that way, perhaps visiting the sights of Butterfly, a novel, by your favorite author, this will likely be one of your big ticket stops (along with a certain three decker on Hillside St. in beautiful Worcester, Massachusetts). And the Boston Globe have a few suggestions for other things to do in Sturbridge while you’re out there, in addition to some 19th century fun and games.

To add to that list, you might as well pop a couple towns over and visit The Booklovers’ Gourmet, in Webster, Massachusetts. We did some readings for Fenway Fiction, the original, here, and Deb, the owner is the best. I believe she may have a mug to prove it.

Enjoy your trip to the Far West, as I certainly thought of it, as a kid, and we’ll be back soon in another installment of the Butterfly, a novel literary tour.

Another Possible Early Retirement – Good Luck, Horty

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The Columbus Dispatch broke Nathan Horton’s story first, but it’s been spread around a few places and added to, most recently by The Hockey News – “Former teammate Marc Savard feels Nathan Horton’s pain.”

Nathan Horton Brings some Garden Ice to Vancouver
Nathan Horton Brings some Garden Ice to Vancouver

You can only hope Horton makes the right decision, whatever that might be, but it breaks your heart to see — this guy who’s so young succumb to “feeling like an old man” at 29, unable to play the game, work the job he’s been working at nearly his whole life. And if he doesn’t… what then? What becomes of the rest of his life? Does it only get as bad as Marc Savard has it, which includes rolling headaches and bouts of depression, but at least he gets to spend time with his kids?

When you play sports at a high level you tend to push your body that little bit harder, have to dedicate just that bit extra time to your fitness and skills. Both those things conspire against each other, because the harder you push the more likely injury is, and you tend to play through the little injuries, compounding them, because you have spent so much time preparing yourself to play, so why wouldn’t you go out and do just that?

I think the Matt Christopher books got me into athletes as protagonist — I devoured his books when I was a kid. But I loved all things sports. I wasn’t particularly good at sports, I think I did okay, and I played for a very good Division III college volleyball program that demanded moderate physical preparation and practice, but even I recall my final season when my shoulder wasn’t quite right, my knees were sore most days, and it just became more difficult to get up and play. I remember struggling with having and even wanting to give up a sport I had put so much into and can only imagine how much harder it is for someone at Horton or Savard’s level.

I didn’t explicitly fish around for story ideas or characters and think, “Hey, an ex-athlete would be a great protagonist for my new novel,” William Murphy just sort of walked on and happened to have a hockey background, some concussion issues, and a family he was spending more time with (albeit not for long). It’s a fascinating ground with built-in tensions and obstacles to overcome (or not) and great fodder for a story.

But that’s the book. In real life, I don’t know what the right decision is, but I wish Marc Savard good and improving health and good luck, Horty, with your decision.

Butterfly
Butterfly

Cerebral Commotion

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Charles Pierce has an addition to the literature on athletes and concussions with an article on one of my favorite active players, Patrice Bergeron.

Fight Night at the Garden
Fight Night at the Garden

I always enjoyed Pierce’s columns for the Boston Herald and his work for the Globe and would seek him out — he’s a fellow Worcesterite*, Saint John’s Pioneer.

After all Patrice has done (we’re buddies, I can call him Patrice), you almost forget, or I did, anyway, that he had that horrific concussion so early on in his career. The guy is nearly synonymous with pain, his legend growing after that heart breaking Stanley Cup Final against the Blackhawks. “Patrice was playing with a punctured lung!” “Patrice’s heart had technically stopped in the middle of the third period.” “Bergeron played half the game with only his liver and stomach in reasonable working condition.”

But I remember when he had to take time off for that Randy Jones hit. I was in the middle of writing Butterfly, a novel, and the protagonist was already a hockey player, a far less accomplished player than Patrice Bergeron, even at that stage of his career. It was an awful, awful thing to watch a player out on the ice, just laid out and unmoving, for as long as he was. And his press conference. It’s rare to see the vulnerable side of a hockey player, but there it was, on full view for all to see. I was already interested in the effect that retiring had on these elite athletes, yes, even the ones who never quite make it to The Show, whatever their given show is. But I think that moment, watching Bergeron out cold next to those boards, before Marc Savard’s injury at the shoulder of Matt Cooke, before Derek Boogaard’s death, I think that helped get me thinking even more about what it was these guys were leaving on the ice. For us, for themselves.

I have a huge amount of respect for Patrice Bergeron and how he plays the game, and it’s nice to see Charles Pierce take a moment, too. It’s a short and sweet little piece, not asking for action, just honoring a player, his work ethic, and showing you the “behind the scenes” costs that player may have paid already.

 

 

 

 

* I have an urge to scream “Woos-taaaah!” and shake my fists, possibly in defiance? At the sky. Don’t mind me.

The Music of Butterfly, a novel

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Butterfly, a novel is a book. It comes with words for reading and very few pictures, if any.

When one of my first readers gave me feedback one of their comments was “I can easily see this being a movie, and I know exactly the soundtrack!”

Well, the book is hardly a book, yet, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but she picked some excellent songs that captured the mood of Butterfly, a novel.

One you might have guessed, particularly if you’ve watched the trailer, is One eskimO’s excellent “Givin’ Up.” The soundtrack for our super low budget, indie made book trailer was a toss up between “Givin’ Up” and Imagine Dragons “Nothing Left to Say.” It’s meant to capture a man on the run, who may have just seen his wife and daughter die, to borrow a plot trope from afternoon, a story, by one of my personal favorites, Michael Joyce.

As I’ve been writing (and editing, and editing, and editing) Butterfly, a novel I’ve also had a soundtrack. Usually I write to classical music, without any words to give me a Barnes & Noble-esque atmosphere in my little writing hovel. But as I sat down to finish out the fourth draft/heavy editing, I ran ear-first into Tanya Donelly’s Swan Song Series. It was the fourth volume, the one that includes “Salt” and “Cape Ann.” I’ve been a fan of Tanya Donelly from her Throwing Muses, Belly, Breeders days and I just love the mood she evokes. It’s a little bit wistful, joyful, so so good. So I went back through her back catalog of Swan Song Series and collected them all.

Tanya Donelly's Swan Song Series is a big repeat listen
Tanya Donelly’s Swan Song Series is a big repeat listen

I kept all 5 volumes (the fifth came out in the middle of slogging through yet another edit, a welcome addition) on constant play during my early morning editing and writing sessions. It’s a story about a man losing his family, possibly irrevocably, and their attempts to get back together again, so there’s that little bit of hope and remembering the good times that I get from Ms. Donelly. In fact, should it be turned into a movie (whoa, chief, let’s not get ahead of ourselves or our hunt for an agent yet), I would beg plead and grovel to get her to write the soundtrack.

Mix in the odd song that sounds like it would belong in a hockey arena and you have the recipe for writing Butterfly, a novel. The latter songs in the iTunes playlist, in particular, got heavy rotation when I would spend half an hour to an hour at the rink, thinking through various plot points, scenes, that sort of thing. William Murphy was a professional hockey player, in his former life — a goon who dispensed and received great punishment on the ice. So some of those raucous anthems got me going through fight scenes (much easier than picking somebody at the rink to tussle with).

So there you have it. I have no idea if this is interesting or not (I suspect it’s not terribly), but the music behind the novel.

Now back to waiting for agents to get back to me. And working on the next book.

The Story of Bobby Robins

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Yet Another Update: The nearly always excellent Chad Finn has a write up of the Bobby Robins NHL experience last night.

Update: I should have included a link to one of the first profiles on Bobby Robins to come out since he’s made the big club, by Dan Cagen in the MetroWest Daily News – “A dream come true as Bobby Robins makes the NHL“. So between that article and the BDC article/video, you should go have a read.

So a player named Bobby Robins, a hard-working 32 year old, as they will repeatedly tell you, hockey player has, at long last, made the big club — he’s on the roster for Opening Night for the Boston Bruins against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Lace 'em up
Lace ’em up

I started following Bobby Robins last year, maybe the year before, when he hit Providence. He looked just like William Murphy, the protagonist in Butterfly, a novel. He seemed like an earnest guy, working hard at his hockey career, his life as a family man, and his life as a public figure. I was doing a little bit of research on those guys who get stuck in the trenches of goon-dom, who languish in the minor leagues, looking up at the feet of the NHL — my own hockey career is far less successful than theirs, so while I thought I’d done a good job of capturing William Murphy as a lifelong minor league hockey player with flashes of the big leagues, I wanted extra color, some inspiration for applying that third or fourth coat of realistic paint to the novel. At any rate, amongst the George Laraques, the P.J. Stock highlight reels, Thorty, Skillsy Hal Gill’s observations on Twitter, I found Bobby. After watching the couple videos he has up on his site, which counts as research, to the abject horror of my wife, I couldn’t help but root for the young man.

I can be curmudgeonly and incoherent with the best of them.

Now, I’m not writing as a hockey pundit, though I can be curmudgeonly and incoherent with the best of them and am available for hire, so I don’t know how having Bobby Robins on the Bruins’s fourth line is going to work out, but on a personal level I’m rooting for the guy and I hope it works out for him and the Boston Bruins.

A Subliminal Signal Detector from the Kids at Supertart.com

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As I’ve said before, these guys are on fire. The Supertart kids have launched a brand new social network, my own personal author scoreboard, and now they’ve shipped a little project we worked on together back in the Spring a few years ago.

It’s called the Subliminal Signal Detector and it’s based on a passage from Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

“In moments of great stress, every life form that exists gives out a tiny sublimal signal. This signal simply communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense of how far that being is from the place of his birth.”

It was conceived during one of those terrible news stories events, and Douglas’s sentiment just kind of rang true. You never feel so disconnected from the place of your birth as you do in times of great stress.

A long way from home.
A long way from home.

So we figured we’d throw together a little web app to help other people figure out what their own subliminal signal might be at any given location. And then they waited… and waited… and waited. And now, for some reason they’ve decided to make it public, at long last.

It should look good on your iPad, your iPhone, your standard web browser. Heck, give it to a friend, an enemy, somebody having a bad day, figure out maybe why they’re having a bad day.

Go check it out.

My Own Personal Author Scoreboard

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Those damn cute kids at Supertart.com have done it again. They’ve launched a social network, and now they’re dipping into the Author Scoreboard market, I suppose.

The Scoreboard at the Moment
The Scoreboard at the Moment

These are, yes it’s true, my current stats, with regards to queries sent out, responses I’ve received, and responses I haven’t received. I’m not quite sure how it works that I’m the one at bat but the Empty, Soul-Sucking Void of No Response is scoring all the runs, but this isn’t baseball, and there is crying in pitching to agents and publishers, so there you go.

All I’m aiming for is one run. Just one little run.

A Brand New Social Network from my Buddies at Supertart.com

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Perhaps inspired by Ello and the rise of a myriad of alternative social networks which promise to right all the wrongs of the previous generation of social networks, my buddies and bunch of scamps at Supertart.com (inventors of the Price of Tea in China calculator) have launched their own social network.

Social! the Social Network
Social! the Social Network

It’s likely going to be my preferred network, since it seems to be relatively free of advertising, data collection, and social stuff. Perfect for the writer or human who just wants to stop messing around on the internet and get stuff done.

So go on and check it Social!. I would send you an invite, but I’m still waiting for mine.