almost canadian
founded 1970. still a work in progress.
40 kilometers south of Canada and a little left of center. A fitting place to begin.
I can’t really tell you when I first got started telling telling stories. I remember writing an entire play when I was in fourth grade. It was probably 20 handwritten pages–ten year olds didn’t type in 1980 and it was probably about nothing. Think Seinfeld before Seinfeld. I’m sure it got lost somewhere because I know I don’t have it anymore. Maybe Jerry found it. That’s probably it. You’re welcome, Jerry. If I ever meet you, you can buy me a beer. Or tequila. But good tequila, please. I mean, I apparently launched a career-making sitcom for you, so it’s the least you can do.
I took a turn for the weird during my dark high school period. That was when Fred Poetry was born. Think Dr. Seuss—a formidable writer in his own right—but with more blood and death. I have to confess that I did not invent the genre. That honor belongs to my dear friend, Brooke Anne Lewis (Kilroy).
Fred, Fred.
Wish he were dead.
Knock him down and jump on his head.
Fourteen little words struck a creative chord, and I ran with it. So was it wasn’t too big a leap to the school paper, where I may or may not have been the gossip columnist and co-editor. The latter is probably in an archive somewhere at Lockport Senior High School; the former has never been proven, so I will neither confirm nor deny its veracity.
Author’s note: I don’t normally use words like veracity unless I’m writing dialogue for a character based on my best friend. He, like Liza Minelli’s character in the original (and only version I’m willing to acknowledge) Arthur, has a wonderful economy with words. I prefer simple. So, about the gossip columnist thing–I’m not telling!
Getting started with real life has a way of kicking you in the stones and keeping you from doing things you’re passionate about, so I didn’t write much for fun until we moved to Tennessee. I was coaching a local high school hockey team and getting my creative fix by writing stories and bios for the annual yearbook when one of the dads asked me to contribute a story to a collection he was assembling about baby boomers and baseball. My grandmother had just passed and I was feeling guilty for not publishing anything except my master’s thesis while she was alive, so I agreed. That’s how I became the only Gen-X contributor to Just a Little Rain… (2005), by Bob Flournoy. Sadly, that one appears to be out of print, but you can read my chapter right here for free.
Once I cracked the seal again, I got more serious about keeping my promise to Gram. I organized a few random thoughts about as much as I ever organize anything, and then I just began to write what eventually became The Platypus Party. I hacked away at it on and off for nearly five years, with my son (Jake) giving me encouragement and ideas, until I wrote the final word in 2012. And then… nothing. I sat on it for almost two years before giving in to the unsilent minority and putting my first novel in print.
So now it’s out there on Amazon, with millions of other books by millions of other authors. One needle among a website full of needles. Its younger cousin, Newton’s Third Law (NTL), made its debut in February 2016. Will there be more? It’s a distinct possibility. I have lots of ideas scattered about my brain. Some have even made their way to paper. I guess as long as I continue to love making up characters and stories, I’ll keep writing about them. And some will never make it past the outskirts of my imagination.
