Approaching the Bonfire (memoir? autobiography? nonfiction novel?) explores my transformation from criminal to creative writer. That which made me a criminal later made me a writer, driven by the need to work alone, where plans can change instantly, solutions are provisional, risk vital, and failure devastating.
After novels and stories and plays and poems—decades of this—I’ve chosen to use my tools to create myself in a clothing of words. Another way to lie: Look how I’m dressed!
But finally I’m visible.
Samples:
The Outlaw He Wanted to Be in Home Planet News
My Islands in Creative Wisconsin Magazine , reprinted in True Stories Well Told (The latter received a sweet reader comment: “Great story! Rich with detail and meaning. I was just scrolling my emails but couldn’t close this until I got to the end!”)
I Never Told You This in Indiana Review
Love Impossible in Quillkeepers book
Plotless in True Stories Well Told
Approaching the Bonfire
After novels and stories and plays and poems—decades of this—I’ve chosen to use my tools to create myself in a clothing of words. Another way to lie: Look how I’m dressed!
But finally I’m visible.
In my workroom the floor slopes to the low, west window. During daily stints at the desk, I catch myself leaning a few degrees left to counteract the skewed floor. No surprise that I’ve developed back problems to go along with the new terror of facing words on the screen that betray the secret my life has been for nearly 40 years.
I don’t have writer’s block, I have writer’s wilderness, a dizzy panic at having sown too many words of make believe to ever now find my way from the forest to some clearing where another person might recognize me. Hey, I know you!
