First item of business. Mr. Jack Gill, a wonderful human being and old radio buddy invited me on his podcast Hardly Focused to help me promote the book and also talk about the now defunct radio titan we both worked for 107.3 WAAF. I had a blast getting to catch up with my old friend and talk shop which is something I haven't done since I left that station back in 2012. If you want to learn some details about the book or to hear some of our old AAF stories? Listen to the show here and seriously, check out his other episodes and follow Jack's podcast! He's a truly talented and funny dude and the show doesn't disappoint. Now onto our big announcement.... FRIDAY OCTOBER 30TH. MARK YOUR CALENDARS! AND.... with me. 7 p.m. Friday, October 30th. I will read an excerpt from the book and end with a Q & A for anyone who...lets be honest actually attends and actually has a question. Plus, if you haven't already. Anyone who attends will GET. A. MAAAAAAAAGNET!!!!!! Seriously though, come hang out. Wear a costume. Costumes get you MAAAAAAGGGGGNNEEEETSSSS!
So again, Friday October 30th at 7 p.m. Zoom with me. If you click on the contact tab on the site there is a spot to add yourself to my newsletter. Add your e-mail and I'll shoot you out a link before the date. OKAY! ATTEND, WON'T YOU?
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I was harassing my big sister about not finishing my book yet, when she told me "Eddie, It's PTSD in a book!" I told her if it ever gets big enough to reprint, that's going to be the only quote I have printed on the cover. Then I thought back to the episode of FRIENDS when Joey was the only one who actually enjoyed Rachel's dessert and pictured on person going...
"I like it! What's not to like'? PTSD? Good! Traumatic childhood? GOOD! Nancy Kerrigan and Tanya Harding references? Goooooood!" On that note, my old WAAF pal Jack Gill recorded an interview for his Hardly Focused podcast. We talked about the book, and then we had each other fucking dying over old AAF stories. I was just so honored that he would have me on his show, and that I had an opportunity to get to hang out and talk to him (socially distanced via ZOOM of course) but man...that conversation? It had me really feeling like my days in radio were...well, they meant something. It was a total trip to get to just shoot the shit with Jack about when we were kids who REALLY wanted to be radio stars. The last time I saw Jack, I can't even remember it was either my wedding? or when we went to see My Bloody Valentine at the House of Blues. He sounded great, he's married, and the mutual admiration we have for each other was just so cool. I was really excited to have the opportunity to just talk and hopefully get some listeners for his show and some readers for this book. Truth be told? I was SO intimidated by Jack when we worked together. SUPER talented guy, really knew his shit, super successful as a producer and podcaster, but also a total sweetheart. We touched base on the AAF/Mike-FM family and in Jack fashion (because we were and still are so similar) we made a point to mention the people we met during our time in radio and give them their long overdue moment in the spotlight. I am really excited to hear it and share it with all of you. My wife has me seriously considering getting new audio recording equipment and diligently commit myself to doing an audio book for this. I am even exploring Kindle options. Seriously, I will post a link to the podcast. It was such a great conversation with a dear fucking radio pal, Jack is just A+ people and talent. Another dear friend also finished the book. God, it was so surreal to talk with about it but I am just so relived that she loved it and that it made her emote. She told me she cried a lot. It felt vindicating to think I could write characters or a story that could make someone have genuine knee jerk reactions to it. Did you read it yet? You should. I think you would like it. If you read it, please leave me a review on Amazon or Google books. Recommend it to a friend and if you hear this podcast? Give Jack some love. He is an exceptionally talented individual and if I can get eyeballs on my book then I want to get some ears listening to his show. I didn't realize it until we spoke after so many years but that radio bond, its a very real thing and its something I take very seriously. He was my brother in arms in terms of our respective radio careers, he helps me? I help him. That's the code. Its a respect, and that respect we have for each other we also hold for so many of our peers who were with us in the trenches during those years trying to become radio stars. Good stuff all around, REALLY, REALLY positive and fun stuff.
So, I have returned to social media. Alright, so its a lot more work than I expected. I told my therapist today. When I envisioned taking a mental health respite from things, if I ever emerged with a book? I always wanted to picture a hero's welcome back. I didn't exactly get that. That's totally fine, it was a vain and stupid goal anyway. She then asked me, why does that have to be stupid goal? Mind you, she was pretty upset about the Target debacle with her book but she did ask me...why is it so stupid that you wanted to come back to your little town and with these people you've known? They're all in your heart, based on what I told her they are all over this book...why would you feel ashamed or mad about hoping you could come back from trauma and want a happy ending?
Is that a happy ending? I never had one in my head before. Not like an exercise in narcissism...I just really REALLY wanted to belong to the town I grew up in as a kid. That day never happened for me. So, when I found out the book was going to be a thing? I thought, god...that's my chance. This is my chance to finally tell MY fucking story, tell my side of the rumors, the innuendo, to finally let it all go. To finally stop obsessing over how much people fucking hated or didn't care about me, and come back and have something to show for all the tears, all the pain, and all of the I was never good enough. This book, this is my ticket back to a place I wanted to belong to. I am working really hard to get it out there, fuck I never anticipated it would be so hard...so much work, so fucking discouraging at times. It takes me back to the last actual band I was in when people were booing us. Fuck, they are booing ME not the band, they are booing my stupid songs that they hate. After years and years of therapy I am finally healing....legitimately, a combination of my children and this book have been so fucking healing to me. When I started this book? I was a fucking drunk with a penchant for suicidal ideation, when I finished it? I was on the verge of finishing my Master's and awaiting the birth of my second child. I just needed to survive, I had to tell my story...OUR story. All these people I knew and grew up with.
I am not dead. And I should be. God knows, I wanted to be. I fucking hated myself, I hated the voice in my head who hated me more than I hate myself. I just needed to go numb. Just...drink away that noise, drink away that fucking madness and that hurt. I have a little baby....drink away the noise, drink it all away, I'm this baby's first name...drink drink drink...he fucking looks just like me...drink drink drink...oh man...I have another baby...I'm his first word, he looks nothing like me....but...
He is holding my hand like I can never ever let it go...god, what the fuck am I supposed to do now? God, just give me an answer? Am I writer? Is this what I was put on this planet to do...just an answer..anything.
I don't know what the fuck I am here to be...but I know its to impress them. I know that it is absolutely to impress them. God what the fuck am I supposed to do now?
I dedicated the hardest thing I've ever done in my life to them. TI cherish them. I am finally out of the hole. Good luck writing another book...I am finally ending my contract with hurt.
Without YOU the readers? What the hell is the point of publishing my first novel if no one reads? Recommends it to their friends and loved ones, reviews it on Amazon or Google Books, essentially helps a struggling independent author get the word out that this twenty year literary odyssey resulted in my story coming to fruition? Well, my wife took it upon herself to surprise me with something today... Its simple really...if you get your hands on a copy of my book? (Buy it, borrow it, I don't care...as long as you're reading it) and feel like taking a selfie with it on your social media platform of choice? Send me that photo or screenshot a review you left on either Amazon and Google Books and BAM! You got yourself a magnet. Yeah, I know...too good to be true, right? A free magnet!
Alright, clearly I'm reaching here. I am not above bribing you people to read my book. Magnets is only the beginning. Coasters, Me showing up on your front yard to read a requested passage? The sky is the limit! Help an independent writer out and earn that damn magnet already!
I used the “F” word in my book a lot. I want to take a minute to talk about why. In 6th grade, I was in a gym class and we were partnered up with a peer to toss a football around. I am not athletic AT ALL. I couldn’t catch a ball to save my life, nor could I throw one. The kid I was paired with fucking HATED me. He hated that I couldn’t catch, and he hated even more that I couldn’t throw. So for many many years I said FUCK THE NFL. Why? Because back in the locker room this kid snuck into my locker and stole all of my clothes. Why? Because I was the faggot he got stuck with and god luck finding your clothes. I humiliated him with my inability to catch or throw a ball. I HATED sports for most of my life…the other part was, associating the NFL with dad SCREAMING at the television and using ethnic slurs when a player failed to impress him.
I used the “F” word because in the context of the story? I was trying to relate how much that word hurt me as a heterosexual male to the point where I would see other classmates who were gay and think…shit, I feel like trash being called that and I’m not them. I felt like a worthless piece of shit and yet I was just an awkward kid who couldn’t throw a fucking ball to some asshole kid…what the fuck are those other kids going through? I wanted to tell a story that was as humiliating to write as it was to read back. Because there were times when kids would stop picking on me and would pick on someone else…and I didn’t think about how much it hurt their feelings, I was just so happy to not be the fucking person who they made feel like shit. I feel like a total piece of shit for not defending those other kids. I am so sorry. The F word came up a lot in my family. Hell, I had an uncle greet me “Hey, Homo” because I wrote poetry, voted democrat, and was 130 lbs soaking wet and couldn’t move heavy machinery. Because I only slept with 3 women my whole life, couldn’t be a mover, and couldn’t toss a ball or catch one…I was a homo. That’s why I had to put the “F” word in my book. I can’t imagine growing up as sexually non-binary, transgender, or gay in my family. I was a straight white male and I got treated like shit because I respected women, hated the idea of trying to get someone to fuck me and not be in love with her, and hated the whole fucking idea of I’m a straight white male I’m entitled to this or that. I made a lot of mistakes in terms of…every girl I dated I needed to marry. Who the fuck wants to get married at 18, 19, or their twenties? I justified sex by saying…alright I’m in love. Because I couldn’t bear the idea of…I just have an intimate moment with someone and not be their husband. I couldn’t date someone without picturing the altar and even with my own wife? As soon as we had kids…I can’t talk to you, treat you, touch you like when we were kids, you’re a fucking mother…I can’t do that. Sexuality is and was SUPER confusing to me. I have sons now, and Christ I can’t look at them without thinking of paint chip burgers. When I was a kid I saw a P.S.A. about kids eating paint chips. My dad knew I was so horrified by a commercial that he told me if I didn’t divulge every single fact of my mom’s dating life to him when they were separated that he would put paint chips in my food. Thus began an almost decade long battle with bulimia. I would eat something, be convinced it had paint chips in it and puke it back up. Needless to say? Our house SMELLED because of me. Why am I sharing this with you? Because this isn’t just a story, its my life. Its fiction, but its my fucking life. When my father died? I felt sad. Not because he was gone…but because paint chip burgers, the “F” word, his siblings trying to justify him through “he had a tough life”, and people telling me that my depression was for attention fucking consumed me. Then I had kids. Try to be suicidal and a dad? It fucking sucks. Then my wife got pregnant with our second child and I felt guilty. We can’t have another kid, much less a son…I will never love him as much as Dylan. Then I met him, and the love was immediate. Then I left my wife in the hospital with Ryder because I had to be with Dylan. Dylan is a handful and I yell. I feel like shit. Ryder is growing up and he is a handful, I yell. I feel like shit. I am still afraid of paint chip burgers. I am afraid of paint chip parenting. I hope to god that I am not him, that my sons will love me. I didn’t love my dad. I legitimately fucking hated him since I was 4. He was Trump. A bad guy (as Dylan would say). I joked to someone that if I ever did a book reading…THIS would be my walk out song. I want so badly to be the machine that was programmed and sent to this timeline to protect my sons no matter what. Why? Because they will never ever know what its like to be afraid to eat wondering if their father put paint chips in their food.
As you know, I joined Instagram last night. I mean, its nice to have a tool where I can reconnect with people from the past and see all these people I used to know growing up, getting married, and starting these beautiful families. My mother and I got into something of a debate tonight as I told her that while most of the people who are following me are people I went to high school with, or knew professionally...I can't have a private account if I'm trying to promote my book. Her immediate answer was, well then stop posting pictures of your kids with stickers on their faces or faces scratched out. That's a tough area for me, personally (and this is just someone trying to promote a book and not just some guy who has a private account) I feel like if my kids can't consent to being featured on this blog? Or on social media? Then they have a right to their privacy.
While it'd be just as easy to simply not acknowledge them at all...well, I am a stay at home dad. What the fuck else do I have to talk about without coming across like a glorified used car salesman trying to reach his quota and make his commission? I am proud of this book and want to promote it...but that's not all that is going on in my life. I have a three year old in school and a one year old who has his teeth coming in, talks up a storm, and is on the verge of walking. Again, not like people really care about all that...but that's my real life. If I don't talk about my real life? Why bother reading this blog, looking at my instagram, or reading my book at all? If you remove the tangible aspects of my life...all that is left is me as George Costanza cold calling people (via social media and a blog) screaming. "HELLO, INSTAGRAM. YOU WANT TO BUY MY BOOK?!?!? WHY NOT?!?!!?" I don't want to do that. I genuinely love seeing some really amazing milestones from people's lives. I have an old boss posting about his weight lost journey and its fucking awesome! A gentleman I used to intern for got married, and its so cool getting to see that (granted, as a voyeur but a well-wishing voyeur) and then you have all these people who played certain roles in your life...an ensemble cast of amazing people who are now amazing parents and that's really fun to see while also trying to earn their support and hopefully their time to read this book. Who knows...I could keep at this thing for a little bit and have it amount to absolutely nothing personally or creatively and maybe it will lead to some people from my past coming back around to have great conversations and talk about where they've been and where they're going now. Growth, I love watching growth. In the two years away from any social media? I think I've grown significantly and am very proud of the milestones in my life. Anyway, that's where I'm at with this book. Its my "SERENITY NOW!" moment. Dylan started school today. God, what a trip it was to see him back with all his friends (who were all diligently wearing their masks mind you) and get to see some of the phenomenal parents who I looked forward to seeing and talking to during the drop off and pick up. He was so happy. So unbelievably happy to get a piece of normalcy back in his life...he even told me that he missed me and his little brother terribly. As a parent? I know where I came from and I know what I don't want to become. However, you are always terrified...terrified that you're going to fuck up your kids or that other parents are going to think you're a lousy parent and you should feel all the shame. For me? The never let me go hug from my son dropping him off followed by the eye roll "DADA! YOU'RE EARLY!" Welcome when I pick him up? They are both tangible pieces of proof that I am loved, I am missed, I am appreciated, I am not who I fear becoming. So, a little existential on this Wednesday night with a cheap plug for a book I wrote. How are all of you? Are you on instagram? Follow me, lets reconnect and have an awesome conversation. How is your family? Your spouse? Your significant other? Your kids? Your parents? How are you? I look forward to hearing from you. My aversion to social media is something I have made very clear in this blog since I started writing it. However, for the sake of promoting this book? I can't help but appreciate it as a necessary evil. So, I am officially on Instagram. Follow me if you're on there, and if you've read the book? I'd love to share some photos of readers with their copies. I am hoping to do a little bit of cross-promotion with the blog and now a social media platform. I would love to create a community of readers who have had an opportunity to read this and get insight as to how it resonated with all of you. This would be really beneficial when diving back into another potential manuscript. Alright, so there it is. @eddiebrophywriter on Instagram. Follow me. Share my page. Share the blog. Share links to the book. I appreciate it and all of you. Thank you. In a single post watch me attempt to get readers and followers? And lose them almost instantaneously. I don't know, maybe you overzealous militant Trump kool-aid drinkers can explain it to me. Sadly, these are popping up all over my town. I don't get what you see in this man unless you're a racist, a gun-nut, a white supremacist, hate women, or fell victim to the lousy public education system. Please, explain it to me. How can you have such dogmatic views about a man who...
-Knew about the severity of COVID-19 and lied (let me repeat that ) LIED to the American people about how dangerous it was. THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WITHHELD INFORMATION ABOUT A DEADLY VIRUS AND USED IT FLEX HIS PREJUDICE (i.e. Chy-Nuh Virus/Kung Flu) -He wished a child sex trafficker well. I'll say it again, he wished her well not once but TWICE. -He does not care about soldiers or veterans. -He does not care about you -He publicly made fun of a disabled man simply because he did not agree with him -He had protesters teargassed to get a photo-op in front of a church while holding a bible upside down and backwards and yet can't even recite one passage from it. He then went on to sign a bible that went to auction for thousands of dollars. And these are just a few of the highlights here. Please, tell me...how has he made America great again? Is it because its more divided than ever? That you no longer feel ashamed for hating minorities publicly? That you have proved you don't give a shit about anyone than yourself? That you're just a fake as he is and you're not righteous or religious, but if you say you love god and the cops you won't get arrested, sent to hell, or hopefully not thrown into some of those cages he keeps immigrant children in. Please, fucking enlighten me. Earlier today I was starting to feel motivated to begin work on the next manuscript. I four chapters worth of notes and background scribbled in a notebook in the bedroom. Well, the notebook was nowhere to be found so I started tearing the house apart trying to find it. First, I checked the two massive tubs full of journals that I have been keeping since high school (I keep everything. Unfortunately, my wife is also like this so we both have a ton of shit in our house) and started ransacking them to find the notebook in question. Most of them were dated 2005-2006 but I came across a few more recent ones. In the picture above are some notes I made for "Nothing To Get Nostalgic About" which is so funny because I didn't even remember sketching the story out in notebooks. What is funnier, the original name of Rachel's friend was not Tasha...it was Evan Steinberg. Where in the hell I came up with that name is beyond me, so I'm glad I wound up changing it to Tasha. More Nostalgia notes and a very cool story behind this signed Halloween DVD insert. When Rob Zombie's Halloween was released on DVD, I guess he decided to sign one copy for every state it was being released in. At least this is what a Newbury Comics employee told the younger brother of my best friend at the end. He asked the younger brother if he could take a look, the brother obliged and sure enough....it was in his copy. Later that night his older brother was coming over so we could exchange Christmas gifts and he handed this to me and said his little brother wanted me to have it (Thanks Theo!) to be honest I really don't care about the autograph as much as I was really touched that Theo thought so much of me that he wanted me to have this. I was really happy to see that I still had these as both of these gentlemen have long since passed away. These are from a writing group I belonged to in 2006. I joined after getting out of a nasty break up with an ex-girlfriend and desperately needed to make new friends and find a more productive outlet. We met every Saturday at 9 in the morning at the Unitarian Universalist church in a nearby town. What was great about it was that I was the youngest one in the group (the writers were mostly seniors with a few forty year olds here and there) it was such a great experience that led to being invited to their homes to do readings and attend open mike readings at the nearby council of aging. One gentleman named Freeman Frank was an absolute character and a hell of a writer. Turns out, he was also my mom's English teacher in high school. We still joke that I met the man who introduced her to Johnny Got His Gun (A book she introduced to me) and had such an impact on her wanting to write. I found all the copies of his stories, I wonder if my mom would want to see some of these? This was a bizarre find. I took a graphic novel course at my community college back in 2012 and the final assignment was to create your own graphic novel. I wrote and illustrated a story inspired by my friendship with my bud Jbo. In our early twenties he was diagnosed with and beat testicular cancer. When he divulged this to us and our mutual friend Mack (literally, no one outside of his family had any idea) much to our surprise. He vanished for months and no one not even his best friend Ronnie had heard from him. At the time Ronnie worked at Newbury Comics and while I was shopping Ronnie and I crossed paths and talked about Jbo being M.I.A. being that this was very normal (well, normal for Jbo) we just assumed that he was REALLY getting into World of Warcraft and shutting out the world for a spell. I remember joking to Ronnie that we should create characters and reach a level high enough to seek Jbo out and host an intervention about his addiction to online games. Thankfully Jbo is someone with a very dark and good sense of humor so he appreciated that. This was right before I was about to sit shotgun in Mack's jeep and he reminded me that he "beat cancer," he grinned as I climbed into the back seat. He utilized this line a lot much to the hilarity of everyone who knew Jbo and watching how uncomfortable it made people who didn't know Jbo. The story "New Miserable Experience" (Yes, named after the Gin Blossoms album) was just a tribute to our friendship and someone who I have always admired and truly had a blast being around when we were young. Unfortunately...no notebook which brought me into the bedroom for a second search now going through my dresser. I joke to people a lot that when I eventually expire all this shit that I kept over the years will be left for my kids. It will be a story of two legacies, the first (and hopefully a good one) will be evidence that I REALLY worked my ass off to become a writer. So there will be a handful of publications that I hope make them proud, a writing award, and several stuff just left over from various projects and what not. The second legacy? I also had a weird obsession with collecting magazine covers with dead celebrities on them. This could probably be chocked up to spending a majority of my life living vicariously through pop culture icons, television/film characters, and musicians who were much much cooler than me. I don't know, maybe that will give them a more thorough understanding of why I was the way I was. More importantly? I eventually did find the notebook in question. I don't know what will come of it, but after sitting with the scribbles and having a few ideas pop into my head...maybe something will come of them?
Hope this finds you all safe, healthy, and pushing forward. I am still looking forward to hearing from more of you if you got your copy of the book and what you thought of it. Hopefully if you ordered one it will offer some escape from the craziness that continues to be 2020.
So...my wife is a Beverly. No matter how much I tired to fight it...this is me...
My wife grew up a princess in her daddio's eyes...while I was raised a total sack of shit in my father's eyes. When we had kids? I SWORE I wouldn't be my dad. Unfortunately? As much as I HATE my father...some of what he taught me was pretty good and its what makes my relationship with my wife and our kids work. My wife is this amazing breadwinner who can do no wrong in anyone's eyes. My kids see this because she treats them like she was raised. Then there is me...that brooding Irish father who reminds them...Life is HARD....but anything HARD is worth pursuing. I am hoping that in our joint effort as parents? We become this phenomenal team that has no business being a team, and her over the top love and affection and my gritty hardened reality is a balance.
One thing neither one of us wants to do is lie to our kids. She will encourage them to reach the moon, having wanted to do that myself? I will remind my kids...you can't get there without suffering. If you want to touch the moon great, do it...but if you only want to maybe touch the moon? You are suffering for absolutely no reason.
I may hate my father, I may not miss him...but if it wasn't for him? This book wouldn't exist. I wanted SO badly to be BETTER than him. I hope I am. For my kids? I want them to be BETTER THAN ME. I want so badly for my kids to have a life without all the suffering and pain that I went through to make a stupid dream come to fruition that no one paid attention to. When they get to the point where they fulfill a dream? Everyone will notice them. Because they had a mom who wouldn't let them give up and a father who told them....you're going to get hurt, you are going to get knocked down, and you're going to want to give up. Mom is your encouragement. Dad is your reality. She says you can, I am preparing for when you can't. But we are singing the same song. If you fucking want it? KEEP MOVING. KEEP GOING.
Stop wanting and fucking BE. Don't waste our fucking time. We aren't rooting for trying. We are rooting for willing to fail so miserably that you have no choice but to fucking succeed. You have no choice if you want the impossible. Go out there and FUCKING TAKE IT. A couple of days before my book was being released I posted a blog with one of my absolute favorite songs by the group LIVE "The Dam at Otter Creek," because man...if there could ever be a soundtrack for the book? That one would certainly be one of my go to's if I could assemble it myself. SO much of their album Throwing Cooper helped me navigate (at least, musically) this story. My wife has been on my case a lot the past few weeks because I've been absolutely on my ass in terms of fatigue and mood swings. She keeps telling me that I am cycling (I am bi-polar) but the thing is...I don't even know when I am or what's going on inside. I told her today, I don't feel depressed...I don't feel anxious, or like on my ass from my bi-polar. Usually, I am pretty good at anticipating...oh shit, here it comes...MANIA! Yay! Its so fucking awesome being mentally ill and I'm obviously doing it for attention! (Sorry, I heard that a lot in high school from people, including family) the fact of the matter is I have absolutely no say over my fucking brain. Why am I mentioning this? Because I am sitting here on my couch, my wife texted me earlier that her aunt told her the best way to keep my name out there is to jump right into another book. Fuck, I am so raw from a story I finished last summer and still trying to fucking fathom...wait, its a thing? People can purchase and read it? That I had no idea that it was making me moody or putting me into manic moments where I am completely exhausted or talking like I drank a fucking case of Jolt Cola and then freebased a truck full of Monster energy drinks. I only do this when I have had enough emotionally. When I was a kid this was called "hyper," and when the depressed part came it was called "looking for attention." So as a thirty-three year old man I have no clue what the fuck to call it, I'm still trying to figure whatever the fuck IT IS out. Wow Eddie, make a short-story long. The reason I love this album so much, because if you were to put on either the CD or actually spin the vinyl of it. My first thought? God, I hope you're ready for a conversation. Grab a beer, let's step out and have a couple smokes, because that album is so fucking pitch perfect with a certain era of my life and childhood. Every fucking song on that album touches upon something that I can either re-live simply by proxy of a song on that album was playing when an event occurred, or lyrically? I would think to a moment or some fleeting memory and come out of it with a refined knowledge or understanding of it. "Dam" was my Spot Pond song. The very first time I heard it was after I had saved up all my lunch money and went to Strawberries to buy the CD. I remember walking back across town and sitting at spot pond one night and putting that CD on...and after that first line "When all is left to do, is remember what's been done. This is where sadness breathes, the sadness of everyone." I can remember just thinking. I'm not going home tonight. I called my parents, made some bullshit story about sleeping at my best friend Bryan's house. I turned my flannel into a pillow and found somewhere safe enough to just lay and stare at the sky and take it all in. When I held the very first copy (now Kate's) of my book in my hands, my first thought? God, I hope this becomes someone's Throwing Copper. That fucking CD got me through the first two years of high school. When I revisited it again at 21? God, what a life saver it was. I just instinctively sat on my couch after hanging up with my mother and just wanted to fucking hear "White, Discussion." I love it so much. If you've never ever seen the movie Virtuosity from 1995 (its SO fucking good) then you remember the scene with this song used? Holy crap, they fucking nailed it. So, I am sitting here with Throwing Copper and thinking...what do I do now? I remember finishing Nostalgic and immediately jumping over to another idea. At that point I had been really drafting the shit out of it and doing more work than I normally do because I was getting excited about it. Namely I was getting excited because I spent SO much time trying to write horror that this was my first stab at Science-Fiction and Fantasy. At the time I had become so obsessed with cults and the Salem Witch Trials. Essentially, all the shit I didn't get to cover with Nostalgic. If my writing "career" (yeah, I'm laughing to) could be broken down into a ying-yang of my personality? Nostalgia is in one corner, and this story felt like it was the inevitable answer to that book. Its not the same story but a similar tone but with much less reality keeping it somewhat grounded. Nostalgia had me working out childhood traumas while also dealing with parenthood when you have so many unresolved issues from the abuse you suffered from as a kid. This story that I had initially started but abandoned to focus on my Master's Degree was the answer to that. Nostalgia was trying to save yourself from your childhood and this story was now being the parent trying to save the child from themselves. Instead of focusing on what went so horribly wrong it was waking up with a teenager and having them look at you like a fucking failure while you're trying to justify what the job of parenthood entails and by some form of happenstance they stumble into your past and realize why you are the way you are and that very stuff is what might help them save themselves and the world. I wanted to grow up after Nostalgia (even more so because now it is actually a real book) and accept that now i'm an adult and I can't focus on my past anymore but now I have to focus on what needs to be done to make my kids' lives better and what kind of future can that create? Meanwhile, the whole time I'm driving myself nuts...kids never listen to their damn parents and they want what they want and they're going to find out the hard way anyway (isn't this all of our collective nightmares as parents?) So, I found myself (as I am doing in real life) taking a step back and instead playing the foil to my fictional son (he isn't Dylan in this book). I have been thinking long and hard about a recent story idea, but where Nostalgia was so fucking heavy emotionally...I love that this story I started in the summer of 2019 had some heaviness but was largely me not taking myself seriously anymore. I remember submitting my version of the rough opening to a class I was taking and the professor freaking LOVED the title and the opening but it didn't follow guidelines and I got a B but he still encouraged me to turn it into a book. So, this week I might take the dive and begin another book. I do my best writing in fall so I should probably write fast because fall ends the second the first snow flake hits the ground and in New England? That could be tomorrow. I hope you're all doing well and taking care of each other. I hope you're all reading, considering reading, or just now learning about the book. I am really proud of it and honest to god, I just want to be read. If you read it and like it? Let someone borrow your copy. If money stops someone from reading it, if you're someone who has a copy and you enjoyed the story? Loan them yours. I don't care about the money, I really just want to be read. I really want to feel like a writer. Also....
How great is this album?!?!
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September 2021
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