Pieces of Mind Read online

  Acquiring discipline isn’t so hard when you are passionate about your work—when you have a desire not only to write well, but to do it better than anyone has done it before. At the same time you have to develop a skin of armor in order to feed the obsession. The first most important lesson of the disciplined writing life is learning that you’re not always going to be successful. Most of the time you will fail and must face the resulting rejection head on. That’s the most difficult thing about discipline: carrying on with your work unabated, even in the face of rejection.

  So where does my discipline come from?

  As clichéd as it sounds, I can only tell you that it comes from deep inside. It’s not something I have to work up, so much as it’s something I have to feed on a daily basis. Discipline means waking up early every day, day in and day out, and writing. It’s writing every day in isolation no matter what’s happening in my life. Be it sick kids, angry spouses, insolvent bank accounts, a broken toilet, a terrorist attack . . . I write no matter what. Hemingway called this sometimes impossible but necessary process, “biting the nail.” And anyone who has the discipline to write every day no matter what, understands what biting the nail is all about. Writing, like the discipline it requires, can be an awfully painful process.

  Back in 1992, I wrote in my published essay, A Literary Life, “In the morning, weariness begins with darkness. It surrounds me inside my kitchen like a weighted shroud, cumbersome and black. It continues as my fingertips search and locate a light switch next to the telephone, above my son’s hi-chair. White light stings my eyes when I flip it up. There is a clock above the sink . . . I interpret a big hand and little hand that have not yet made 6:00AM.”

  Those were the days when I wrote in the mornings, worked a fulltime job and received rejections every day. But still, I crawled out of bed and wrote. I guess all these years later, I can truthfully say, discipline is what I had in the place of sleep, in the place of comfort, in the place of security and success. Discipline was and remains the bedfellow I seek when I am at my most lonely.

  Eventually the discipline would reap its rewards.

  In the 12 years since I’ve earned my MFA from Vermont College, I’ve published three novels, with one on the way this winter. I’ve been translated into numerous languages. I’ve published almost two dozen short stories, countless articles, essays and blogs. I’ve traveled “on assignment” to China, Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Africa and more. Along the way I’ve met wonderful people, seen wonderful things, witnessed atrocities, unspeakable disease, hunger and corruption. I’ve written about much of it. Some of it, I’ve simply stored away in my brain for some future story or novel down the road.

  For all its rewards, discipline demands stiff payment.

  Because of my priorities, I’ve failed at two marriages and many more relationships. I’ve lost friends and lost the faith and trust of family members who have come to think of me as unreliable or flaky at best. Because after all, I tend to use a holiday like Christmas as a time to work, and when family events like birthdays come up, I might be traveling or locked up in my studio with my significant other . . . Well, you know her name. It starts with a D.

  I have managed however, to find a way to balance time with my kids. Not that it’s always been easy. Children are a distraction, no bones about it. But they are also fuel for your discipline. I’m not entirely certain that I could have achieved any kind of success without them. Children open up emotional vaults that would otherwise remain sealed shut. You need to expose the contents of these vaults in your prose.

  My writing simply wouldn’t be the same without kids. Now that they’re almost grown up, I still keep them as close as possible without smothering them. When it comes to my children, my philosophy has always been, hug them, tell them you love them, and make them laugh once a day. You’d be surprised how well this works. Also, don’t be afraid to tell them the truth. They know when you’re lying. If you can’t spend time with them because you have to feed the discipline, be honest about it. They will appreciate you for it and come to respect you.

  Case and point: it’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon and I’m writing this article. My children are home, just outside the closed door of my studio, where I can hear them engaged in some sort of friendly argument. I’m not doing anything with them per se. But I’m here with them, for them.

  This month alone I will write and publish 36 short architecture and construction articles, three major blogs, present a revised version of The Concrete Pearl (my fifth novel) to my agent, write one or two features, engage in pre-publicity for Moonlight Falls, and maybe, if there’s time, pen a new piece for my personal blog. In between all this, I’ll juggle time with the kids, time for exercise, time to tip some beers with friends, time for a few road trips, time to be by myself and read. Have I mentioned the discipline required to read books?

  One word of warning, the discipline, no matter how beautiful a bedfellow, does not always respond lovingly. Even after you’ve scored a major book contract or two. During my second marriage, I suffered through a writer’s block that lasted five long years, a period during which I published not a single word. The block just happened to coincide with my oldest son’s nervous breakdown and the onset of severe depression. At that time, as I came close to going broke (after receiving a mid-six figure advance for The Innocent), I never once stopped working, never once veered from the discipline of waking up every morning and trying to write. “Trying” being the key word here.

  Looking back on those difficult years, I realize I wasn’t writing so much as I was just typing, but the process helped me cope with some very difficult and serious issues in my life. If nothing else, the discipline to write can be a mighty powerful therapy.

  Eventually the damn breaks, as it did in my case, and I made a return to good writing and publishing. I’m not making millions by any means, but I make a decent living as a freelance journalist and novelist, and that’s all anyone can honestly ask for.

  The late great Norman Mailer also understood about the financial ups and downs of being a fulltime writer. But more importantly, he understood about the discipline of biting the nail. He wrote 2,500 new words a day right up until the end when his kidneys failed him. It wasn’t the disciple or the talent or the mind that gave out, it was the 84 year old body. I’m told he died with a smile on his face. Not the kind of smile that accompanies peace of mind, sedated painlessness, or “going to the bright light.” But the kind of smile that only a disciplined writer can wear; the sly grin that means you’re about to embark on a brand new adventure, and that you can’t wait to write about it.

  —2009

  New Media Love

  It’s ten o’clock on a cold Sunday night.

  I sit at my desk inside my bedroom, eyes glued to a glowing laptop. I pop the cap on a bottle of beer, reach out with my hands, settle them gently on the laptop keyboard, give myself over to the addiction: the incessant need to check my email (AOL and Yahoo); my Facebook updates; my Twitter followers; my Myspace comments . . .

  This is the way I rise and fall with each and every day. By updating my life; by being updated by hundreds of other lives. It’s also the way I spend a whole lot of hours in between morning and night. Emailing, updating, following, creating, recreating . . . by feeding the bitch.

  What happens when I can’t sleep?

  I check my email.

  What did Mailer call the Internet? A bigger waste of time than masturbation.

  I’m startled when my cell phone vibrates on the desktop.

  I pick it up, glance at the caller ID. I recognize the name. It’s a new name, freshly added to my contacts just 48 hours ago. Let’s call her A because that’s the first letter of her real name. We met online a week or so ago. Cupid.com I believe it was, although it could have been Plentyoffish.com or Match.com. I belong to them all. Keep on casting your profile into the cyber pond and eventually someone will take the bait. Someone beautiful, smart and employed. A woman
who is between 5’-0” and 5’-8” and of average to athletic build. A non-smoker, a social drinker who decidedly does not want children. A woman who enjoys quiet dinners and travel and live bands. A woman between the ages of 34 and 44 who is divorced (not separated) or just plain single. A woman of good humor and free of neurosis.

  The phone vibrates in my hand.

  It feels sort of good vibrating against the skin on my hand.

  For a split second I consider punching Ignore. I’m not much in the mood to talk. I’m not much in the mood to talk on the phone, ever.

  I answer the phone.

  “This a bad time?”

  I sip my beer, sit back in my desk chair. On Facebook, my ex-girlfriend (we’ll call her S), has tagged me in a picture snapped when we were still in college.

  “Just getting ready for bed,” I say half-heartedly. In the Facebook photo, I’m sitting on a couch beside the lovely blonde S. We look incredibly young and hopeful.

  My new friend A breaks me out of my spell. She doesn’t ask, but tells me to hang on while she heads up to her bedroom.

  I obey. What choice do I have? I can either hang on or hang up. Over the phone I hear a half-hearted goodnight to A’s live-in mother, then the sound of feet climbing the stair-treads, followed by a check on her six year old son in his bedroom.

  “Go to sleep, baby. Night night.”

  The phone pressed up against my ear, I hear bare feet shuffling on carpet. In my head I picture a narrow hallway inside a cookie-cutter split-level. I hear a door close, and a distinct metal against metal latching noise. I know without having to ask that A’s now locked and loaded behind her bedroom door. I’m wondering why she just didn’t lock herself in for the night and then call me. Maybe she had something to prove to her mother. Maybe she’s acting on impulse. Maybe she’s a bit crazy. Maybe it’s me who’s crazy. Maybe I should not have answered the phone in the first place.

  At the same time, I’m picturing the forty-something woman whose photo ID I’ve memorized from the computer. The dark short hair, the even darker eyes, the slightly crooked but attractive smile.

  I wait for her to say something.

  “How was your weekend?”

  “This is Albany, remember?”

  What I really want to tell her is that I tried to kill myself with an overdose of booze and painkillers. But that would be stretching the truth a teensy-weensy bit. The booze and painkillers part is all true. It’s just that the actual act of suicide never entered into my head. Not once. Not really.

  On Twitter, a Florida woman posts a story about an alligator that ate her puppy dog.

  Some A and I back-story: after weeks of cat-and-mouse online conversation, we met face to face for the first time just a few days ago. We “got acquainted” by sharing a cocktail or two and a conversation that transpired more like a job interview. Where did you grow up? Where’d you go to school? How many kids you got? You like your work? Why’d you get divorced? We covered our combined 80 years in the span of a half hour. We covered all the high and low lights. Everything that is, but the truths we decided to leave out. That’s the beauty of online dating. You get to edit your life at will.

  She’s not saying much. But I do hear the rustle of clothing and I know she’s getting undressed.

  Interesting.

  I take another sip of beer. I get new mail on AOL. A note from my band-mate Davey. Practice on Tuesday and a new show booked for March 13th.

  “What’s happening?” I say.

  “Getting more comfortable,” she says.

  A drawer opens and closes. More rustling. The abrupt coil-like sound of a body lying back on a mattress; a bed board gently hitting the sheetrock wall. But now instead of background noise, I make out breathing. Heavy, rhythmic breathing gradually picking up speed.

  “You . . . alone?”

  “Uh huh,” I say. I ask what she’s doing, even though by now it’s pretty obvious.

  “You gotta ask,” she says like a question

  Oh goody, I think. I’m gonna rock out with my cock out.

  But a surprising thing happens to me then. A wave of indifference washes over me. What the fuck? I should be honored. I should be into the spontaneity of it all. I’m lucky to have met such a nice woman. Nice, as in a woman who cares enough to share herself with me, even if it is over a cell phone; even if what she’s doing is a little out-of-the-Betty-Crocker-norm.

  “This is a nice surprise,” I say. I’m not sure if I sound sincere enough. But just to make myself sound more sincere, I attempt to play along.

  I begin to ask her all the standard questions. What kind of underwear she likes to wear; is she completely shaved; is she into threesomes . . .

  “What would we do with another girl?” she muses.

  I feel stupid.

  I ain’t rockin’ out and my cock ain’t out.

  More moaning follows which culminates with a cry and what is obviously a pillow pressed over her face.

  You don’t want to wake the kid.

  Silence ensues.

  The silence grows more awkward by the second.

  Dead silence.

  Politely she asks me if I finished and I have no choice but to lie.

  “Sure . . . Great.”

  “Maybe we can have dinner this week,” she says, “and get some of the real thing.”

  The real thing. I’m not sure I remember the real thing.

  But A sounds satisfied and hopeful. Optimistic even. Welcome to the new world order. Facebook, Twitter, phone sex, email sex, text sex. Entire relationships conducted over cellular waves and cyberspace. Why even meet in person. Dig the new media love.

  “Yeah,” I say, “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  But it’s a lie.

  She says goodnight, hangs up. If we were sharing a bed, this would be the part where she rolls over onto her side and I roll over onto mine, our backs facing one another like the reconstruction of the Berlin Wall. In the middle, barbed wired no man’s land.

  The cell is still hot in my hand.

  I make a decision then and there.

  I punch contacts.

  I find her name and number.

  I thumb Options.

  I punch Erase.

  No more A.

  I put the phone down, stare at the computer screen, at the AOL news.

  Somewhere in New Orleans, a Muslim man has beheaded his wife.

  I wonder what’s gotten into me? But then I quickly realize that the problem is not what’s gotten into me so much as what hasn’t got out.

  It’s possible I’m still holding the torch for my wife.

  No, allow me to rephrase for the sake of accuracy.

  It’s possible I still love my ex-wife, ex being the key prefix here, since I just can’t get used to the concept. Even three and a half years after our official split. Or is it that I’m in love with the idea of my ex-wife; the romance we once shared; the good times; the adventure. Interesting how all the bad—and there was a lot of it—never enters the picture.

  Christ, maybe I should just get the hell over it already.

  I steal another sip of beer, check the clock.

  10:20PM

  I pick the phone back up, hit the speed-dial that will connect me to my Ex.

  Let’s call her L.

  She answers wearily, if not groggily.

  “I wake you up?”

  “You have to ask?”

  I feel a strange sensation just hearing her deep voice, knowing that her prone body is lying under the covers, the long smooth dark hair draping the pillow, big brown eyes half open, half closed, her thick lips touching the mouthpiece to the phone that connects to my own and my own lips.

  Not so long ago I used to spoon into that body . . . that real human flesh body. I know how her skin smells after a shower. I know how her hair feels in my fingers. I remember how her lips feel against mine. I know the sound of her breathing when she slips into a deep sleep. I remember it all and I relive it often. Especially at n
ight.

  Only problem is, I’m no longer sure what’s real and what’s made up? Where does reality stop and fantasy take over?

  I feel my heart skip a beat.

  “Can I come over?”

  She exhales, “Pleeeaaasseee.”

  I feel my throat constrict, my pulse elevate. I feel the onslaught of panic. Why the hell did I have to go and ask her that?

  “Sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry . . . Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  I go to tell her I love her, but she’s already hung up. The line is dead. I know she wouldn’t return the love anyway. Not at this point. But it still feels good to say it now and again.

  I love you.

  I love the idea of you.

  I love the made up memory of you . . . of a past we never really shared.

  I set the phone back down on the desk, get undressed, slip into bed.

  I keep my eyes open, peer out at the darkness.

  The infinite, absolute darkness.

  I grow weak.

  I close my eyes.

  I see nothing.

  I grow weaker.

  In the morning I will get on with my life.

  For now I close my eyes, wait for sleep.

  Wait for nothing . . .

  —2009

  Breakdown

  I find him laid out face-first on the floor of the garage. He’s banging his forehead against the concrete floor, punching it with tight fists. I can hear the screaming coming from all the way across the apartment complex common. The sounds of his rants are like knives piercing my sternum. He wants to be free of the dreaded weight. He wants out of life.

  To witness the nervous breakdown of your own child is no different than watching cancer devour a young body. Like cancer, depression is a powerful disease that can render even the strongest of parents paralyzed. Maybe this isn’t my first encounter with his depression-like symptoms, but it is the first encounter with a clinical breakdown.