Travis Haugen's Blog - Posts Tagged "travis-haugen"
Why The Book
The book started from a song. The song started from loneliness. It was never in my mind to write a book, it just came to be of its own accord.
In late January of 2002, I moved into a third-floor walk-up room at The St. Louis Hotel in downtown Calgary. We had sold our house in December of 2001, and the new owners were a couple of days away from taking possession of what once was dear to my heart. My wife at the time had left for Winnipeg the day before, a cold and lonely day for me.
I’m a musician. I’ve been so since I was twelve. I’ve done many things over the years to supplement my living, but being a musician is the heart and soul of who and what I am. My best friend and I played in a band that often performed at the St. Louis bar. We had finished the night a few hours before. As I often do, I pulled out my Takamine acoustic guitar, sat on the edge of the bed and started playing. What came out was a song titled ‘I Call Your Name’, an original blues-based song, sad and melodic, wrapped around a minor 7 chord progression in 6/8 time. I played it through a few times, jotted down the words, decided I liked it, and recorded a version for posterity via my Cakewalk 9 digital audio workstation. Sleep came easy, but had no length to it.
I woke in the night, bolting upright. Fully awake, I sat down to my computer and started typing. I really didn’t know what I was typing, but I typed myself into exhaustion.
I woke up the next day tired and cranky, not fully understanding why. That was a Friday. I managed a private courier company and worked as the all-around IT guy at Bow City Philatelics. All day long, thoughts and faces tumbled through my subconscious, begging to escape. I ignored them as best I could and carried on with my busy day. By the time we were through playing the night at the St. Louis bar, I was ready for the long sleep I so desperately needed, but it was not to be. I doused the lights and embraced my bed, but it did not embrace me. Within a half hour, I was at the keyboard again typing incessantly at what? I did not know.
Saturday. Late in the day. I slept a long time. Too long. I was disoriented, and hungry. I went down to the bar and grabbed a coffee and possibly my thousandth order of the famous St. Louis chicken and chips, and hightailed it back to my fortress of solitude. I sat at my small desk in my small room and began to read what I had been typing. Close to a hundred pages by now. It was a story taking shape, but why? Why now? I still did not know. I only knew I had to keep on with it. Then, a warm and vibrant moment of clarity hit me. Suddenly I could see who I was, who I used to be, and who I would be. I dove in, writing all weekend, pausing long enough to hit the bathroom down the hall, or to slide down to the bar for another coffee and an order of chicken and chips, and to play another night in the rustic old bar.
The story was based on the song ‘I Call Your Name.’ The people in the story became real to me. I didn’t know them, but they knew me somehow, or rather, who I wanted to be. They became my friends. So, together, my new friends and I wrote a story about a Canadian prairie boy who ventures to Los Angeles, stumbles into fame and fortune, gets the girl, makes some enemies along the way, and has way too much fun, and heartbreak, at the expense of his enemies and friends alike. That book was called One Song, the first in a series of books about the adventures of Scott Yonge. Soup is the fourth book in the series, the story of the second generation of the Yonge family, set in the near future and a new reality.
And there is more to come. Why I write I cannot say. I can only say that I enjoy it immensely, and that it defines who I am. Other than having my family around me (something I avoided for most of my life), nothing gives me greater joy.
In late January of 2002, I moved into a third-floor walk-up room at The St. Louis Hotel in downtown Calgary. We had sold our house in December of 2001, and the new owners were a couple of days away from taking possession of what once was dear to my heart. My wife at the time had left for Winnipeg the day before, a cold and lonely day for me.
I’m a musician. I’ve been so since I was twelve. I’ve done many things over the years to supplement my living, but being a musician is the heart and soul of who and what I am. My best friend and I played in a band that often performed at the St. Louis bar. We had finished the night a few hours before. As I often do, I pulled out my Takamine acoustic guitar, sat on the edge of the bed and started playing. What came out was a song titled ‘I Call Your Name’, an original blues-based song, sad and melodic, wrapped around a minor 7 chord progression in 6/8 time. I played it through a few times, jotted down the words, decided I liked it, and recorded a version for posterity via my Cakewalk 9 digital audio workstation. Sleep came easy, but had no length to it.
I woke in the night, bolting upright. Fully awake, I sat down to my computer and started typing. I really didn’t know what I was typing, but I typed myself into exhaustion.
I woke up the next day tired and cranky, not fully understanding why. That was a Friday. I managed a private courier company and worked as the all-around IT guy at Bow City Philatelics. All day long, thoughts and faces tumbled through my subconscious, begging to escape. I ignored them as best I could and carried on with my busy day. By the time we were through playing the night at the St. Louis bar, I was ready for the long sleep I so desperately needed, but it was not to be. I doused the lights and embraced my bed, but it did not embrace me. Within a half hour, I was at the keyboard again typing incessantly at what? I did not know.
Saturday. Late in the day. I slept a long time. Too long. I was disoriented, and hungry. I went down to the bar and grabbed a coffee and possibly my thousandth order of the famous St. Louis chicken and chips, and hightailed it back to my fortress of solitude. I sat at my small desk in my small room and began to read what I had been typing. Close to a hundred pages by now. It was a story taking shape, but why? Why now? I still did not know. I only knew I had to keep on with it. Then, a warm and vibrant moment of clarity hit me. Suddenly I could see who I was, who I used to be, and who I would be. I dove in, writing all weekend, pausing long enough to hit the bathroom down the hall, or to slide down to the bar for another coffee and an order of chicken and chips, and to play another night in the rustic old bar.
The story was based on the song ‘I Call Your Name.’ The people in the story became real to me. I didn’t know them, but they knew me somehow, or rather, who I wanted to be. They became my friends. So, together, my new friends and I wrote a story about a Canadian prairie boy who ventures to Los Angeles, stumbles into fame and fortune, gets the girl, makes some enemies along the way, and has way too much fun, and heartbreak, at the expense of his enemies and friends alike. That book was called One Song, the first in a series of books about the adventures of Scott Yonge. Soup is the fourth book in the series, the story of the second generation of the Yonge family, set in the near future and a new reality.
And there is more to come. Why I write I cannot say. I can only say that I enjoy it immensely, and that it defines who I am. Other than having my family around me (something I avoided for most of my life), nothing gives me greater joy.
