Travis Thrasher's Blog, page 10

Albatross 12/12/2016

For the last three years I’ve been working on a novel called MIDNIGHT (formerly known as WAKE UP and then A SKY FULL OF STARS). I’ve shared bits and pieces of this love story between two ghosts. I’ve written it for fun, much in the way I wrote SKY BLUE over a decade ago. Somehow I have 83,000 words of this introspective and experimental tale. 

I’ll share two little bits/chapters on my blog. There’s a bigger story here–one of loss and longing and questions. This is, after all, a story narrated by a man who has died and is still wandering around as a ghost. Spooky? Not at all. Melancholy? Certainly. These two nuggets don’t really say anything. But as I said, the story is experimental. I’m playing with language and just riffing with words while writing late night. I wrote these two after spending two hours on the phone interviewing a comedian. 

Hopefully next year this tale will see light of day.

–TRAVIS  

 

Maybe this time.

Maybe this month.

Maybe this moment.

Maybe the mystery will be over and will dissipate like the morning fog. Soft, sudden, and sweeping with a brilliant gust of light and color and form.

Maybe.

And maybe the mention of all those possibilities will stir and sweep you up into something more.

Maybe you’ll think about it.

Maybe you’ll remember me.

Maybe I’ll never be forgotten.

And possibly all these maybes drifting toward you with their uncertainties will stop and be scooped up and be set all right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wonderful Christmastime

“Look, Charlie, let’s face it. We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It’s run by a big Eastern syndicate, you know.”

— Lucy from “A Charlie Brown Christmas”  

For the last few years, we’ve had a fun tradition happening in the Thrasher house. We allowed our eldest daughter to start watching Hallmark films three years ago since they’re safe and “sweet.” Who knew there was a Hallmark Channel that shows Christmas movies 24-7 starting in November? But we certainly discovered there are many—MANY—Hallmark films that have been made. And every year there are more released. And this started the tradition. Not watching the movies, but having Daddy give his best color commentary whenever I’m in the room seeing the film.

So yeah—the tradition of me mocking the corny storylines and cliches that are in every single Hallmark Christmas film. Not mean-spirited but just having fun.

It’s a blast since our eldest daughter, Kylie, has such a great sense of humor. Two years ago while having fun like this, I came up with the idea about a guy who’s trapped in a Hallmark film. Wouldn’t THAT be a great movie if done right?? So we’ve continued talking about this and I’ve kept thinking about this idea so this year I decided to do something with the help of Kylie.

I’m going to write a story in December about a guy who’s trapped inside a Hallmark film. Yes, I know—that is great literature.

Since I’m always thinking about and trying to do different things in the publishing world, this is my grand idea. For the cup of coffee (okay—Starbucks coffee), I’m going to allow readers to embark on the journey day by day. Just like the character. Every day, you’ll receive an email from me with a chapter of the story. No photos or videos but probably with a few typos here and there. This will be writing on-the-go without editing or polishing. Just a simple story unfolding.

The story? It’s about a guy named Jack who is living his normal life when he comes across Noelle, his long-lost love from his youth. The girl that got away. His soulmate, his . . . well, yeah. You get it.

Jack Frost encountering Noelle? Wow. Right away that sounds like a Christmas tale.  Very original.

The following day, on the first day of December, Jack wakes up with strange things happening. His girlfriend suddenly becomes a selfish snob. His boss turns into a nightmare assigning him a project due on Christmas Eve. The town he grew up in has announced they can’t have their annual Christmas play that helps the orphans. A puppy named Ivy is left on his doorstep.

That’s right . . . Our hero, Jack, is suddenly stuck inside the world of Hallmark films. His goal? Finding love and peace and goodwill which of course is the meaning of Christmas? Or wait. Maybe he needs to discover the true meaning of Christmas. Or maybe he just needs to get out of this Santa-Crazed nightmare.

I’m calling this story WONDERFUL CHRISTMASTIME. Hey—that sounds like a song I hear around the holidays. A song I hear over and over. And over and over. I love Paul McCartney, but his Christmas song tends to be a little bit like torture since it never leaves your brain.

Now if you’ve read all this and thought Wow, Travis really has a lot of time on his hands, let me tell you I certainly don’t. I’ve never been more busy. This is a creative outlet and a fun project to do with our daughter’s help. It’s also a gift to my readers. Well, you have to pay for it, so maybe it’s your gift to me. Or maybe let’s consider it having a cup of coffee this December with you allowing me to banter about Hallmark films.

All you have to do is order here through my website (using PayPal) and then I’ll add you to the list of readers. The cost will be $4.99. Every day, you’ll receive an email with the next chapter/part/bit of the story. How this unfolds is a mystery to me since I’ve never done something like this.

Perhaps I’ll have a 100 readers take a fun journey and we’ll have some laughs and discover some unique things along the way.

Then again, maybe this will be the first draft of something like The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans. (If you don’t know the story behind that, Google it. He self-published this little tale and eventually had the interest of many publishers and it became of NY Times bestseller).

I’d love a NY Times bestseller. But for now, I’m “simply having a wonderful Christmastime.” You can thank me when you hear that song later today!

Hope you can come along for the sleigh ride. (And yes, this and lots more puns to come!). Thanks as always for being a part of my writing adventures!

TRAVIS

Robinson Crusoe

The same room with the same ceiling

In the same building on the same road

Off the same exit off the same highway

Playing a different song that sounds the same

A different playlist for a different season

A different voice for a different reason

I remember something far different

Imagined to only one

I answered every question

But got none of mine answered

I told so many different stories

Yet the song always remains the same

The sincere evaporated

Into a sea of artists

Wading around splashing with their paddles of passion

The brilliant and beautiful

And I continue to watch

Always the same

The same Robinson Crusoe

Waiting to dive deep

But staying out of the water, away from sharks, away from the undertow

My Absolute Favorite

I recently had a reader named Sarah ask me the following question:

“Hi Travis, I was just wondering which novel that you have written is your absolute favorite?”

After sending her my thoughts, they were long enough to be worthy of a blog post. So here are my favorites. And that’s definitely plural since I can’t pick one.

If I had a favorite at this moment in time, it’s the final book in The Books of Marvella series called Glory. I love this series and the final book puts everything into its proper place and perspective. I feel I’ve built something that’s very solid and impactful. I can’t wait to share it with others.

Sky Blue is probably the book I’m most proud of. It transcends genres—it’s a love story, it has literary elements, it’s got tinges of the supernatural, and it has an ending that can be talked about and interpreted. I spent a long time working on it.

40 is a book that I once said was my favorite. I still love it, but just like the author, it’s a bit of a mess. The story inside it is still very solid. I just threw lots of interests and lots of parts of me into it. It very much is a sibling to Sky Blue. 

The Solitary Tales has been a fan favorite and it’s very dear to me. I want to write a future series with Chris Buckley. I might reread those books. Would be an interesting experience.

As for books not yet finished, I’m working on a book that’s very literary and poetic that I would fit into the Sky Blue—40 category. It’s a story narrated by a ghost. But it’s not spooky. I really love the writing itself. I have worked on this massive end-of-the-world idea called The Hinterlands for years. It’s all plotted out. I even started to write it on a blog last year—Hinterlands.frequency.fm  I hope to keep writing it. I think one problem is the idea might be too ambitious. But never say never.

Oh, and last but not least, my favorite collaboration I’ve done is still my first nonfiction work—Never Let Go. The Owens’ story is unbelievable. That’s why it’s remarkable. I’m blessed to have not only worked with them to consider them my friends and forever family.

So there’s your very long-winded answer!

Desert Island Disk (from MIDNIGHT)

Running water

Running steps

A running mind

Running away

A silence

A solace

A space for a moment

Standing still, humming, knowing

Listening

Waiting

Stranded on that island

Until I’m found

Until that sound

Sequestered

For seconds

Until I’m found

With running water

Running steps

Leaving for a moment

That running mind

 

(A rambling bit written on the nearest bit of paper I could find while washing the dishes one night. Might go in my work-in-progress MIDNIGHT in some way. How I have no idea. But that’s the fun part of creating . . . )

Book Ideas

“Hey–I got a great idea for you.”

I hear this sort of thing a lot. And in the background, I can hear The Smiths song begin to play once again.

“Stop me, oh, stop me. Stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before.”

But it’s always hard to stop someone from telling me a book idea they feel I need to write. I want to share with them the hundred-plus ideas of my own. Not to mention give them the list of projects and possible projects I might be working on. I don’t, of course, since I don’t want to be rude. Nor do I want to waste half an hour of their time. But book ideas??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I truly have over a hundred of them.

Some are ones I’ve shared online before. I want to continue stories that started with The Solitary Tales and The Books of Marvella, ones dealing with the same characters and spiritual warfare. I want to finish the ghostly love story of mind called MIDNIGHT. Then I want to finally tell the storyline that I first wrote and finished with disastrous results in PERSONA.

There’s The Hinterlands saga, a monstrous idea that I’ve worked on for over a decade. I started it before the realities of life took over. I hope to get back to it, whether it’s continuing to write the story I already began and shared online or starting from scratch.

There’s my sprawling, semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel called BULL ROAD that I want to redo. I can see it in a much different light than the twenty-five-year old who originally wrote that novel. Two decades can hopefully give you more perspective.

Staying in the world of fiction, I have a fabulous book idea for book clubs. It could be an ideal novel for groups getting together to discuss a book. I could write it under a female pen name.

There’s my Gun Lake Trilogy that’s in the vein of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. I’ve mapped it out. Since all my fiction is one world, I have the messy private investigator who shows up in The Books of Marvella as the lead character. I know the books would at least sell well at Gun Lake in Michigan where we go in the summer.

There are some collaborations I’ve been in discussions with people about and have even worked on. A fabulous, seven-book middle school series in the vein of LORD OF THE RINGS or THE NARNIA CHRONICLES. There’s also another Christmas story based on a song.

I have an idea for a series of books that my three daughters have written with me. They’d be four-color children’s books with a recurring character and theme. We have the first two books written (and drawn, too) and the girls have contributed as much as I have. It’s a really great story and set-up if I do say so myself. Honestly.

There’s also the book idea (and series, of course) that I started to write with our eldest daughter, Kylie. She’s 9. The idea itself is wonderful and would make for a great middle readers series. We haven’t gotten far–I don’t want to push her in an area that she doesn’t love.

Also, speaking of our three daughters, I wrote a storyline based on a Taylor Swift song. Hoping that somehow I could find a manager we could pitch it to. Our girls loved her last CD and kept playing it over and over and over and over. And over. I love it myself–not ashamed to say this. I was curious about which song on the album was her favorite, and I found an article online where she said “Clean” meant a lot to her. So I wrote a synopsis for it. A rough one, of course. Maybe I’ll share it–it’s fun. Taylor could probably get J.K. Rowling to write with her, so I sorta abandoned that idea. Well, almost . . . (Never ever say never)

A while ago I was inspired to contact my pastors at our church about the idea of putting several sermon series into fiction form. Basically to do some Biblical fiction centered around Jesus and his apostles. We worked some on it, but this would be more of a labor of love than a project that a publisher might pickup. One day, maybe.

There’s a nonfiction book I hope to do one day where I’m profiling and interviewing artists who have inspired me. Musicians and filmmakers and actors and photographers and other creatives. Actually managing to get through the gatekeepers of the world and communicate with these artists has been the difficult thing. As more and more doors open, I’m getting closer to being able to start on something like that. What makes talented creatives tick? What are the work habits? How do the create? This would be fascinating for me, but I’d want it to also help any artist out there with his or her own craft.

I’d love to do a variety of parenting books. Not HOW TO books, of course, since I don’t know what I’m doing. But funny ones. A book about being a father of girls. Another book featuring advice and wisdom from fathers with daughters.

I have a designer friend named Barry Smith who is one of the most talented people I’ve ever seen. We’ve come up with a dozen book ideas. Some funny and irreverent, some focused solely on MAKING GOD KNOWN. He has a full-time job and focuses on that. But one day, we’re going to create a cash cow. A Chia Pet in the form of a book!

I was inspired to create a book proposal for a career-spanning memoir on Coldplay. It’s another great idea that has a very tiny chance of ever happening.  But . . . who knows? Right?

I won’t talk about projects I’m either working on or might be working on. No–these are just the ideas I’m talking about. Possibilities with potential.

I worked with a couple former publishing colleagues on a book about bad movies. I still so love that idea and would love to see something come out about this. Whether it’s nonfiction or fiction.

I’m almost at a thousand words. Are you still there? Do you still want to share that book idea with me?

Oh, I can’t fail to mention one last book idea. I want to write a book about living the dream as a full-time writer. It would be great for it to come out in 2017 around the anniversary of writing for ten years. It would be my own BIRD BY BIRD by Anne Lamott. My ON WRITING by Stephen King. I’d just focus on the adventures (or more like misadventures) of writing for a living.

I have other ideas, too. And by the end of today, I might have one more. They get filed away in a notebook and on my computer and also in my head. So if you ever see me and I can’t finish a complete sentence or I see a bit lost in my thoughts, there are few hundred reasons why.

 

Write Down Your Dreams

I discovered this written in my writing journal back in 2004. I was writing down MY DREAM and what it looked like. Having an office where I wrote every day, what I would work on, what services I would offer.

It’s strange to see this after eight and a half years of writing full-time. Even if something appears like it’s foolish to even imagine, don’t ever let that stop you from dreaming. And write down those dreams. There’s validation in seeing them in ink on the page. Sometimes you might find yourself looking at them years later and realizing that they weren’t so foolish after all . . . 

Decks Dark (from MIDNIGHT)

–Be honest.

–I am.

She shakes her head. A debating professor, only one that looks like a movie star.

–You don’t even know where to begin, do you?

–What do you mean? I ask.

–Honesty. Being real. Being really there, in the moment.

–I’m here. And real.

–You have a ten-foot-façade circling you.

–No I don’t.

–Tell me. Right now. What do you think . . .

I wait for her to finish her sentence, but instead she slides her hand over mine. It’s not just a touch. It’s a hand unlatching something deep inside of me.

–What do you really think about all of this? Lissie asks.

It’s all a bit too much.

–Overwhelmed.

–Too vague. Tell me more.

–I feel . . .

I can’t say anything more because the desire inside of me doesn’t just pulse. It rages, livid and hungry and questioning and a bit scary.

–Tell me, Lissie says.

–I think you know—

–I want you to say it. To tell me. To be honest.

Her hand is still over mine, and it’s like some kind of splitting-the-atom experiment. I feel her over me and inside of me and everything inside feels like it’s shaking.

–I want you.

I can’t be more blunt, more honest.

–Finally, she says.

–Finally what?

–Finally some honesty.

–It’s a bit obvious, right?

–Yes. But . . .

Lissie takes her hand and now wraps it around mine, figuring out where the fingers should go to clasp onto mine.

–Don’t you see, oh honest one—the feeling is quite mutual.

There’s something I see for the first time and I realize she isn’t just being friendly or sweet. There’s the want inside of those eyes.

My fingers curl, digging into her hand, taking every single inch of skin and bone I can get. But then—

Then—

–What? I ask as she pulls her hand away.

–It’s a nice dream.

–A nice dream?

My desire suddenly starts to wilt. I wonder if this moment and this picture and this bit of everything is all just some kind of random bit of nonsensical shit.

–Is this all some sort of dream? I ask her.

–Life is all some sort of dream. Sometimes really good ones, sometimes nightmares.

–You know what I’m talking about, I say. Is this some kind of unreliable narrator sort of story? An M. Night Shyamalan twist when he was still known for doing great films?

–You tell me.

She’s so confident in not giving anything away.

–I have a headache, I say.

–No. This sort of emotion, this is nothing. Remember those Sunday nights when you’d feel nothing, when you’d have nothing inside, when the kids would take every ounce of energy and emotion to bed with them, tucking them inside their arms like stuffed animals full of your soul?

I laugh.

–Yeah, I remember those. They weren’t too long ago.

–It’s when you’re in the trenches and you feel like you can’t do anything more and then you hear the bombings begin again.

–I wish I could be bombarded again.

–Yeah, of course, she says. But at the time you’re just face first in the mud praying you can make it to tomorrow. I know because I’ve been there. I was there many times.

–Do you miss it?

She nods, looks away, staring at the painting on the wall.

–Regret can follow you into the afterlife. Especially when you have nowhere else to put it.

She’s still staring at the painting on the wall so I glance over to the modern art full of black and red. I swear it looks like it’s moving. Like the paint is running.

It looks like it’s bleeding.       

I feel like I’m staring at it for a hundred hours.

–I need to go, Lissie says abruptly.

This whole mood and the connection and the touching hands has now turned into blood dripping down the wall.

–Did I say—

–No, she interrupts.

–What’s wrong?

She stands and I can’t help glancing at her, glancing at all of her, glancing at the someone and something I want and can’t have, glancing at the brief solace in this crazy situation.

–I’m sorry, Spencer.

She looks as if she wants to say more, to do more, to be here more, but then she walks away.

I feel as if I’m somewhere in the ocean, wading up and down, spinning in circles and unable to move. I sit back down and just stare back at the painting. But it’s no longer alive, no longer pumping blood. Its beating heart has left the building.

DAYDREAMING (from MIDNIGHT)

Let go of the balloons at your shins. The helium no longer works.

Don’t worry about closing the screen door. It doesn’t matter what we let in or out.

Those packed bags . . . Are they for a family picnic or for my predicted departure?

I’m not at a loss for words. I’m just at a loss, wading inside it, like plunging under saltwater only to find myself drifting upwards in the sludge of an oil spill. I can burst through the surface, yet anything I might say sounds suffocating, distant, nonsensical.

All sounds you’ve heard from the beginning, becoming louder and louder and louder and lingering on and on and on.

I stand outside the house I used to never fit inside. Knocking on the door with the reversed peephole. Trying to find a home key I never duplicated. Climbing up the back tree only to see the limbs that once caressed the house have been cut.

The lawn is my soccer field but I’ve shown up on the wrong day. I can’t see anybody in the windows. No tiny waving hand through the glass. No sneaky little smile showing up by the back door. No cackle of laughter just beyond.

Just beyond.

What’s just about anything and what’s beyond all of this? Have I stepped inside the just beyond because there’s nothing just about this empty, hollow hole.

I’m not daydreaming, not anymore, not here and now. This is a full-fledged nightmare. Waging war with the only person it can find.

Me.

Burn The Witch

Celluloid answers

Speculative cancers

A living disaster

Getting faster, faster to the end

 

Here to stay now can we leave?

 

Fear what waits in shadows with grinning deep evil scented so sweet

Hold on hold on until fingers break off to the bitter end

 

Blue black hope

Epic in all kind of scope

Held with a fist to the throat

Told in ominous overtones

 

Fear the reaper

Behold the faith healer

Desecrate the Father

Recruit new believers

 

Nobody can tell can they?

 

Fear the shapes so long and sleek painted with precious teeth

Take hold of today

Before tomorrow takes you

Take hold of the now

Before we’re all but through

 

(Inspired by the politics of today and set the new Radiohead song with the same title)