Russell Rowland's Blog, page 2
March 26, 2016
Bullies
Knowledge is power. That’s what they tell us. But lately, I have been experiencing an overwhelming sensation that the more I know, the more powerless I am. The more I know, the more it feels as if America is becoming a meaner place, a place where being poor and insignificant in the eyes of those in power means that you simply don’t matter. I know that this has always been true to some extent, and not just in America. But I used to assume that the stories you heard about people suffering because of the system were exceptions. Not the rule.
When twenty-six people die in an American schoolhouse, and the country raises its voices for change, and those with the power to help prevent this kind of thing tell us that they would prefer to keep things the way they are, there is really only one way to interpret that. In their eyes, a few people dying is not important. In their eyes, keeping things the way they are is more important than trying something different, just to see if it helps. It’s this kind of knowledge, knowing what is going on in the halls of our government, that doesn’t feel like power. And it makes me wonder how much of this attitude is becoming a part of our culture. Or maybe it always has been and we just didn’t see it so blatantly played out. Or maybe it’s just time again for some action.
The other day, I watched a documentary called ‘Bully,’ which broke my heart. The film follows several young kids who have been victimized by bullies at school, as well as two families whose children committed suicide as the result of incessant bullying.
There were two aspects of this story that were disturbing. One of these kids, a twelve-year-old boy named Alex, had become so used to getting knocked around and teased by the kids at school that he convinced himself that they were his friends. At one point, he tells his father that a kid who was choking him on the bus was just kidding around. His father, exposing his own helplessness, resorted to the old “You just gotta fight back, son,” philosophy. This didn’t take into account the fact that Alex is a mere slip of a kid…skin and bones. Not to mention gentle and sweet. The scenes where he’s taking care of his little sister are so tender.
Later, when his mother suggests that the kids who pick on him are not his friends, he says “Well, if they’re not my friends, then I don’t have any friends.” Alex’s desperation to find a silver lining in this horrible situation turned into complete denial of reality, and it’s not hard to imagine why. The isolation he felt from this incessant abuse left him no other options. Especially when nothing he tried made any difference. He simply stopped telling people about it.
Which brings me to what was by far the worst part of this story. The adults. From the bus driver who sat completely silent while kids pummeled Alex on the bus every day to the principal who told Alex’s parents (who finally took matters into their own hands after the filmmakers showed them footage from the bus) “This stuff happens all the time.” In other words, buck up. There’s a scene earlier in the movie where she breaks up a fight between two boys and tells them to shake hands. The bully is thrilled to have an opportunity to get off so easy, but the other kid refuses to shake his hand. When he finally gives in and shakes the bully’s hand, the bully takes off, and the principal then spends another five minutes scolding the victim for not accepting the bully’s apology. She has the nerve to say to him, “I really think you two could be good friends if you gave him a chance.” The other kid finally says meekly, “You never do anything to him, so he just keeps doing it.” Bingo.
The assistant principal finally does a thorough investigation of Alex’s case, talking to kids on the bus, and zeroing in on the culprits, but it’s clear from the events leading up to her actions that the presence of the camera has prompted their actions. If the filmmakers hadn’t been there, these people would have never done anything to protect this kid.
And this is just one story. By the end of this film, it’s impossible not to feel the same outrage these parents do about what their kids are going through, and how little is being done about it. To the point that you root like hell when Kirk and Laura Smiley, parents of a young boy who shot himself when he lost hope, finally decide to take some action. There’s a touching scene where Kirk and Laura are in their bedroom, completely defeated. She is lying on the floor, her face blank with pain, and Kirk sits on the bed and says with a look of total resignation, “We’re nobodies, so nobody’s going to do anything about this. If it were a congressman’s kid, you can bet there’d be some changes happening.” Thankfully, Kirk found out otherwise when he decided to see if there were people out there who were interested in helping. Their Facebook group, Stand for the Silent, has grown to 34,000 members, and they have organized several rallies to try and get their message out to the world. Grass roots.
This week we were told by the principals of our government to shake hands and move along. We were told there’s nothing they can do to help us. They are trying to convince us that they are still our friends. But the cameras are running. We know what’s really going on here. We have the knowledge. Now with a little action, maybe we can take back a little of the power.
May 15, 2015
Miles Community College Commencement Speech
When I was a kid, I spent part of every summer at my grandparents’ ranch just fifteen miles north of Alzada, about a hundred and fifty miles from here. To me, the Arbuckle Ranch was the biggest playground in the world, a place full of wonder and mystery, the complete opposite of my boring suburban life in Billings.
One summer day when I was about eight, my grandparents took me to spend the day at the neighbors’, who had a boy my age. Kelly Kornemann was a typical ranch kid. He was quiet but friendly, with a dry wit and a great sense of adventure. When I went to visit Kelly, I always knew it was going to be a good day. On this particular day, Kelly asked me whether I’d ever ridden a calf.
“Of course!” I said. This was a lie.
But I was a Montana kid, and my dad was on the college rodeo team in Bozeman, where I was born. He was even a rodeo clown until my mother made him stop when he got stepped on by a bull just a few months after I came along. So I knew, in that way that kids know things without any evidence whatsoever, that I was going to be able to ride that calf like a real cowboy.
Kelly took me to the barn, where he fixed me up with chaps, gloves, and even spurs. He fastened a rigging around the calf’s torso, and showed me how to tuck my hand tight around that rope. We guided the calf into the chute, where I lowered myself from the rails onto his back. I was ready.
Kelly whipped that gate open just like they did at the Days of ’85 in Ekalaka, and for about five seconds, I rode that calf like a champion. But suddenly, the calf stopped dead in his tracks, and I went flying. I landed flat on my stomach, and my legs kicked up so my spurs popped me right in the back. For the next ten minutes, I was pretty sure I was going to die.
Kelly must have thought the same thing, because the next thing I knew, he had rolled me onto my back, and he was crying like a baby. And then Kelly did something I didn’t understand at all. He crawled down to my feet and started to pull my boots off.
What Kelly and I didn’t know was that his father Donny was watching this whole scene play out from the barn, laughing his ass off. For years afterward, both of our families had a good laugh over the fact that Kelly Kornemann wasn’t about to let his friend die with his boots on.
I would imagine that at least half the people in the audience today have a similar story from their childhood. One of the best parts about growing up in Montana is that we have an opportunity to learn valuable life lessons in ways that people in other parts of the country never experience, through direct contact with the land and its creatures.
This kind of life also presents some other interesting challenges, and that’s what I’d like to talk about today. I spent a good part of this past year traveling to every county in Montana as research for my next book, and I’ve learned a few things I didn’t expect from this journey. Last year, Gallup did a poll to determine the state with the happiest people in the country, and Montana finished number one. That didn’t surprise me. But I came across another study that did take me by surprise. Apparently, for the past forty years, Montana has also ranked in the top five in suicide rate, every single year. We have often finished in the top two.
Now it might seem kind of tacky to bring up a topic like this on a day when we’re here to celebrate. Maybe even a little bit cruel. But I hope you’ll see why I think it’s important.
One of the most fabulous gifts you have before you as young people who have achieved this important milestone in your life is that you get a chance to tell the rest of your story from here on out. And you get to tell it the way you want to tell it.
Going back to the story of riding the calf, I can just imagine there are those among you who would tell the rest of that story in a way that is much different than I would. There is often pressure that comes from the people around us to get back on that horse, to get past whatever fear or pain we might have experienced from our failures. That can sometimes be a valuable lesson, but it can also sometimes put pressure on kids who are not all that interested in being tough.
I can also imagine those among you who might get bucked off that calf and decide you’re never going to go anywhere near a calf again. It is sometimes too easy to let fear take over our lives, and that kind of fear can sometimes leave us paralyzed in the face of challenges and goals that we could easily achieve if we put our minds to it. Fear is natural, but allowing fear to prevent us from taking risks is a trap that leads many to give up on their dreams.
Somewhere in the middle of stubborn fearlessness and paralyzing anxiety is a place that can be incredibly uncomfortable, but also incredibly rewarding. It is a place that most Montanans don’t like to talk about, despite the fact that we will all visit this place at some point in our lives. It is a place where young people who are just graduating from college are naturally going to feel as they face big decisions in the next phase of their lives.
Before I tell you about this place, I want to share with you a theory I have about the West, and especially about Montana. It has to do with this whole idea of telling your own story. From the time our region was first settled, our story was told by people who had an agenda. First it was military or the government, mostly men, who needed a narrative that fit the events of their time.
A lot of attention has been paid, for good reason, to the fact that this story had plenty of holes. It demonized the Native American population, obviously, but there’s another part to this story that often gets left out, and this is the narrative of Montana that I want you to think about as you move forward with your lives. Many people were duped into coming out West, by the railroads, by the government, and by excellent salesman who had a stake in this new frontier. They had something to be gained. So people came here with nothing, on fire with rumors about grass up to your waist, and soil that produced bushels of fat, hearty grain and vegetables.
The loss that people suffered in the early days of the West was heartbreaking. This place was a children’s graveyard. The number of family farms and ranches that failed in the early days of the Homestead Act was well into the tens of thousands.
So the story of the people who stayed—your people, my people—is one of perseverance and incredible resilience. We come from tough, stubborn, hard-working and adaptable stock. That’s the good news. But there has always been a darker side to that coin.
The flip side is the message we got early on that it’s not okay to ask for help. That you take care of your own business and don’t bother other folks with your problems. We came by this message honestly, with ancestors that knew that if they complained, they would become outcasts in their own community. Because everyone had it tough. Nobody wanted to hear about your problems, because theirs were just as bad or worse. Westerners have learned for years that they need to be self-sufficient, and that message has not been good for many of us.
When I was just a couple of years older than most of you are now, I hit a point in my life where I felt completely hopeless. I could not function. I needed to find a job but I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t submit a simple job application.
Fortunately, right in the middle of the worst of that time, my father realized that he had a drinking problem, and he admitted himself to a treatment center. I was too young and too ignorant about alcoholism to figure it out right away, but once I learned more about what my father was going through, I realized that I had the same problem. Less than a year later, I was in treatment myself, and my life turned completely around. I have not had a drink for many years.
So my message to you, my young friends, is simple. Life is easy when it’s going well, when things fall into place, when you get what you want. But many of you will reach a point in your lives where all the answers you thought you had will suddenly seem worthless, where everything you thought you believed in will seem inadequate. And that is when you have to ignore those voices that tell you to buck up and figure it out for yourself. That’s when you need to shake off the idea that you’re supposed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and rely on yourself. That is when you need to show your vulnerable side and ask for help. That’s the place I was talking about.
I have often told the story of riding that calf, and I usually end by saying that I never rode a calf again. But I actually don’t remember for sure. I may have ridden a calf again that same day. I honestly don’t know. Because to me, that’s not the important part of that story. The important part of that story is the fact that I had a friend by my side that day who cared about what happened to me. Kelly Kornamann showed a side of himself that day that I had never seen before, and that’s what I remember most.
In 2002, when my first book came out, I did a reading here in Miles City at Joe Whalen’s bookstore, and I had a surprise guest that evening. Kelly Kornamann drove all the way from Gillette to be there for that reading. And to me, that kind of friendship will always be more valuable than any degree, any possession, any job. And if I were to wish any one thing for each of you, it would be that you have friends like that in your story. Thank you and the best of luck to you.
October 26, 2014
Forgiveness
When my father passed away in March 2013, it was the first time I’d seen my younger brother in almost six years. The details of why are not important, but basically, we had become entangled in a business relationship that was ill advised at best, and it ended badly. We had not had any contact at all during those six years, and I had spent a good portion of my time trying to set aside the natural human tendency, especially when something hurts deeply, to look for a way to blame my brother for what happened. I knew I had made mistakes, and I wanted to be ready, should the opportunity present itself, to apologize, and to open the door to healing what was once a very strong friendship. So by the time I saw him again, I had managed to let go of most of the anger over how our relationship soured. I was open to good things happening.
I hugged him when I first saw him, hoping that this would set the mood. We spent a lot of time together in the days after my father died, although we were never alone. We shared stories about my father, and planned for the funeral service. It was cordial, sometimes even tinged with joy. I felt hopeful. We spent a few hours walking on the beach with a couple of our cousins one afternoon. We both spoke at the service, and I thought his words were powerful and evocative.
But the healing never happened. I saw him again a couple of months later, when we had another service in our home town. Again the mood was cordial, and I sent an email a few days after I saw him again, making amends for what happened. I felt good about it, because I did not say anything critical of him. I just took ownership for what I’d done. He never responded. I have not heard from him since. In fact, I’ve heard rumblings from other family members about things he’s still angry about. Not just from the business, but from years ago. Thirty years ago. Some of what he’s angry about never even happened, but that’s not really the point. That’s not what bothers me.
So I’ve been thinking a lot about forgiveness. Desmond Tutu, in an interview with Bill Moyers, defined forgiveness as ‘abandoning my right to revenge.’ He goes on to say that by giving up this right for revenge, we then “open the door of opportunity to you (the forgiven) to make a new beginning.” This makes it all sound way too simple, but when you remember that this is a man who lived through thirty years of having his people tortured and executed, it brings a bigger sense of profundity to Tutu’s assessment.
It seems absurd to compare a situation where two people have fallen out over money to the horrors of apartheid, but when you break it down to the most basic elements of human behavior, the comparison is perfect. I have several memories from this business relationship with my brother that I could clutch tightly to my chest to justify a thirst for revenge. I could spend the years until we see each other again planning what I will say to hurt my brother, or to let him know how he has hurt me. I could spend those years plotting a way to recover the money that I lost in this business. My life savings.
But by embracing Tutu’s approach instead, I have the opportunity to enjoy a peaceful existence despite what happened. I don’t think there’s any way I can possibly exaggerate the impact this approach has had on my life in the past few weeks.
My mother found a stack of my father’s journals in their belongings, and after deciding she couldn’t read them herself, she offered them to me. I was saddened to find an entry where my father voiced the opinion that he doesn’t deserve to be forgiven for things he did to us, his children. He was talking about our early years, when he had a temper that was often explosive, sometimes physical. My father was a gentle, quiet man, so these bursts of temper always came as a shock. But somewhere along the line, they also stopped. In fact, my brother, who is six years younger, has no memory of my father losing his temper.
My theory has always been that my father realized, probably unconsciously, that being emotionally involved in the lives of his children was just too painful for him. That the price was too high if it meant he would lose his temper in that way. I think he slowly withdrew from being a father on an emotional level, and the positive impact of that was that these angry outbursts stopped. But there was also a negative impact. He became so emotionally distant from the family that he didn’t experience the joys either. And it pains me now to know that he was never able to forgive himself for those early years. Because all three of his children forgave him. We all did our share of counseling in order to deal with some of the effects. He became a different person in his later years, mostly due to his decision to stop drinking when he was in his late forties. For most of the last thirty years of his life, he was not as distant. But he was never able to get to the point where he could bestow the same gentle, forgiving outlook he had toward other people to himself.
When I look back at my father’s attitude toward failure, I find an interesting parallel to Tutu’s philosophy about forgiveness. Dad seemed to think that he deserved whatever disappointment came his way, as if he considered it a retribution for his weaker moments. In other words, by not being able to forgive himself, he had not given up that right to revenge. So he welcomed it, in whatever form it came to him, as something he deserved. The saddest part of this is that nobody who knew my father well would ever agree with him. Nobody that I know was more beloved in his circle of family and friends.
So what does one do when forgiveness doesn’t come from someone important to them? What does one do when there seems to be no possibility of healing? For a period of many years, when we were both young adults, my brother was my best friend. We lived together in Boston while we were both going to graduate school, and I consider this to be one of the best periods of my life.
In that same interview, Moyers goes on to ask Tutu whether there’s anything the person who has been wrong needs to do to prepare to be forgiven. Tutu’s answer gave me the willies at first. He says, “For your own sake, the only way you can appropriate forgiveness is by confessing.” But the way he explains the purpose of this act gives it a whole different perspective. He compares holding onto resentments to being in a dark room, with the windows closed and the shades drawn, so that the air and the sunlight are not able to enter. By opening the windows, and the shades, or in other words, by telling someone that we are wrong, and that we would like to be forgiven, we open the window to the light that is available to us.
I am not a Christian, (and by that, I mean I don’t believe in the Christian God…I do believe there’s something out there) so although the religious undertones of this whole process make me skeptical, it’s hard to deny the logic, not to mention the results. But the struggle for me comes when I have issued my apology. I have expressed my part. And nothing happens. Where does that leave me? And where does that leave us, as brothers?
When Moyers asks Tutu the worst part of apartheid, his answer is surprising. He says “You begin to question whether you are a child of God. You begin to wonder whether they are right.” This is the worst part of not being forgiven as well. Tutu says that language is very powerful, and that when someone tells you over and over again that you are not worthy of being considered an equal, even if you don’t think you believe it, it can wear away at your self-esteem. I believe silence does the same thing. In fact, I would submit that the tacit disapproval from someone who is important to you can sometimes be more painful that outright anger. Because silence creates so many blanks that we end up filling in on our own. It opens the door to every doubt we’ve ever entertained about ourselves, and like a magnifying glass, makes them seem bigger than they really are.
Although I apologized over and over again to my brother when we were trying to find a way to make our business relationship work, there was always a feeling that I was apologizing for the wrong thing, or leaving something out. Near the end of that period, he claimed that I had never apologized to him, a claim that I had a hard time even taking seriously. For many years, I devoted a lot of time and energy toward trying to figure out what those omissions were. But it finally occurred to me after this last visit, when I found that he was still rehashing things that happened (or didn’t happen) more than thirty years ago, that perhaps my brother doesn’t want to forgive me. It finally occurred to me that I could apologize for every single thing that I feel uncomfortable about throughout the fifty years we’ve shared together, and there will always be something left for him to hang onto as a reason to keep me at an arm’s length. And of course, I wonder why. But more importantly, I wonder why I would want to have a relationship with someone who sees me this way. Someone who is only focused on the things I have done wrong. Especially considering that none of these transgressions were intended to hurt him.
One of the most important things I’ve learned from this experience is that there is nothing noble about forgiving someone. It does not give me the feeling of smug righteousness I expected it would. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It is, in fact, as selfish as any other act I can think of, because the ultimate goal of forgiving my brother is to give me peace from the poison I know will invade my brain if I continue to hang onto anger and resentment. And on top of that, the desire to seek forgiveness forces me to look at myself in the clearest light possible, digging up the realization that I can be just as petty, just as judgmental, and just as vengeful as the next guy. It’s important to admit that as part of my journey.
So in the end, I’m left with a simple belief. I believe that it is my own forgiveness that matters most. If I can forgive myself, if I can come to the determination that I have done my best to repair the damaged bridges, then it is up to my brother to step onto that plank and take the walk across to my side. If I forgive myself, I have more to offer my other friendships as well.
But it is a painful reality, this rejection from someone who was once so close to me. And I believe if you have a heart, and if you live in a world where you acknowledge what’s in that heart, there will occasionally be days where you wake up with that horrible feeling that you have somehow not done enough. That you are flawed in a way that can never be repaired.
Thankfully, we don’t have to believe that small voice. Thankfully, if we have done what we can to forgive ourselves, we won’t fall into that hole where we believe we deserve retribution. And if we can do that, there’s a very good chance that we will find people who agree with us, and will love us no matter how much we are rejected by those whose love we crave. Because we all deserve that, at least.
The Artistic Soul
About a dozen years ago, my parents submitted an application to take part in a street fair in San Francisco, down in the Marina district, and were very pleased to be accepted. So they packed up their best works, drove down to San Francisco and prepared for the two-day event.
I could tell my father was excited about this opportunity. He had been making metal sculptures and stained glass art for years, and had mostly given it away to friends and family, only occasionally showing it in local fairs in Montana. This would be a chance to expose his talents to a wider audience, and to perhaps even make some pocket change for all the hours he had spent in his garage, hunched over his welding machines.
I was living in San Francisco at the time, so I agreed to help out, and for two full days, we sat in one of a long row of booths featuring everything from intricate wood carvings to kitschy wine corks with ceramic disks glued to their tops.
And we barely sold a thing. After hours of watching people stroll by and eye my father’s metal cowboys with a look of complete indifference, my heart sank lower and lower. By the end of the second day, I was heartbroken. Even his best work, a table full of cowboys playing poker, complete with cards, poker chips, bottles, and cigars between their fingers, didn’t attract a single offer.
I believe my father’s spirit took a hard hit that weekend. Although he made occasional trips out to the shop to work on new projects, he never spent hours at a time working on his creations again. The worst part was, it eventually spilled out into every other area of his life as well. For the last five years or so of my father’s life, he struggled mightily with depression. By the time he was diagnosed with mesothelioma in December 2012, he had very little fight left in him. Three months later, he was dead.
To me, my father’s story is a telling example of the delicate nature of the artistic soul. My father had never pursued his creative endeavors with any notion that he would make money at them. He poked around with watercolors, sketched pen and ink drawings, scratched out an occasional poem, all because he loved the process. All because he loved art, and found it to be a valuable part of the life experience. When I was about six, he took me to hear a poet read in Sheridan, Wyoming, where he was teaching sixth grade. I found out later it was Robert Bly.
The remarkable thing about this is that my father’s interest and passion with art seemed to come from nowhere. Nobody that I’ve met in his family is interested in art. And if they were, they were not exposed to it. My father’s parents were good, hard-working people. But they were dirt poor, depression-era folks with seven kids and little time for anything other than trying to figure out how to keep their kids fed and clothed.
My father was a talented athlete, breaking the state record in the triple jump, and becoming the starting quarterback for his high school football team despite the fact that he weighed 130 pounds. His parents never came to a single one of his games or track meets. So whatever talents my father had were not encouraged, much less fertilized, by his family experience.
Which makes his approach to parenthood amazing to me. Generally speaking, people respond to their upbringing in one of two ways. They take the attitude that what was good enough for them is good enough for their kids, or…they figure out what didn’t work and they try something different. My father was of the latter school, and I will be eternally grateful for that. I don’t remember a single event that I ever took part in where my parents weren’t in the audience. And he was not only there, but he always had something positive to say after the fact.
I remember running in a cross country race when I was in junior high after I had been deathly ill for days beforehand. It was an excruciating race, and about six miles in, I came around a corner to find my dad standing on the sideline. “How are you doing, son?” he asked.
“It’s rough,” I said. “It’s really rough.”
Thinking back on that day, I suspect the look of pain on his face had to do with a lot more than a simple seventh grade cross country race. His expression was one of extreme empathy, as if he would step in there and take that hit for me if there was any possible way he could. That was my father.
My father was a talented artist. Not talented enough to be famous, or even make much of a mark in the art world. But he was talented enough that people should have known about his art. He had two of the most amazing mentors in Montana in Ben Steele and Lyndon Pomeroy, and both of these generous, gifted men told him time and again that he needed to make more art. He needed to commit himself to his art.
But I believe my father’s childhood had left him with an inflexible image of himself as someone who wasn’t worth the time. Someone who didn’t deserve to have his parents come to watch him break a state record, or run back punts.
When my mother introduced my father to her parents, and my grandfather found out my dad had played football for Casper High School, my grandfather told him, “I saw the Casper team play in Belle Fourche a few years ago, and there was a guy that intercepted a pass and made one of the most amazing runs I’ve even seen from a high school player, all the way back for a touchdown.”
“That was me,” my dad was able to say.
I can only imagine the combination of embarrassment and pride he must have felt to be able to say that. And I have always loved the fact that my mother’s father was there. In many ways, for the next few decades, he was there for my father in ways that his own father hadn’t been.
But I will always find it tragic that my father’s confidence was never strong enough to overcome the kind of disappointment he experienced in the middle of that snooty street in San Francisco. I believe that what I saw that day was the death of an artistic soul that had been malnourished and neglected at the most crucial point in its development.
And I will always be amazed and grateful that, for the most part, he didn’t pass that damage along to his oldest son. Instead, he nourished my own artistic hunger in ways that will always stay with me. It is surely one of his more remarkable accomplishments.
September 26, 2014
Surfing in Montana
Like many writers, I have a complicated relationship with social networking. I’m a loner who loves people, an introvert who craves attention, an exhibitionist who isn’t always comfortable in public discourse. The internet allows people like me to meet many of these needs without ever leaving the house. It sounds ideal, but there has always been a downside to the ease of communication online. And I haven’t always been aware of getting sucked into that side of it.
My first novel, In Open Spaces, came out in 2002. It was eleven years after I wrote it, so the journey had been a long and arduous one. During those eleven years, I went through the usual doubts. where I questioned whether or not I was fooling myself about being good enough to get published. I hated that feeling of telling people I was a writer and having them look at me with that skeptical expression, inevitably followed by the question, “So have you been published?”
Seeing the book on shelves and reviewed in papers thrilled me in ways that I had never experienced before. I was living in San Francisco when it came out, and when I woke up one Sunday morning and sat down with the paper, flipped it open to the Book Review section, and found my name on the bestseller list, it was one of the highlights of my life. It felt as if all of my perseverance and stubborn determination had finally paid off. So of course I’m not the least bit embarrassed about how happy I was about that.
What is embarrassing is thinking about what came along with that excitement. A phenomenon that has caused me to cringe time and again since. It’s called the ‘I’m a published author now so everything I say is fascinating!’ syndrome. In some ways, it’s an inevitable development. Most people who get published have worked for years to achieve their goal and have held anyone who has in such high esteem that they have convinced themselves that published authors are worthy of whatever idolatry comes their way. But the main thing that feeds this beast is the fact that there are people out there who will support your theory. This is one area where the birth of the Internet has become something of a mixed blessing. Before the Internet, mid-list writers were celebrated in small, intimate gatherings like book festivals or public readings. They were content with the occasional fan letter, or the (very) occasional run-in with a true blue reader who recognized them on the street.
In Open Spaces came out right in the midst of the dot com boom, and among the many sites that were born during this time was Readerville, which brought together readers and writers for lively discussions about every aspect of the book world, from covers to fonts to books that had been made into films. I found this site just after my novel came out, and it not only gave me an accessible place to expand my audience, it also provided a place to spout my brilliance on a daily basis, which I was more than happy to do. The positive thing about it was that it gave me some confidence about expressing my opinions. The negative thing about it was that it gave me some confidence about expressing my opinions. I did not grow up in a home where this was done, especially among the men. Most of my male relatives were silent, stoic, even timid about expressing themselves. So I found a certain freedom in finally feeling comfortable telling people what I thought.
But of course there was a downside. One of the more unpleasant aspects of these websites is that people form alliances. I had my little following, and they laughed at my jokes, supported my arguments, sniped at people who sniped at me. The Internet provides an easy way to be mean-spirited without having to deal with the look on someone’s face when you say something hurtful. I became someone I probably wouldn’t want to hang out with today. Someone who was very pleased with himself. And of course it came back to haunt me.
The details about what happened could take up a whole book. I wound up getting married to a fellow member of Readerville and moving across the country. Two months after the wedding, my (now ex-) wife’s only child was killed in a motorcycle accident. By this time, we had actually spent less than six months in one place together. Most of our relationship had taken place online. So in truth we barely knew each other. The strain of this tragedy proved to be too much. I left after two months, and most of the residents of Readerville turned against me, condemning me for leaving my wife at her most crucial time of need. Part of me wondered if they were right. But of course they weren’t there. They didn’t see how this event affected every aspect of a relationship that hadn’t even had time to develop yet. We tried getting back together again about a year later, and it didn’t last much longer the second time. It took several years, but I was eventually able to reconcile myself to the fact that this relationship wouldn’t have lasted no matter what happened. It was some comfort that my ex-wife went back to her husband, who shared her grief, and we were able to remain friends.
The aftermath of this period was one of complete deflation. I had been single for almost twenty years by the time we got married, so the failure hit me hard. All the bravado was gone. On top of that, nobody wanted to publish my second novel, which was a huge wake-up call. Like many people I’ve talked to since, I just assumed that once you got your foot in the door, you were in the door! In Open Spaces had received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, it was reviewed in the New York Times, and it had sold enough copies to surpass my advance by a wide margin. But I couldn’t find a publisher for novel number two, even with the high-powered agent I landed thanks to my friends at Readerville. The self-doubt that plagued me before I was ever published came back with a vengeance. And the public skewering I had endured on Readerville just added to a growing belief that I had brought this on myself. That it was some kind of karmic payback.
So what’s happened since? Well, that’s a long story. I eventually did find a publisher for novel number two, five years after the first one came out. By the time that book hit the shelves, my mistrust of social networks kept me from doing any promoting online at all. My absence from that world had a dramatic impact on sales. So I have since found myself in the quandary of just how involved I want to be with this new form of social communication. The need to utilize the Internet in today’s book market is undeniable. Many writers have become masterful at maximizing their fan base in this manner. And as much as it goes against my ‘it should be the work that matters’ mentality, I know that being stubborn about this stuff doesn’t make sense anymore.
So I try to keep two things in mind. First, it’s not real. A lot of these people really are my friends. I know who they are. And I get a lot of valuable information and insights into life, especially from Facebook. But it’s not a community that I can rely on for support or for my entire social life. If I take these relationships seriously, I’m in trouble. If someone attacks me for my opinion, as just happened not long ago when I disputed something a currently hot author posted, it really means nothing. These people who suck up to the latest queen bee or alpha male are just feeding the beast. Maybe they’ll figure it out someday, maybe they won’t. But for me, what matters in the end is how I treat people. I refuse to use the Internet as a foxhole anymore, lobbing grenades at people I don’t like. It’s cowardly and the thrill it provides is brief and dirty. I don’t feel good about it later. And I believe it comes back to me. Today I can enjoy the opportunity to express myself. And maybe it will help me sell a few more books, but in the end, even that is completely out of my control. I can toot my horn, and maybe a few people will provide a little harmony, but once the book is out there, there’s not a whole lot I can do that’s going to make a difference. Today I’m actually grateful that my first book was only a modest success. It scares me to think how obnoxious I might have become if I had a whole herd of people rooting for every word I posted on Facebook. I know from the jolt I got on Readerville that this kind of constant attention would have fed my addictive personality in ways that would need to be fed again and again. I needed a break from the drug, and I’m glad I took that time off. I also think that I was ill-equipped to handle the kind of negative feedback someone who is hugely popular probably receives. My dependence on the internet at that time was complete. My whole image of myself was built on the feedback I got from these people, people I didn’t really even know.
Thankfully, I managed to find my way back to the real world. Today I rely on friends I can see and touch. People I can look in the eye and argue with in person. In this world, disputes get resolved. Friends make an effort to understand your behavior rather than jumping to conclusions based on a few sentences of cold text. I have a new novel coming out soon, and I will do what I can to promote it online. I’ll continue to post on Facebook and Twitter with the hopes of helping get my work out to the public. But that will be the extent of my life online. And if I’m ever fortunate enough to find myself with a huge bestseller, I would hope that I have sense enough to remember that, as Raymond Carver once said, it’s all gravy. It’s not the food. I already have the food.
August 21, 2014
Welcome to Russell Rowland’s Author Page
Welcome to Russell Rowland’s author page. This website is under construction, so thank you with your patience while I figure out how to do this stuff. You can find out about my books, my consulting/writing coach services, and my upcoming appearances by simply clicking on the desired page. Thank you for visiting!
