The Story of Josh Part Thirty … I am a Writer (Installment #6): “Yeah, I Once Worked in that Dead Medium”
OK, so the new therapist, the large bearded man, meets me at the coffee shop. He makes a lot of jokes about the breeding habits and does a hysterical and offensive imitation of one of his best friends who is apparently Chinese. He tells me that he is a writer and pulls out a stack of comic books and graphic novels to show me his work. It’s pretty good and I tell him so. He asks me about the first time that I wrote for somebody other than myself and that causes me to zero in on my senior year of high school.
This is a therapy session and as always the doctor is in … and this doctor wrote about the Universal Monsters killing NAZI’s.
How cool is that?
My senior year of high school I joined the news paper hoping that it would give me a chance to hone my skills and get some published work to my credit. At first I was excited about it. The teacher that oversaw the paper was also my senior year English teacher and she liked the idea that I would be on the paper staff.
When I started on the paper it quickly became apparent that there would be little to no creativity in that class unless I forced it through. I really wanted to write something silly to counterpoint the crap that we were assigned to write. Eventually I convinced the teacher to allow me to write a serialized story about animals rising up and attempting to kill off humanity and take over the world. It was a really dumb story and it makes what little hair I have left hurt when I think about it. But it was fun, it was original, and it was all mine.
The story, called “Animal Antics”, developed a small yet devoted cult following. And when I sat small I mean like a dozen people but damnit cults start that way and I believe I could have convinced them to make me their god if I had tried hard enough. There was also a large, read maybe 20 total, group of people that hated the story. But even back then I was of the opinion that I was only writing to entertain myself and if others didn’t like it they could fuck off.
The teacher was not a fan but she tolerated because unlike most of the rest of the “Staff” I could write not one but two pieces every month that were coherent and most importantly ON TIME. But there was one son of a bitch that hated the story, because according to him crap like that shouldn’t be published in a news paper. This mother fucker also attempted to steal my girlfriend at the time but that story is a nut twister that really would be a pity party. He and I fought about it more than once we never had a final fight about it but I like to think that in another world somewhere in the quantum foam he and I had a wrestling match in the middle of the papers office and I crippled him with flying head-butt.
Wouldn’t that be awesome?
The paper at the school was a real paper. It wasn’t on the Internet (that barely existed in 1994) and it wasn’t on the schools intranet (I don’t think that hell hole had one). So yeah I can say that I actually worked for a news paper that was written, printed, and sold OLD SCHOOL.
That just made me laugh, I imagined Joey Fatone (sp?) saying that.
In the last month of school the newspaper teacher, who as I said was also my English teacher, took the cheapest shot at me that a teacher ever has. And I let the bitch get away with it. Earlier in the year she and I had gotten into a huge argument about whether or not Stephen King was a real writer. I said he was and she claimed that he was a hack. These days I would have recited the definition of hack to her;
But back then I just told her that she was wrong. This argument had come after she been reading a short story I had written about the last minutes of a plane crash and the conversation a little girl on the plane has with death who is on the plane disguised as a young college student. She had hated the story and had made a disparaging comparison between my story and the works of Mr. King. She got even madder when I had taken that as compliment and then asked her if she could have done any better.
Yeah even then I liked to stir the pot every now and then.
So the day that she took the shot at me I had long forgotten the argument although I am sure she had not. She called me over to her desk and asked me to read something. She handed me a piece of paper and on it was a poem/essay written by a student in my year but none of my classes. She was a hell of a writer and I thought it was pretty good although it was dripping with the overly wordy gothic crap that permeates so much vampire fiction. I told me teacher that I liked it. She looked me right in the eyes and said,
“That is a real writer.”
The words were dead pan and there was no smile, I read the corollary instantly “You are not a real writer.”
I looked at her and said, “Sure it is, if you think that Anne Rice is a real writer.” And then I walked away.
*disclaimer: I may not be a fan of Anne Rice’s style and stories but I do acknowledge that she is a real writer*
That Josh knew that he was a good writer, especially for his age. It wasn’t long after that that I put my pencil down and wrote very few words for too many years. When I returned to my craft I was damaged from years of atrophy and had the bad luck to reemerge into a semi-toxic atmosphere. But that is a story I am unsure I want tell again, not because I am afraid to tell it, if I can drive so many people I love away with my words and still press on I am not afraid of what people who are already well aware of my views might say.
But the story of me and Palladium Books is an old and tired one. I don’t have any passion left for that subject. On one hand I owe Palladium everything and on the other I owe them nothing. So I am willing to call it a wash and let it be. I think it is safe for me to say that there will not be another essay about my experiences with Palladium. It’s a closed chapter of my life.
Say Sorry.
My therapist says that he does not like Anne rice either but that he agrees that she can write. He does wish I would tell him about my working for Palladium but I tell him that I am serious that subject is closed. Everyone has bad professional experiences, how you recover is the important part … I think I have done a good fucking job of recovering.
This is a therapy session and as always the doctor is in … and this doctor wrote about the Universal Monsters killing NAZI’s.
How cool is that?
My senior year of high school I joined the news paper hoping that it would give me a chance to hone my skills and get some published work to my credit. At first I was excited about it. The teacher that oversaw the paper was also my senior year English teacher and she liked the idea that I would be on the paper staff.
When I started on the paper it quickly became apparent that there would be little to no creativity in that class unless I forced it through. I really wanted to write something silly to counterpoint the crap that we were assigned to write. Eventually I convinced the teacher to allow me to write a serialized story about animals rising up and attempting to kill off humanity and take over the world. It was a really dumb story and it makes what little hair I have left hurt when I think about it. But it was fun, it was original, and it was all mine.
The story, called “Animal Antics”, developed a small yet devoted cult following. And when I sat small I mean like a dozen people but damnit cults start that way and I believe I could have convinced them to make me their god if I had tried hard enough. There was also a large, read maybe 20 total, group of people that hated the story. But even back then I was of the opinion that I was only writing to entertain myself and if others didn’t like it they could fuck off.
The teacher was not a fan but she tolerated because unlike most of the rest of the “Staff” I could write not one but two pieces every month that were coherent and most importantly ON TIME. But there was one son of a bitch that hated the story, because according to him crap like that shouldn’t be published in a news paper. This mother fucker also attempted to steal my girlfriend at the time but that story is a nut twister that really would be a pity party. He and I fought about it more than once we never had a final fight about it but I like to think that in another world somewhere in the quantum foam he and I had a wrestling match in the middle of the papers office and I crippled him with flying head-butt.
Wouldn’t that be awesome?
The paper at the school was a real paper. It wasn’t on the Internet (that barely existed in 1994) and it wasn’t on the schools intranet (I don’t think that hell hole had one). So yeah I can say that I actually worked for a news paper that was written, printed, and sold OLD SCHOOL.
That just made me laugh, I imagined Joey Fatone (sp?) saying that.
In the last month of school the newspaper teacher, who as I said was also my English teacher, took the cheapest shot at me that a teacher ever has. And I let the bitch get away with it. Earlier in the year she and I had gotten into a huge argument about whether or not Stephen King was a real writer. I said he was and she claimed that he was a hack. These days I would have recited the definition of hack to her;
But back then I just told her that she was wrong. This argument had come after she been reading a short story I had written about the last minutes of a plane crash and the conversation a little girl on the plane has with death who is on the plane disguised as a young college student. She had hated the story and had made a disparaging comparison between my story and the works of Mr. King. She got even madder when I had taken that as compliment and then asked her if she could have done any better.
Yeah even then I liked to stir the pot every now and then.
So the day that she took the shot at me I had long forgotten the argument although I am sure she had not. She called me over to her desk and asked me to read something. She handed me a piece of paper and on it was a poem/essay written by a student in my year but none of my classes. She was a hell of a writer and I thought it was pretty good although it was dripping with the overly wordy gothic crap that permeates so much vampire fiction. I told me teacher that I liked it. She looked me right in the eyes and said,
“That is a real writer.”
The words were dead pan and there was no smile, I read the corollary instantly “You are not a real writer.”
I looked at her and said, “Sure it is, if you think that Anne Rice is a real writer.” And then I walked away.
*disclaimer: I may not be a fan of Anne Rice’s style and stories but I do acknowledge that she is a real writer*
That Josh knew that he was a good writer, especially for his age. It wasn’t long after that that I put my pencil down and wrote very few words for too many years. When I returned to my craft I was damaged from years of atrophy and had the bad luck to reemerge into a semi-toxic atmosphere. But that is a story I am unsure I want tell again, not because I am afraid to tell it, if I can drive so many people I love away with my words and still press on I am not afraid of what people who are already well aware of my views might say.
But the story of me and Palladium Books is an old and tired one. I don’t have any passion left for that subject. On one hand I owe Palladium everything and on the other I owe them nothing. So I am willing to call it a wash and let it be. I think it is safe for me to say that there will not be another essay about my experiences with Palladium. It’s a closed chapter of my life.
Say Sorry.
My therapist says that he does not like Anne rice either but that he agrees that she can write. He does wish I would tell him about my working for Palladium but I tell him that I am serious that subject is closed. Everyone has bad professional experiences, how you recover is the important part … I think I have done a good fucking job of recovering.
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