The Silent Note of the Running Boy

zacharysteele 1 Comment

In the words of the reality firestorm that is renowned chef, entrepreneur, cheeky Brit and Tantrum King of the World, Gordon Ramsay, “Here’s the thing.”

I know I’m not dumb. I am, I will acknowledge, a few sprinkles shy of a full spread of shredded cheese on the taco of common sense, but I’m not dumb. Hey, I made all A’s in fifth grade. Not exactly A Brilliant Mind level accomplishment there, but it’s notable. Sure, I misspelled parsley in the school spelling bee, denied the notably visible crush I had on a girl who liked me quite a lot—to her face no less—and chartered my socially awkwardness bus of one onward to middle school with no sign of let up, but I made excellent grades. What did you do?

Point is, I rather like the mad festival of characters that comprise the committee of my brain. I would prefer they come to some consensus on what they ultimately want of me, but they do entertain me so. That has to count for something.

The problem is—the thing that has made my journey through this life so frustrating—I chastise my brain regularly as if it operates individual of the Me that is me, while moving through each moment like a spastic terrier in a thunderstorm. Can’t really blame the brain if I’ve soundproofed its walls, right? I’ve developed this utopian idea of what the world around me should look like and, ignoring my brain’s insistence I step clear of the cabin and move to the back of the plane please sir, I’ve gone ahead and bypassed the computer in order to pilot from the toilet.

In no aspect of my life has this whimsical spontaneity of questionable choice (see? not dumb … questionable … whimsical spontaneity) been more apparent than in my desperate quest to find the perfect woman. I want to say love here, rather than woman but it doesn’t fit the mold. Because, like any good writer, I’ve embodied this woman with a character, a persona, a name by which I might better define her. I call her Aphrodite. I know. Clever, right? Real original. She’s been at the forefront of every decision I’ve ever made, deeply ingrained in every story I’ve ever written. Moreover, she’s become a beacon to the greater dreams of life, thus rendering the name Aphrodite to a branding effort of all things I desire. Primarily, I seek her companionship. Tragically, every aspect of my life has fallen miserably short. Allow me to demonstrate. This tidbit is the into to my current work-in-progress, tentatively titled On the Market:

     When night comes she falls asleep on my couch, hand tucked between face and pillow, crumpled folds of cheek powdered and soft in the moon glow, and I see Aphrodite. There’s a peaceful chaos to her hair, a darkness that betrays the night, finds refuge across a pale canvas of forehead and slips unnoticed behind an ear. She smiles, not much, a simple turn now and again, just a glance behind the curtain. Not enough to comprehend what is seen, but enough to know that whatever it is beats whatever dream I may conjure behind closed doors. 

      She’s a queen of beauty and magnificence when she sleeps, this Aphrodite before me. Time can only grant me a glimpse, I know, until sleep has abandoned her, until her body goes rigid, arms outstretched, fingers flexing, uncoiling, reaching for a heart that is not my own. Then she’ll flash that smile, say my name and never realize how much she makes me quiver. I’ll go weak in the knees, and know that I will love her forever.

Though I understand now how this image has trickled down into every nook and cranny of my desire, I channeled it all for years into this hopelessly romantic ideal of a perfect mate. I simply had to find her. I had to be complete. I put it all on the unwitting shoulders of every woman in my life in order to make it so.

From pretty, shirt-signing, Lori in third grade onward, every female I’ve fallen for has been unwittingly and unfairly compared to this image.

Hey, did you know my relationships haven’t gone well? I wonder if there’s a link? Probably not. Just life stickin’ it the man.

man-around-wall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The great irony is that, as a child, I went about pursuing every girl I liked as if things would work out fine, as long as I just never ever talked to her ever ever. I mean, I made no secret about liking a girl. If my repeated stares didn’t cover it, my insistence on giving said girl a note to define said liking then sprinting off as if I had just dropped a ticking time bomb in her hands spelled it out without question. Granted, in the few instances in which I spilled my soul to a girl who actually liked me, the resulting connection was one of her trying to talk to some paralyzed, non-responsive, version of myself. I swear ladies, I thought you all were a different species. I feared any measure of contact, verbal or heaven-forbid physical, would result in complete annihilation of self and soul. This lasted all the way through high school. It got mildly better as an adult.

To deal with this, I began subconsciously (I’m leaning on hope here, otherwise I have to admit it was by choice) sabotaging my efforts to find a girlfriend by fixating on girls who clearly had no interest in me (if they even knew my name in the first place, which most didn’t), while simultaneously ignoring any girl I truly liked. I wrote notes to girls I knew would never respond. I wrote one to a girl who—I was told by a friend sitting near her on the bus—laughed her way through it with friends. Yay me! I actually spoke to girls with whom I clearly had nothing in common, fishing for any kind of attention, blinders set to the rest of the school’s female population in order to maintain my focus. I was thirty-five before I learned most of these girls actually liked me. You know … liked me liked me.

In tenth grade, I moved in with my father. The shift from small town Florida to small town Georgia wasn’t much of a transition. Leaving the one friend I had behind hardly registered. In fact, I don’t even remember being at all fazed by the move initially, other than missing my mother terribly. My brain might have had issues with it all, but I wasn’t listening.

My first day at school I made my way to First Period, drifting down the hall of a foreign land like a fading cloud against blue skies, ducked into class and found a seat in the second to last row, three seats from the front. I would have tucked all the way into the corner had other students not beaten me to it. About two minutes after I sat, a girl walked in the room. The second Lori life offered for me to crush on. Dark curly hair, incredible smile, piercing eyes, absolutely beautiful. To this day, I still think she’s one of the prettiest women I’ve ever seen. She sat in the last row, two seats further up. First bell hadn’t even rung and there she was. Aphrodite.

Any normal kid might have thought about talking to her, introducing himself, finding some way to at least say hello. After all, we were going to be in class together for a few months. Plenty of opportunity to get to know one another, right? Nope. I sat there through that class learning everything I could about her without ever saying a word. I mean, I didn’t say a word. To anyone. I managed to channel my inner-chameleon just to ensure the teacher never called on me. What a crushing blow to the universe it would have been had she actually heard what my voice sounded like.

Though I carried this quiet crush through the whole of the next three years—we managed to be paired in exactly zero classes going forward—I never spoke to her. Sure, I watched for her, put myself in positions where I could see her from afar (ahem, yes I will cover the football and basketball teams for the paper, conveniently watching from seats near the cheerleaders, ahem), but I didn’t do that whole Hello, my name is Awkward how can I make you run away? thing I feared so much. Instead, I actively pursued all the girls whose primary talent or hobby seemed to be syphoning my soul into a tin can and crushing it whole. There really were a lot of them. I got quite adept at it, in fact. Practice does indeed make perfect.

Now, this isn’t meant as a lament. I don’t regret not talking to this one girl. Well, I do, but for different reasons. I don’t fear I may have lost my singular chance with Aphrodite. Rather, I want it to serve as the foundation for the stories that follow. Though I’ve made my life into a continual barrage of “whimsical spontaneity of questionable choice”, they’ve all been tied to this quest for Aphrodite, how that became a greater symbol of all that I desired, and every single one is relevant to this moment. This one instance in which I didn’t talk to a girl I liked, while actively talking to and pursuing girls I liked far less (and who all bested my less than like with none at all). Or, as an adult, choosing women unavailable, be that emotionally, physically, or romantically and attempting to force them into the wedge that defined Aphrodite no matter how much they subconsciously protested.

As I said, I’m not a dumb guy. I just want a designed perfection in life that defies true definition and requires only one possible truly glorious and dream-worthy outcome in order to pacify my need to be happy.

That’s normal, right?

Fear’s Like This Thing, You Know?

zacharysteele 5 Comments

In third grade I liked a girl named Lori. It’s fair to say I thought she was cute, and made me long to fly through the air a la Rudolph if only she would tell me the same. She never did. It isn’t because I wasn’t cute, because, well, I just was. Deal with that.

Pimpin' it Hef style. Don't be hatin'.

Pimpin’ it Hef style. Don’t be hatin’.

The problem is, she never had the chance. In retrospect, all the “I like you this much” signs were there, but I trembled at the mere thought of talking to her. Eight years old and I was afraid to talk to a girl. Why? I don’t know. I really don’t. Would she have turned into a dragon and devoured me? Maybe. Possible even. Might she have spat acid in my face, turned me into a head-bandaged-wrapped elephant man? Or might she have even been so bold as to do the unthinkable, and talk back? Perhaps want to talk further? EGAD!

I was terrified. And so I never spoke to her. We crossed paths many times on the playground, during recess, in the lunch room, or in the aisle between our desks, but I went stone faced every time she came near, as if I’d tried to stare down Medusa to work up my nerve. On the last day of the year, she asked to sign my shirt (For those of you who have never experienced Sign Your Shirt Day, I’m sorry, but no amount of chocolate will EVER make up for your loss). I have very few clear memories of my childhood, but I remember that moment vividly. I mouthed nothing, blankly handed her my blue marker and turned around quickly, lest she dare sign the front and force me to possibly make eye contact. She signed along the neckline of my white t-shirt. She picked a spot nobody else had signed, wrote slowly and legibly. I like to think there was meaning in that. Perhaps the next year I might have braved a conversation to find out. However, I never would get the chance to embolden myself up to the point of speaking before running madly in the other direction. We moved from Scottsdale back across the country to Florida that summer, and I began fourth grade wondering, for the first time in my life, “What if?” This would not be the last schoolmate named Lori I wish I had spoken to. Nor would it be my last regret.

Before I go on, I should say that this isn’t a lament of one singular moment in my life that might have completely altered the scope of the years that followed. No, this is something much worse.  This is the beginning of a pattern. One that makes no damn sense at all.

In High School, I joined the school paper and took my hand at journalistic prose. Enthralled by the idea of exercising my love for writing, I dove in the deep end, the rambunctious idiot I was. At the back side of the first year, something happened that boggles my mind to this day: I quit. I had written several articles, some which were fun little escapades through the fields of my insanity, and had even received some praise. I covered the football team, which meant I got to be on the sidelines, near the cheerleaders–GAK!–immersed in the atmosphere of hyper-exuberant jockiness. But I quit. Why? Beats the hell out of me. Something within just suggested all of this fun and love and certainty of purpose was just not for me.

Same year. I join the baseball team. (Author’s note((which is a really absurd aside, because isn’t this whole thing just one big author’s note? Idiot.)): There is no adequate reference to how I feel about baseball. Best I can say is this: If you believe in Evolution, and see humanity as this ever-changing creature, from atomic particles to the ultimate source of energy we will eventually disperse into … that.) I had gone through a ridiculously stupid growth spurt. From five foot five to six foot one in six months. I was all arms and legs and leaner than a pole, like some kind of anorexic marionette. I was really good at baseball, though. It consumed me. But that year, for all my talent, I floundered. The coaches saw something in me, despite it all, and begged me to spend more time in the weight room. Maybe they were just concerned a good breeze would lift me away. I don’t know. I smiled, nodded, and never bothered. I just stopped playing. Why? Beats the shit out of me.

I entered my twenties at a dead sprint, the only running I’ve ever done by the way. Afraid to talk to any of the female species, I missed out on countless friendships, dates, conversations, and lest I allow subtlety to ruin everything because my mom is probably reading this, sex. It wasn’t that I was incapable of wooing, I was simply terrified of what would happen if it was received well. WHAT IF SHE WANTS TO SAY MORE THAN JUST HELLO OH DEAR GOD WHAT WILL I DO? So, I avoided it. This led to an overdeveloped sense of marital need, and far too much loneliness to expect rational decisions related to females going forward. Perhaps I believed if I locked one down, I could stop fearing interaction. I don’t know. So I married the first girl who showed me any desire to be with me long-term. We dated three months before we were engaged. One year later, despite my worries I had stepped in a pile that wouldn’t wash off, we got married. It lasted a year and a half. In anything shy of grand style and theatrics, I retreated into myself, proceeded to once again shy away from female contact, and spent the next six years without any emotional connection. Then I met someone else who wanted to connect. Never one to learn from the past, I thought the best thing to do was to repeat the same action and expect an entirely different result.  So, we essentially decided we were getting married that first weekend, and I though that was as cool as a frozen banana in ice cream. Less than four months later, we were. Not a frozen banana in ice cream.  Married. Just to keep things clear. That one lasted an improbable four years, and ended with her insisting I was cheating on her (at one point with my gay friend) and trying to kill her. Of course, she did get engaged two months after our divorce, but that’s neither here nor there, or an apple worth eating.

I have no idea where that apple thing came from.  Sometimes, I tell ya.

Anyway.

The one thing I’ve never given up on: my dream to be a successful author. But I don’t talk about it much. I don’t talk publicly about much of anything. I opened a bookstore did you know–not unless you were there, since I HAVEN’T MENTIONED IT AT ALL ANYWHERE TO ANYONE–which fell during the economic collapse of 2008. Not to say there weren’t other problems.  There were plenty, but if not for that downturn, I still believe it would have survived, even if in some other form. Regardless, when it closed, I didn’t talk much about it. To family, to friends, to my then wife, to my cadre of associations on Facebook. I got quiet. Depressed. Withdrawn. I have two books published, and I tend to shy away from discussing them? Why? Because I don’t like them? Certainly not. If you haven’t read Anointed, well, first of all shame on you. It’s fabulous fun, even if it isn’t the best thing I’ll ever write. It was nominated for the 2010 Sidewise Award for Alternate Fiction, so it isn’t bad. Publishers Weekly liked it, so hey, right? Flutter, my second book was a nice step up in ability and storytelling, but I don’t talk about it. I whine about the silence it received, with that being the only sound I ever make regarding it. Genius. I’ve been working on the Storyteller, an ever-evolving piece of children’s fantasy that–toot toot–is freaking awesome. I’ve had a few near misses (and there it is, I hate that term and yet I wrote it. As punishment to myself, I’m not editing it out. Idiot. Near miss. It makes no sense in any context shy of “Did you see those trains collide? What a near miss that was!”) on publication, got myself worked up in promoting it, then stopped when all momentum on finding it a home dried up. It’s been one year plus and I’ve not made a single public statement about it. I have a Facebook page, so yay me. And though it needed some more work, a slight tweak in direction, there’s been no reason for it.

I had a list of things I was going to troll through in order to demonstrate what I now have come to accept.  Despite my best efforts to convince myself otherwise, I’ve been afraid for the better part of my life. Afraid to choose, afraid to act, afraid to live, afraid to succeed. I don’t know why, I only know that I can’t do it any more.  That ends now. I’m tired of being afraid.

No more fear. From now forward, I am me. Idiot, yes. Afraid to talk to this girl we call Life, no.

Maybe being afraid of a 500 lb. roach isn't all that awful, but still...

But I am still afraid of 500 lb. roaches. You should be too.

Oh, right. I forgot you were here.

zacharysteele 1 Comment

I’m a bad friend, blog. What can I say? I tease you with my company, then vanish for months on end. But I have an excuse this time! It’s Broadleaf related. AND WRITING RELATED! That’s good, right? And, well, it’s life related too, but that’s none of your business, so don’t ask. Just accept it. It wasn’t intentional, I swear. I just got … busy.

For instance, yesterday we launched the event site for the 2016 Broadleaf Writers Conference registration! It opens Monday, April 4th. It’s kind of absorbed most of my time lately, if you follow. So much work. But the committee folks are awesome people and they’re really making it happen. I mean, what, we talked about this more than two years go, right? And it’s happening. Really, really, happening.

Writing? Yeah, well, I’d obviously like to be doing that more often, but my time has been limited of late. Still shopping The Storyteller, hoping that someone sees the passion I’ve infused in a project that began seven years or so ago. I’ve worked a bit on the YA project that I wrote about here, but hit a wall. I walked away from it, to get some clarity, and found I wasn’t all that pleased with what I was doing. So I tinkered a bit on another project for a while just to clear my head. But I recently was granted an idea I’m very excited about. One that puts me back in Middle Grade fantasy, where I want to be. One that keeps me in a universe I love. One that I’m not yet ready to talk about. Jinx or something. I don’t know. Right now, I’ll just say it’s a series called The Kindred. About half the size of The Storyteller, an idea that hasn’t been done, to my knowledge. I’m always more comfortable there anywhere. There and satire. And someday I’ll get back to that. I have a killer idea that takes us a bit before Anointed, and allows me to reset that universe, should I ever want to do anything with the rights I have back to Anointed and Flutter.

And life. That.

So, see? It’s not you, it’s me. I’m sorry. I won’t make some blanket promise that I’ll be here more often. I won’t. It’ll be a lie. I’ll disappear again, then come back and update you. It’s who I am. My priorities are rather focused right now. I have shit to do. Good shit. Just trying to reinforce the point. Sorry for the language. I promise I haven’t hanging around any bad seeds.

So, that’s that. Gotta go, blog. Take care. Keep a watch on my brand, or whatever it is I’m doing here.

Pardon the Dust

zacharysteele Leave a comment

Pardon the dust. I’m underway with some renovations on the interior of Self. It wouldn’t be noticeable I imagine, so it’s not at all likely anyone would notice. In fact, I’m guessing no one will. But that’s the problem. No one notices. There seems to be a disconnect with the way I view my dreams, desires, etc., and the daily results I experience. As in, I have this grand vision of what my life should be, and I work toward it, yet I have this near out-of-body experience with what actually is.

So I’ve been trying to figure out why. Why do I feel what I am doing should be more observed and appreciated than it is? I’m not a bad person, per se, so I feel karma isn’t the answer. I’m not perfect, of course. I make mistakes. Many many. But that isn’t cause for the results, I wouldn’t think. Everyone makes mistakes, after all. Doesn’t hold back those who succeed, or are at the least noticed for what they do.

I’m forced to accept the only possibility I can find logic within: I am Clark Kent. I’m invisible, for the most part. A kind-hearted person you notice, but don’t think much of as a hero. Nobody looks at Clark and says, “Now there’s a guy who’s going somewhere. Let’s pay attention to him.” No. That’s the whole point. And even Clark makes stupid mistakes, like giving up his powers for no discernible reason whatsoever.

That’s who I am. Clark Kent after giving up my powers. Invisible and meek. Fun stuff. People pay attention to a point, then move on and forget I was there at all.

Why would they do that? Because they’re looking for Superman. They’re looking for heroes. They’re looking to be wowed, impressed, carried onward into hope and victory. Strong personalities, active voices, people who offer them results they want.

This guy:

You might argue that’s the same guy. Still Clark, right? But who will they remember? The meek guy who got beat up, or the guy who stood up to the bad guy and defeated him with flair and strength?

I’m not likely to go beat on some worthless schmo for the sake of attention, so that’s out. Hell, I still catch flies and release them when I can, rather than squishing them into oblivion for invading my space. But I’ve encountered my share of bullies. And they’ve won. Sure, I’ll bitch about it, but after the five seconds in which people listen and agree, they move on. Nobody wants to listen to someone complain about being a victim. They want Superman. Action. Decisive action.

When I was eight, I had a birthday party. It was the first one I had organized, first time I had invited kids from school to my home. There was cake, balloons, games planned, a beautiful day in a park. Nobody showed up. I didn’t try to have another party after that. Now, I could say that it molded my perception at that point, convinced me nobody would ever show up for anything I planned ever; but that would be Clarking without power. Something I am proficient in. Complaining after the fact, then withdrawing. Truth is, that party was just another bully, and it beat me. It beat me and I didn’t fight back.

I’ve often stated, of myself, that I engage in the fight, get knocked down, yet always get up to fight again. What strikes me, in this whole Clarking vs. Supermanning duel of perception is not that I keep getting up. That should be a given. I mean, you don’t get up, the fight’s over. As we’re talking about life here, then life is over. So you get up. Of course. You fight, to one degree or another, to defend your right to existence. Expectations, though. That’s what I’ve come to see. I expect to get knocked down again. I expect to stand up again. I expect to fight again. I expect this to repeat, endlessly. That’s just Clarking your way through. Superman (or if you must, Clark Kent with his powers) doesn’t enter a fight expecting to hold his ground or be defeated. He expects to win. He expects good to triumph. He expects to move on to another fight and kick its ass as well.

So I’m renovating. Interior design is not my strong suit, though I work on it constantly. I’m hoping to make this one stick. It’d be nice to do so. Perhaps then people will notice me. They’ll read my work because they can’t imagine not reading it. They’ll read it because they want to, because they could’t wait to, because they want to know what story I tell next. I’m actually quite good at this whole writing thing. It’s taken a lot of work to become so. But if I continue to toss it about like Clark’s weak punches, nobody will care. It’ll be kind of sad, actually.

I’ve learned to write well because I want people to read it, when what I need to do is to write well because I expect people will be reading it.

Writing, Broadleaf Writers, my current job, relationships, everything.

I have to learn to be Superman.

Being invisible sucks.

If I use a Horcrux, will that help?

zacharysteele Leave a comment

Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy.

I had planned November to be all about the writing. I joined that whole NaWriMo, or whatever it’s called. thing. The Progenitor would stay on course, I said. I had a word count. A proud, distinguished target.

Bullocks.

As it happens, November is traditionally a busy month on the Georgia Center for the Book schedule. The Georgia Literary Festival in Augusta, Children’s Book Festival in Savannah, Elizabeth George, Lynn Cullen, Diana Butler Bass, Sue Grafton with Amanda Kyle Williams, Jane Smiley, Tanwi Nandini Islam … you get the drift. Busy.

But wait! There’s more! I, as the Executive Director and along with my awesome Board of Directors, launched the Broadleaf Writers Association in November! No problem! Just a few things to take care of. Emails to send, posts to write, a website to set, meetings, social media to maintain, conversations with writers, a fundraiser to plan. Just a few things. No big whoop.

But wait! There’s more!

Twice a week I work with a friend of mine who runs an after-school chess program. Two schools, each thirty minutes away. Great work, I love it, but you may not know this … kids suck your energy away. I’m guessing this is what the soda bottle feels like after being drained in a few gulps.

BUT WAI … oh, never mind. You get it. Busy.

Oddly, I found time to write. The Progenitor moves forward. I’m nearing the halfway mark, which is not as far as I’d like to be, but is certainly not a disappointment. As action packed as it is to the end, it’ll zip by. I still expect to have it completed before Spring.

All of this activity made me realize that Voldemort may have been onto something with the Horcruxes. I mean, dude split himself into seven pieces and he was good with it. A little wacky, sure, but he went about his business. No fracture too difficult to manage. I’m split four ways and I’m exhausted. Maybe if I could parcel some of this into an inanimate object or four I’d be better off.

The most recent split of my attention launched today. Broadleaf’s initial fundraising campaign launched on GoFundMe. Lookit: (this is where a GoFundMe widget would go if I wasn’t too tired to figure out why it isn’t working. So instead, here’s a fancy link to the campaign!)

So, like, cool and stuff. People can donate. Though it’s foremost a writing organization, the hope is that my most wonderful friends and family (and those by extension of the Board of Directors and writerly folks of my world) will see this as a cool concept worth getting behind, or simply supporting. After all, we want to educate, to teach people how to better write so that they might pursue writing for publication, or better make use of in their workplace, social lives, or professional pursuits. Writing is an important thing, after all. Teaching people to do it well seems worth a few bucks tossed in the Broadleaf kitty, doesn’t it? Sure it does. Help a brother out. Help an organization looking to do wonderful things out. CHARITY ARE GOOD.

That’s all the pitch I have left, folks. Been a day. In baseball parlance I’m a good hundred and fifteen pitches into the eighth inning. Someone get the bullpen up. I need a drink.

But I’m here. I’ve posted. My hope remains that I will return to chronicle the process of writing The Progenitor at some point, though spending my available energy actually writing the damn thing seems a better use of time. We’ll see. I’m sure you’re on the razor’s edge in anticipation. Of course you are.

Boom. Done. Blog post written. Neato little flash thingy link for the campaign embedded (or not, but whatever). Words spent.

Hey, my coffee mug might be a good place to go from here. I wonder if you can drink out of a Horcrux?

Welcome to the world, Broadleaf Writers

zacharysteele 3 Comments

I have ideas.

Many of them become stories. Some of them blog projects following my work-in-progress. Some of them become real things. Some of them stew in my brain for years before finding a port worthy of docking. A place where like-minded individuals may come aboard and assist me in making my dear sweet eager idea a reality.

Today, I get to unleash another into the world. Today, the Broadleaf Writers Association becomes a reality.

Sweet.

What is Broadleaf? Why is Broadleaf? How is … never mind, you see where this is going.

To simplify things here: Broadleaf Writers is an organization dedicated to educating and inspiring writers to become better writers. We believe the path to publication is paved in the perfection of your craft. We believe no writer should stand alone in the pursuit of their passion. We believe writers should explore the style they feel is best suited to their skill, that any genre may contain brilliance, and that nothing soothes a writer’s soul more than the opportunity to commune with other writers.

Through seminars, workshops, networking and peer groups, and much more, Broadleaf Writers is meant to be the home every writer has been looking for. And to kick it off, we will host the First Annual Broadleaf Writers Conference in September 2016! The site and date will be announced soon, as will the first of a growing list of fabulous, experienced, writers who will serve as speakers and mentors.

We’re still a bit under construction (aren’t we all?), but we’re very eager to get started. In addition to the above, we will be opening membership enrollment soon, in order to grant writers greater access to information on Broadleaf, educational opportunities, and discounts on the programs we offer. In the meantime, we’ve started a Facebook page, we’re on Twitter, and we have established a website at broadleafwriters.com! Please give them a look, like, follow, sign up for our newsletter (on the website!), and help spread the word. If you would like to donate to help fund our organization, we would be most grateful! There’s a donation button on the website, or if you would like to discuss it via email, I can be reached at broadleafwriters@gmail.com. If you have any questions, comments, thoughts, ideas, or any other word I’ve managed to forget in the sentence, email me, comment below, message the Facebook page, tweet to us, we’re easy to find!

There are so many talented, passionate, writers in the area, in neighboring states, in the Southeast, and we want to shine a spotlight on every one. Whether a New York Times bestseller, a product of the small presses, self-published, or one of the many seeking to become part of the process somewhere, we are all one family. One group. One idea seeking a port. Come aboard. This is going to be one hell of a ride.

Though this idea did stew in these here brain meats for more than two years, I would be remiss in failing to mention my wonderful Board of Directors. Though still in its infancy in size and scope, Broadleaf would not exist without their time, energy, and dedication to this dream. So a very heartfelt thanks to Alison Law, Ricki Schultz, Bill Bridges, Barbara Friend Ish, and Collin Kelley. You are all so wonderful, gifted, and a thrill to work with. LET’S GO TEAM!

If you have an interest in potentially joining the Board, offering your time on our Conference committee, or volunteering as the need arises, please feel free to email me. With all that we hope to accomplish in the coming year and beyond, it will take a small army of individuals working together to build our family.

So as to avoid spending two thousand additional words worth of your time detailing all that Broadleaf can be, all that gives me the tingles when I think on it, I’ll leave it there for now. Please do contact me if you have questions. Help us spread the word. Like us on Facebook, follow us on twitter, sign up for our newsletter. Donate if you can. Every single dollar will make a difference.

BWA Logo

Fifty Shades of Change, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Edits

zacharysteele Leave a comment

Words is words, which are words that are words, being wordy.

This is the process of writing, you see. Learning perfection is attained not in the first sentence, but rather what the first sentence can become after you’ve written a few thousand other sentences that politely inform what that stupid first sentence should have been in the first place, if only you had the smarts to let them tell you first.

Sentences can be so bitchy.

The Progenitor is this. As is everything else ever written. Certainly, everything ever written by the dope typing this post. Every chapter calls me backward. To adjust something. To tweak some language. To modify dialogue. Because, as I discover the truths ahead, I’m required to align them behind. In this light, I’ve spent some time recently combing through the first few chapters and making adjustments. If you’re reading along you might now be screaming something like But I’ve already READ all that! Yes, you have. I warned you. Edits happen. It’s a process. It’s part of the writing life. It’s the realization the burger needed cheddar AND provolone AND swiss after you’re halfway through. You can still do it. Come on, you know you want that taste. Cheddar just isn’t enough anymore, is it? No, that burger wants MORE and it wants it NOW.

Did I mention I’m a bit hungry?

Agatha’s story is twisting, evolving into the latter 2/3 of the book that I believe might be best classified as WUT. As in, you know, “What?” but different, because you’re all WUT.

Got it?

Good.

Time is tricky, as Agatha is learning. Time is screwed up when you screw with it. Time is a nightmare that may or may not be a pleasant dream when the Keepers find you.

Now almost 20,000 words in, I know I love this story. It’s insane. We’ve bonded and become good friends. We might be holding hands soon. It’s getting serious. Like, totally. I’ve also learned the story was, to no surprise, right about the beginning. Chapter One as it stands will go into the repository at some point, hopeful to be included in a potential opening of Book Two, or a story told along the way. Chapter Three, with its great opening of “The first time Agatha moved through time, she tried to save a cake,” will become the opening of the book. That line sells it. The flow it creates otherwise is ideal.

So, here it is. The end of Chapter Ten is completely raw. I haven’t even looked at them a second pass yet. I’m still hoping to finish the first draft by the end of the year. It’s ambitious, but much like this story, I’m not entirely sane. It’ll happen.

Fire away. Input is welcome.

Progenitor Manuscript .pdf

Progress is all about progressing and stuff

zacharysteele Leave a comment

That whole “Day Whatever” thing? Yeah, I think that can go away now. I mean, posting in a succession of days that mark every day I have worked on the novel makes great sense. Not that I often make sense. I usually make not sense, and with great precision. So, it’s canned. On a shelf to be forgotten forevermore. Like Apocalypse Tuna. But NEVER FEAR! I am still here. Still hereing and being here and being not not here in order to post what I have written on the The Progenitor.

That said, in the time I have managed not to waste watching football, cheering my fantasy baseball team to a long-awaited league winner winner chicken dinner championship (Yeah that’s right, I play fantasy sports. What of it? I’m a dude who likes sports, all right? Back off, lest I pummel you with my sportish knowledge and bore you to tears.), taunting the cat, humoring the dog, and putting back a healthy dose of the Fall’s first batch of chili, I have created more words! Words that pair with other words to form sentences and paragraphs! Paragraphs that talk about stuff and lead to other stuff. Two chapters worth, in fact! In fairness, they’ve seen a light edit, but I tend to read through what I last wrote in an effort to drop back into the flow of the story, which always results in some alteration along the way. I edit, therefore I am, or something.

With these two chapters, Agatha’s adventure has officially begun. A bit earlier than I had expected (I’m at 12,000 words, and I thought I’d make it closer to 20k before everything really took off), but it feels right. The story’s never wrong. When it says it’s time to fly, you jump. When it says have some meat and chill, you better not be a vegetarian.

Speaking of jumping, as this story plays with the concept of jumping through time, the task I face is explaining this, and the results therefrom, in a way that is easy to follow and understand. If I have failed to do so at any point, fire away. You’re the reader, I’m the writer. I stand behind the curtain, while you fall asleep in a field of poppies, or head off on a witch hunt with but some sketchy courage, a tin brain, no heart and a stupid bucket of water. I know everything. You know nothing. NOTHING!

So, here it is. All six chapters. 12k words out of a projected 90k pushes me past 10%. It’s a small benchmark, but something about crossing 10% has always infused me with excitement. Hopefully it shows.

Progenitor Manuscript .pdf

Bowling for Jesus

zacharysteele Leave a comment

It’s probably a good thing I can write.

Not to say that I am, or have been, incapable of doing anything else.  I know how to make toast, after all.  That’s an accomplishment.  No, really, it is.  I mean, if the difference between starvation, and survival onward to tomorrow, is a slightly browned piece of bread with butter and jelly, I’ve got it covered.  Not that I’m about to break into a refrain from I Will Survive, or anything, but if you hear some crunching in the corner, that might be me.

Anyway, enough about toast.  We can all make toast, right?  Please say yes.

Good.

So, I don’t remember my sixth-grade math teacher’s name, and it’s been bugging me for an hour.  Come to it, I can’t even remember what he looks like, though I do quite clearly remember it being ahe.  Of course, I only remember one classmate–a boy by the name of Scott.  And I only remember him for that unfortunate vomiting incident that caused me to plead to my mother for new shoes, and forever altered how I respond to the smell of sawdust.  Sorry Scott.  Wherever you are, I hope you aren’t vomiting on someone’s shoes.  In an effort to actually move forward, I’ll call my teacher Mister Mister Sir, and get on with it.

Mister Mister Sir did a rather curious thing in class.  Each month he chose a Student Of The Month (the first letters were always in CAPS, lest the importance of the honor be diminished).  Now, being honored as Student Of The Month is, in almost every case, a worthy title bestowed upon the one student that either kissed enough tush, or cheated on enough tests to have the highest grade in the class.  It so happened I managed both with great skill.  But being  Student Of The Month wasn’t merely a title in Mister Mister Sir’s class.  No, it came with benefits, the most primary of which was that you got to sit at a teacher’s-sized desk near the door, and grade papers all day, after which you went into the Grade Book and entered to grades.

The awesome nature of this power cannot be overlooked.  However, it wasn’t the greatest of the honors bestowed upon the Loyal Brotherhood of the Student Of The Months.  That honor came by way of a Polaroid picture taped to a piece of construction paper (mine was red, as I recall–odd that I can remember that but not Mister Mister Sir’s real name), with a brief bio underneath.  It was a typical roll-call of information: Name, Age, Birth date, Favorite Food.  I remember looking over the list and happily making it known to the world how incredibly special I was.  They would know all the most important information about me and envy me each every one of those thirty days.  The kicker was the last question, the one that nearly defined my entire life, post-Sir’s class.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Oh, boy.  That was the question.  The Question.  But I knew the answer.  I didn’t need to hesitate.  Didn’t need to take even a second of time to contemplate exactly what I wanted to do with my life.

I wanted to bowl for Jesus.

Mister Mister Sir mistakenly translated this not-simply-a-tidbit of defining information, and noted for all to see that I wanted to be a Professional Bowler.  Much though I was honored to sit at the High Desk, and spend a month of my adolescence grading papers and not learning a damned thing, I felt it was quite necessary to help Mister Mister Sir–enlighten even–understand where he had erred.

“Mister Mister Sir, sir,” I had said to him, early one morning before class had begun.  “I believe you may have made a mistake on my biography.  I don’t want to be a professional bowler.  I want to bowl for Jesus.”

Mister Mister Sir seemed a little put off by that, or at least that’s how I perceived it.  I now know he just needed coffee.  I see that face every morning in my mirror.  “I don’t understand,” he said, which I found to be quite obvious.  Of course he didn’t understand.  I needed to clarify.

“I want to bowl for Jesus,” I repeated.  “You know, stand up with my ball of reckoning, keep my approach straight and balanced, steer clear of the gutters, and roll my way through the ten pins with a proper angel.”

“You mean, ‘angle’?”

“No, angel.”  He stared at me, which I saw as an invite to continue.  “The proper angel is important.  You can’t just take the ten pins lightly, straight on.  You have to have an angel to guide you through and help you to, you know, get a strike.”

“What?”

He wasn’t getting it, which nearly frustrated me into silence.  Months I had worked on this, trying to get every bit of it just right.  And now here was a teacher of whom I greatly respected for choosing me as Student Of The Month, understanding none of it.  “The Ten Pins?” I tried.

“What about them?”

“It’s a parallel, Mister Mister Sir.  Ten Pins, Ten Commandments.  Angels, and staying clear of the gutters–you know,” and here I whispered, “Satan?”

“Oh,” he said, rather dry and indifferent.  “This is a religious thing, isn’t it?”

I felt my shoulders drop somewhere below my knees.”Well, no.  I mean, yeah, kind of.  But not, if you know what I mean.  It’s kind of a religious sort of thing that I talked to my preacher about.  Of course, he didn’t understand either.  But I think that was just because the Idiot Gnomes got to him.”

“The Idiot Gnomes.  That’s what my father calls them, anyway.  They break into your room at night, on days when you’ve been particularly bad, and steal your brain cells.  They turn you into an idiot.  That’s why I try to be good and come up with good ideas all the time.  I don’t want to be an idiot.”

“But you want to Bowl for Jesus?”

“Yes!  I do!”

Mister Mister Sir smiled, laughed a little, then stood up and walked to the wall where my beaming visage sat in all its Polaroid-glory.  He removed the construction paper, walked back to his desk, made quite a scene of crossing out Professional Bowler with a marker, then quickly wrote something I couldn’t make out.  He walked back to the wall, and re-posted my shrine of glory.

He nodded, and returned to his desk, where he downed nearly a full cup of coffee in one gulp.  After a moment of hesitation, I walked to the wall and stared at my biography.  I stared at it for about two minutes, contemplating.

“You can bowl for Jesus all you want, kiddo,” said Mister Mister Sir, now standing behind me.  “But you damn well better write about it afterward.  Weirdness breeds entertainment, and I’m pretty sure you’re gonna breed just fine.”  After which he walked out of the room.

I’m not sure at what point in the month that Scott vomited on my shoes, but I know that it was about the same time that I decided I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.  If not for Mister Mister Sir, and his biographical misstep, then for me and my wardrobe.  I wanted to wear nice, clean, warm, slippers all day, somewhere free of random vomit, and the gag-inducing smell of sawdust,

It’s a good thing I can write.

Day 7: Too Many Days

zacharysteele Leave a comment

The bitch thing about writing–for me, anyhow–is fitting it into a schedule that demands of me my attention so as I may pay my bills as required. I love my day job, both of them I should say actually, but I do long for the ability to write on my own schedule. The ability to channel all of my energy into my passion, rather than the divide and conquer mentality I’m forced to take right now. Throw in a dash of this issue, a touch of that issue, some stress to round out the flavor and boom. You have a fraction of time to actually write, and no bacon to soothe the pain. Add in the stress, fatigue, and otherwise fractured sense of concentration that comes with it all, and you get crap writing when you actually do sit down.

I’ve had two weeks of insanity, with some crap writing mixed in for pleasure. If I were the type of personality who pushed through these things, who said screw sleep I’m writing something, I’d have produced Chapter Four already. But through my earlier days of Writerdom I’ve learned it’s more work to write those pages, attempt to edit them and convince myself I can make something worthwhile out of nothing, than to can them altogether because, well, because they’re absolutely useless crap. I do better when I endure the hard times, write workable crap, then get my groove on when things calm down again. Granted, this is likely the primary reason I only have two books published to this point, but it would also be the primary reason why I’ve improved in the craft so much. It gives me time. Time to think, time to write in my head, time to get it right. So, it’s a wash. I’ll just be who I am and move on.

Much as I have with The Progenitor. After the two-week hiatus, Chapter Four didn’t end up taxing my eager brain at all. It’s quite short, against what I had expected. I just reached a line that said IT ENDS HERE and said all righty then, thanks. So, without any lengthy preamble, nonsensical picture, or loosely-related story about my life, here it is. As always, fire away. Input is welcome.

I’ve decided to end the chapter at a time approach to the file, instead opting to offer the entire manuscript each time. Chapter Four begins on page 18, for what it’s worth. Just to help you avoid feeling as though you need to re-read everything each time, and stuff. Heaven forbid.

Progenitor Manuscript .pdf

Z