Another Creative Season Ends

Author Laments Latest Bout of Postpartum Depression

“Well,” as one character in Mansion of High Ghosts says after a particularly vivid incident, “that happened.” In the case of the novel in question, the “event” now unfolded took its time—twenty years. But as of June 2021, it’s done and in print.

A rocket once bound for the stars has at last breached the veil. And disappears into the vacuum, its running lights fading into darkness.

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Long Haul Project

Producing this central piece of my personal canon of art actually took much longer than two decades.

Besides the fact of the car accident at the heart of the story occurring 34 years ago, the original attempt at writing about this tragic story happened in Bob Lamb’s fiction workshop. This was way back in the spring of 1992, when I still piloted a desk at USC, Loose Lucy’s in Five Points didn’t exist (at least not until that August), and my future as a writer, if I had one, felt out of reach.

That’s because it was. Not only wasn’t I seasoned enough, nor was I writing enough to become seasoned. But that would change.

In any case, the first time I ever stood before a group of people and read my work, it was in that class. And it was a scene of a drunk burying his beloved pet, the last link of an innocent, former life to which he had held. A version remains in the current text of MoHG, though with a world of difference in style, language, and intent.

Outside the class that night, Lamb, a Pen Hemingway-nominated novelist and former newspaperman, took me aside. “That was as good as anything I’m reading from the MFA grad students.”

I was stunned. We chatted. I believed in myself, but only to a certain extent, and hearing such praise felt otherworldly and impossible, an early bout of imposter syndrome. But one writer’s approbation that night gave me enormous confidence, though the ultimate culmination would take three long decades.

Truth: if anyone said to you, it will take thirty years, blood sweet and tears, would you still go for the dream? I persevered on through. That’s all I can say. I never lost my faith, even when I tried. And if it took a ‘long time,’ a working-class kid like me has to earn a living while pursuing the artistic ideal.

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Cresting the Ridge

So one may ask, how does it feel on the far side of the hill? Having wrapped up my series of Edgewater County novels, the core and pinnacle I had hoped to achieve, feels wonderful. No question.

Moreover, I achieved another life goal by teaching creative writing for 11 years at Midlands Technical College, peaking in my last class with the biggest group, the best results, and the most personal satisfaction I ever experienced as a teacher. That I now choose to walk away from that official role at Midlands Tech is no tragedy, and a moment in its time which feels right.

In the same spirit as not feeling the need to try to best myself as a novelist anymore, nor do I need to fill the classroom with my experience. At least not for now.

If getting through to the endgame of one’s artistic pursuits sounds like a laudable goal and not a problem, wait until you get there. The what-now phase I’m now in has been brutal.

Truth: If I’m not planning, executing, editing, designing or promoting my literary fiction, nor teaching any classes and with it, the preparation to lecture for hours at a time, I seem to have acquired a gaping hole in my creative schedule.

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Looking Ahead

What about poetry?

Yes; I continue to produce work, continue to send out, continue to receive rejection slips. It’s been quite a long year since my last published poem, with nothing but dozens of rejections to show for 2020 and 2021 so far. I do it because I enjoy the work, so getting them placed, or not, makes little difference. It’s a game to play, if I wish to consume hours and money on sending out my now bulging file of work. I will continue to play it, in some form, but it’s not the same all-consuming task as the other writing.

Again, this isn’t all bad—I clearly need change. I have a file of other story ideas, should I want to finally write genre fiction or some other non-Edgewater County work. The Initiates, The Widow Darby, Praise & Worship… I have some interesting loglines and plots cooking. If I want to spend months and years on writing books.

Right now, I don’t.

Am I simply tired? Perhaps.

When I’ve felt this way in the past, at the end of whatever book process I had completed, another peak always loomed in the distance. On the day Fellow Traveler came out, I got signed by an agent for Dogs. If it wasn’t Dixiana, it was the ‘legendary’ MoHG. Always another hill to climb. Until now.

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Final Thoughts

I’m happy. Don’t get me wrong. But I pushed myself to my limits. And if I haven’t sold many books in the grand scheme for all these efforts, I rest comfortably knowing no one else in this town actively promoting themselves as an author* can touch the ambition I’ve displayed on the level of literary fiction.

Is that a boast? No, a simple statement of fact. The proof is in the pages. It’s easy enough to either confirm or disprove. The work is in print for all to read.

No apologies. I kept trying until I made my statement, bested myself, and now look back on it all with a feeling of reflection and amazement more than hubris or arrogance. The old ego needs which spurred me on in one sense have been quelled; the work now speaks for itself, which is what the best artists allow to stand as their mark rather than any other external measure.

If this is what success feels like—accomplishment tinged with melancholy and uncertainty—I’ll take it. And, as for the future? It holds what it holds. As it is said, in due time all will be revealed, including any new directions my life should happen to take from here. I look forward to finding out.

Here’s the tl;dr version in poetry form, more about what’s ahead than behind:

 

Dreamlike Acuity

James D. McCallister

Where a year off finds me again:

I endure the fetid ‘Garland Ghost;’

similar of age, he wheels round:

“I’ve loved cool acuity, after all,

and I rue little ahead of me”;

That’s his dreamlike message notion

 

*Meaning, I am the one flapping my gums about having climbed the mountain. For all I know, we could have the greatest literary genius of the age here, albeit one going unpublished or otherwise unrecognized for any number of reasons