.JPG)
I don’t know when I realized that I wanted to be a writer,
but I was surrounded by writing from a young age. My father, John Vande Zande,
was a writer. He wrote Night Driving
(William Morrow), a collection of short stories, which won a Chautauqua
Literary Circle Award. I distinctly remember Saturday mornings because we three
children had to be quiet so Dad could write. Such mornings were sound-tracked
by the clacking of typewriter keys. When I was young, I thought that all
fathers wrote stories on Saturday mornings. It was only later that I would
discover that my father had a strange affliction . . . an affliction that he
would pass on to me.
When I was six, I wrote my
first story, which my parents tape-recorded as I read it aloud. It was called
“The Strange Bug.” I can still remember the opening lines: “First I was run
over by a car. Then I was run over by a train. And I was hurt. And I had to go
to the hospital.” Since that first story, I’ve been an on-again off-again
writer. In my teens, I didn’t write . . . sort of a rebellion against my
father. In my twenties, I wrote poetry; I suppose because my father wrote
fiction. For most of my thirties up until now, I’ve concentrated on stories, novels,
and screenplays for short films.
I’m at a place where I am
quite content with my writing at the craft level. I know when I’m working on a
good poem or good story. What I struggle with at 42 years of age is the fear
that I’m repeating myself . . . of not doing anything new. My most recent
novel, American Poet, had a great
deal to do with Theodore Roethke. Through research, I learned that Roethke
reinvented himself as a poet with almost every book. It makes me wonder if I’m
doing that. I worry that I’m spinning out the same themes over and over without
really saying anything new.
I’ve definitely explored
some specific themes in my work. I’m interested in working-class themes and how
work both gives us identity and confines us. I’m also interested in themes of
altruism. I’ve been told that fathers and sons is an ongoing theme in my work.
Likewise, I’m interested in characters who are trying to discover their true
selves. Recently, I’ve been exploring old age and retirement as a theme. That
stage of our lives is the last frontier, and I think it’s been fairly
unexplored in literature. It’s relevant, I think, because we are living longer,
so some of us have to face the unknown of twenty years after retirement. In a
way, it’s like a second go-around with our teenage years. We are faced once
again with the challenging question, “Who am I?” We usually don’t have work to
define us anymore. There are no maps for how to approach those years after
retirement. In fact, I explored it in a novella entitled The Slow Moons Climbs. So far, no publishers have been interested
in it.
Of my themes, I think I am
most interested in the idea of self-identity. It’s the greatest challenge we
are given in life . . . to discover our true self and to give ourselves the
freedom for our self to evolve. Norm Maclean of A River Runs Through It fame once wrote, “The problem of self
identity is not just a problem for the young. It is a problem all the time.
Perhaps the problem. It should haunt old age, and when it no longer does it
should tell you that you are dead.” That’s the theme that fuels The Slow Moon Climbs, but it is also the
theme of my first novel, Into the
Desperate Country. In that novel, my main character loses his wife and
daughter to a tragic car accident. Years later, he realizes that he doesn’t
know who he is. I have a colleague who used to teach Into the Desperate Country in a literature course. Whenever he
would invite me in as a guest author, I would have excellent discussions with his
students. The theme of self-identity is very relevant to them; most of them are
struggling with it every day.
Recently, I’ve struggled
with my own self-identity, especially as it relates to being a writer. I’ve
entered a time in my life where finding time to write has become much more
difficult. When my children were younger and not in school, I was a night
writer. I wrote every night from 11 p.m. until one in the morning. I easily
functioned on six hours of sleep. As my children and I have aged, it’s harder
for me to work at night. When I was working on American Poet in the fall of 2011, I was writing until one or two
in the morning and then getting up at 5:45 a.m. to get my kids ready for
school. I had a cot in my office at Delta College to take naps on between
classes. That schedule made it so I could finish the book but, when I look
back, I realize that I was sleep deprived for at least three months. I also
wasn’t very healthy.
Since then, I’ve been
getting sleep . . . and I like it. I’ve been going to the gym regularly, too. I
might even be in the best shape of my life. I haven’t really started any longer
projects like a novel since finishing American
Poet. When I’m working on something, I need to work on it every day for a
sustained amount of time. Right now, my daily life offers no sustained amount
of downtime. I’m in a process of trying to discover what kind of writer I’m
going to be if I’m no longer a night writer. I’m trying to wrap my mind around
the idea that, for novels at least, I’m probably going to have to become a
summer writer. I’ll still write at night in the summer, but at least I’ll be
able to sleep in. It’s difficult because I have an idea for a new novel but,
short of thinking about it, I can’t really start writing it.
A recent development in my
life is a writing gig I have with the Cedar
Sweeper, a magazine devoted to fly fishing in Michigan. Once every two
months I write a short story for them, and the only stipulation is that the
story has to be related to fly fishing in some way. Also, the story can’t be
longer than 2,000 words. I’ve really enjoyed coming up with ideas for fly
fishing-related stories, and the practice keeps me immersed in the world of
short fiction.
The last long project that
I finished was a novella. I never allowed myself to work beyond midnight on it.
That might be why it ended up being around 80 pages long. For me, however, this
novella, entitled Parable of Weeds,
is definitely new territory compared to the realism of most of my work. I guess
it would be called a slipstream novella because it slips between sci-fi and
literature. If I had to compare it to something, I would compare it to Ray
Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. I’ve done
a little slipstream writing in short fiction, and I love the world-creating
that it requires. Parable of Weeds
was my attempt to execute a longer slipstream piece. I really wanted it to be a
novel, but it more or less finished itself on page 80. Even though it was new
territory, I must have done something right because it was recently accepted
for publication by Untreed Reads, an e-book publisher out of California. That
will be new territory for me as well . . . having a book that is strictly an
e-book.
I sometimes wonder if I
would still be writing if I weren’t teaching creative writing. It’s a mixed
blessing of sorts. It fuels me and keeps me interested in writing, but it also
drains me and makes me sick of writing. I hear a frequent question from my
students: “Once this class is over, what should I do to keep improving as a
writer?” I think they expect me to tell them about another class; however, I
usually have pretty simple advice for them: “Read everything you can,
especially in the genres that you want to write in.” Once writers know how to
read like a writer (which I try to teach my students) then, technically, they
don’t need any more classes. They can learn everything they need to learn by
reading other writers. If students ask me who they should read, I often tell
them to start with Hemingway. It’s cliché, I know, but it’s really good advice.
I follow up by emphasizing that they shouldn’t stop with Hemingway. All writers
have something to teach us about writing.
Interestingly, I think as a
writer I have reached a point that I no longer read writers to study their
craft. After twenty years of writing, I know how to write; I don’t need to study
other writers anymore. Or maybe I’m simply too stubborn to learn anything from
them. I don’t read a great deal of contemporary fiction, especially not the
stuff that’s being called “cutting edge.” It bores me, but I’m not going to get
into why. When I begin to explore the reasons behind my boredom, I come out
looking like a closed-minded curmudgeon. Right now I am reading Neil Sheehan’s A Bright Shining Lie, a nearly 800-page
non-fiction book on the Vietnam War. I’d been teaching Tim O’Brien’s short
story “The Things They Carried” for years, but I realized recently that I know
next to nothing about the Vietnam War. I felt I should know something since my
students were asking me questions that I couldn’t answer.
I think that I’ve also
outgrown my need for contact with fellow writers. I used to have some writer
friends with whom I would exchange work. Early on, it was very helpful, and I
would even recommend similar exchanges for anyone who is just getting started
writing. Eventually, though, I got to the point where I didn’t need other
people. I often found that they weren’t making my writing better; they were
just making it closer to how they would have written it. To be honest, I don’t
care that much for spending time with writers . . . at least not writers who can
only talk about writing. Jesus, but that gets tiring. On the whole, writers are
a pretty solipsistic bunch. I would much rather spend time with their writing
than with them, at least most of them. I can go many months without ever
talking about writing. In fact, I’m happiest that way. For whatever reason,
however, when I’m around other writers, we always end up talking about writing.
There’s always a sub-textual pissing match going on beneath the surface of the
conversation, too. Too often, writers seem to be one-upping each other with
what they talk about. Or maybe I’m just sensitive.
That’s not to say, however,
that I don’t like people. In fact, I’ve discovered that I really enjoy working
collaboratively with other people on creative projects. About five years ago, I
took a few classes to learn more about screenwriting . . . mainly because we
had students at Delta College interested in screenwriting, and I wanted to be
able to offer them a class. As a result, I now find myself teaching in a film
program at Delta. I work with another professor from the Electronic Media
discipline. We both feel that if we are going to teach students how to write
and make short films, then we should also be writing and making them. Our most
recent project will be a twenty-minute film when it’s finished. I have to say
that I really love working with other people on a creative project, perhaps
more than I love writing. Writing fiction or poetry can be such a lonely
business. I suppose that’s why some writers like to get together with other
writers. That’s the difference, though. When writers get together, it’s usually
to talk about writing or something they’ve written. The creative aspect always
takes place in isolation. When film makers get together, it’s to get something
done. It’s not to critique; it’s to create together. Film making has allowed me
to branch out in other ways, too. I’ve even taken a stab or two at acting.
I’ve been asked if I
consider myself a writer. My answer: I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m
most happy when I’m involved in creating something. For me, that doesn’t have
to necessarily be a written piece. I’ve dabbled in acting. I’ve committed
myself to working on screenplays. When I’m doing either, I feel that same
creative high that I feel when I’m writing fiction or poetry. I’ve also done
some painting and even tried my hand at making furniture. While doing either, I
feel just as inspired and fulfilled as I do when I’m writing.
I
like to create, and it really doesn’t matter what I’m creating. What this means
is that I’ll probably never be a great writer. The great ones always seem to be
obsessive about writing, which I’m not. If Theodore Roethke is any indication,
that obsession also makes them rather intolerable people, which I hope never to
be. So, maybe I’m not a writer, especially if obsession is part of the
definition. Honestly, I’m okay with that. I’ve discovered that I need creative
projects in my life, and that’s enough to sustain me. It’s a big part of my
self-identity.
I can live with that. In
fact, I can live by it.
Copyright 2013 by Jeff Vande Zande
