I love writing. Besides having two daughters, nothing has impacted my life more. I write all the time. I think-write. While doing everything else, my stream of consciousness writes. Occasionally, when stars align and time allows, I put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, shoulder to grindstone, and there is rapture.
Eli The Musical Guy And Pearl The Shakespearean Girl, a musical comedy, I wrote, enjoyed success in Hamilton, our hometown, recently. In his review, Julian Nicholson, a well-regarded theatre veteran said, “There’s not much else I can say about this farrago except that it is the most inventive and enjoyable musical I’ve seen since Spamalot.”
My writing farrago started with postcards to my grandmother, three decades ago, on a magical journey. From postcards, to a musical comedy, writing has taken me on another magical journey.
After finishing university, in 1986, I worked for a while, then hit the road. With a working-holiday visa, backpack, and $1200, I flew to London, England. I didn’t have a credit card or clue, and no one had cell phone, back then. I wasn’t sure how long I’d be gone, or where, or what I’d do, but made one commitment: to write my grandmother, who was housebound.
“A few months in Europe” became a six and a half year global odyssey. Adventures included working in London, hitchhiking through Europe and Southeast Asia, working in Australia, sailing a homemade, cement boat to New Zealand and Tonga, working in Hawaii, sailing a small fishing boat to Alaska, working on a tugboat, staying with a friend in Victoria, living by the beach in Newport, California, teaching English in Japan, and riding a bike from Victoria, B.C., to Hamilton.
Each time I called, or got a letter from home, I was implored to keep writing Granny. She loved the missives, I was told, and kept them in a box beside her. She read them, repeatedly, and made guests enjoy /endure the communication, as well.
My grandmother was from Glasgow, originally. She had a terrific accent and a great sense of humour, despite a hard life. Janet Lindsey left a Glasgow slum at 17, sailed across the Atlantic, then travelled on trains, for just as long, to meet her older husband, on a dirt poor homestead, in the middle of Saskatchewan. They had seven kids. When my father, the second youngest, was seven, their father died. Then, things got bad.
All seven children grew to be honest, hard working, productive citizens.
I tried to keep the postcards to my grandmother worthy of the high regard in which I held her. After picking the perfect card, I’d plot for days before committing ink. When I realized how quickly I’d forget “unforgettable” ideas, I started jotting them down and still do. Writing, or getting lost in the thought of it, enhanced experiences and assuaged loneliness. Like most travellers, I loved reading. Reading was one thing; writing another.
The lessons learned writing postcards to my Grandmother still apply: respect your audience; love your audience, be interesting; don’t be vulgar; rhyme sometime; brevity is wit; levity’s a hit; don’t quit; have fun, son. Go, girl.
My grandmother died, while I was on the road, and I stopped writing, temporarily. I didn’t come back to Canada for the funeral, but, the next time I was home, I was given the box of postcards.
In 1992, I was living in Nagoya, Japan, with a friend, talking about books, when he said, “You should write.”
There were two of us in the room. I said, “Me?” (Some people thought I was illiterate.)
“Yes,” he said. “You see the world in an interesting way and have a funny way of expressing it.” His comment changed my life. A switch was turned on and hasn’t gone off, since. I thought of Granny’s postcards and the accompanying bliss.
A week after my friend’s suggestion, I was cruising, on my beach cruiser, through a narrow Nagoya alley-street, when I said to myself, “I’m going to write a book,” and stood up, on my pedals, to accommodate the epiphany.
I knew one thing about writing: it required a pen and paper, which I bought, at a lush Japanese department store. That was easy. The next requirement was an idea, which couldn’t be purchased in the consumer economy.
“Write what you know” is a sound principal. I was reading spy novels, at the time, but couldn’t write one. All I knew was growing up, a caucasian male, in the suburbs of Ottawa: a blueprint for dull.
Nevertheless, that’s what my book is about. It took me 14 years and hundreds of rewrites before I published it. The first few versions were scrawled, with pens, into notebooks. At various stages in its development, I’d send out waves of submissions and have received over 200 rejection letters.
The Internet changed everything, and, in 2006, I self-published I’m Gretzky, You’re Gretzky, which some friends and family like. Some love.
One of the publishing houses, which rejected my manuscript, was Insomniac Press. Mike O’Connor, the proprietor, included a nice, personal note, so I called him and asked for advice. He said, “Get published in newspapers and magazines to establish your name and credibility.”
Later, when the first edition of The Hamilton Examiner arrived at our door, I felt divine intervention. It was January 1998 and the periodical was monthly. Terrified, I vowed to write a submission, nevertheless. In February, of that year, Team Canada was eliminated from the Nagano Olympics, in Japan, and Wayne Gretzky watched the final shootout, from the bench.
I was crushed. Such is my reverence for the man, I wanted to call my daughters Wayne and Gretzky. My wife said, “No,” so I called my book, my other baby, Gretzky.
After the Nagano loss, I wrote a piece called “Chasing The Dragon No More,” articulating my need to stop having Canadian hockey players determine the quality of my life. I would find my own happiness, I wrote, through lottery tickets. I printed the article and hand delivered it to Sarah Thomson (nee Whatmough,) the publisher of The Hamilton Examiner and later the Women’t Post. Sarah liked the submission and published it, which was the start of a long, wonderful relationship.
Once a month, for the next 12 years, I’d write a 1000 word piece for Sarah. I wrote about my kids, pets, gardening, traveling, writing… It was perfect. I worked hard to produce a piece decent enough to be published. I stumbled and fell, a lot, but there was always a hand to help up. I started finding a voice and confidence.
After five years, in 2003, Sarah asked me to write about art; once a month, 1000 words, which was another life changer. The request came from nowhere: I knew little about art. For three years, I would immerse myself in millions of words, hundreds of pictures, hours of thought, and countless rewrites to distill an article, worthy of the subject. It was a surreal education, which honed writing skills, sharpened focus, and taught me about art, artists, fraud, and fraudsters.
Dr. Barry Allen, a guide on my artisan safari, said it best, “Art is an accomplishment.”
I interviewed Fred Eaglesmith, also in 2003, for The Women’s Post and ended up making two fan magazines for him. Fred had an idea for movie, and he asked if I’d write the screenplay. I never say, “No,” and tried to put Fred’s vision into a manuscript. The script, Billy Rocker, about a aging, failing, murderous rockabilly star was well-received, but quickly buried.
The exercise was far from futile, because I discovered a love of writing dialogue, so acute, I wrote a play, Unethical. When it was finished, I shared Unethical with a friend, who encouraged me to send it “somewhere.” (Thank you, Pascale.)
I didn’t know what to do with a play, so mailed a copy to Luke Brown, at Theatre Aquarius, in Hamilton. Expecting another letter for the rejection file, I was, joyously, surprised, when I got an email from Luke, wanting to meet. Life changer.
In 2012, Luke invited me into the Theatre Aquarius Playwright’s Unit, which has been another surreal education. The world of theatre is a howling, joyous one. In 2013, I wrote a comedy, Jack And Jill Beiber Fever, and brought it to the Playwright’s Unit. It was dissected and vetted beautifully, by Luke and the other playwrights.
Ryan Sero, a member of the unit, brought the play to The Hamilton Fringe Festival. Ryan, who directed and starred, assembled a great cast and they put on a terrific show. Watching was delightful and instructive. There is a quantum leap from page to stage and seeing actors take words from my script and make them dance and sing, was exhilarating.
Playwriting is a gas.
In 2005, a friend suggested I write for a Hamilton blog, Raise The Hammer, a website dedicated to making Hamilton a better place. Free, easy, and limitless, I fell in love with writing on the Internet and have been publishing articles, reviews, poems, short stories… on RTH, since.
My earliest memory is my mother reading me Dr. Seuss. I love rhyme and poetry. In 1996, my oldest daughter was born and I started writing poems, all of which rhyme.
Along the way, I started a series called 50, which are poems of exactly fifty words. A play, poem, or article take forever, so when there’s a need to finish something, a 50 is ideal.
Life Write Life
Family, job, pets… sleep, read, write…
And hope that life, somehow, works out
If life didn’t get in the way so such
There’d be much more time to write, no doubt
But, if not for life and all its business
There’d be nothing much to write about
Right, Life?
Right
Combining a love of poetry and playwriting lends itself to musicals, so I wrote one. I’ve blessed to collaborate with Becky Jackson, who writes beautiful music to accompany the lyrics.
Eli The Musical Guy And Pearl The Shakespearean Girl takes the idea of stage parents, who live vicariously through their children, and blows it up. Eli, who’s been pushed since conception, has lost touch with reality and sees life as a big musical. Eli sings and dances all the time. Similarly, Pearl lives as if she’s in a Shakespearean drama, and always speaks the Bard’s tongue.
It was fun to write, but more enjoyable watching the talented cast bring the loveable nuts to life. Now, I’m writing a children’s musical comedy, Singerella. It’s Cinderella meets American Idol and it is a pleasure to write. Becky is writing great music, again.
Someday, I hope, a large cast of children light it up and Singerella is a smash hit. If it is or isn’t, I’ll keep writing. I hope to die with a pen in my hand.
The greatest joy I get from writing is sharing the love. I’ve run a Writers’ Club for children, aged 8 – 13, for the last dozen years. When we perform, I tell the audience they’re about to see a magic show, because students, using only pens and paper, make art, where there was none and everyone has fun. My (writer) friend, Peter Gruner, wrote of his experience, watching children craft killer, rhyming poems, on the spot.
Writing is a wonderful hobby: it’s free, fun, liberating, empowering, fun, therapeutic, fun, challenging, rewarding, disappointing, and fun. You can do it, anywhere, anytime; think about it. If you’ve, ever, considered picking up a pen or pecking away on a keyboard, I can’t recommend it enough.
Like a Dr. Seuss character setting off with a backpack and a one-way ticket, you never know the places you’ll go. If you’re not sure where to begin your writing journey, start with something small, like a postcard to your grandmother. She’ll love it. You’ll love it, too, Writer.
Write on.
