gratifying. I know I’m
doing a disservice to all those aspiring writers out there by not being more
accurate and honest, but even the frankest portrayal winds up glamorizing
things, despite efforts to the contrary. So I didn’t worry too much about it.
Good thing, too, since the real story thus far has been too anti-climactic to
make it marketable.
I took some
creative license in other passages, too. After all, we didn’t lead an exciting
life, for the most part. We were average Midwesterners who lived on a working
farm. While that may be exotic to someone who’s never stepped off the pavement
of a metropolitan area, it was difficult for me to see it with fresh eyes and
pluck out the events that would be interesting to an outsider. They were there,
but I had to dress them up a bit. It’s true that my mom almost gave birth to my
youngest sister in the car, because it was a long drive from our house to the
nearest hospital, but she wasn’t out in the corn field when she went into
labor. I embellished that part. We didn’t even have a corn field.
But then, as other
parts of the story unfolded on the monitor in front of me, I realized I didn’t
need to do anything to make them funnier or juicier or more tragic. They were
poignant and heartrending enough in their original forms, and they wrote
themselves. In those instances, it became important to me that I not alter
a single detail.
When I approached
Tullah for representation, I deliberately packaged the book as pure fiction and
said nothing about it being “based on actual events,” because I didn’t want to
become the story. I wanted it to begin and end on the page. I knew all along
that I wasn’t going to tell anyone that this “story” was my personal history.
Anyway, if that
detail gets out at this stage, I’ll really look like a fraud. Everyone will
know that my imagination can’t compete with the facts. I’m a historian, not a
novelist. I don’t create characters; as a matter of fact, two of them created me.
Nevertheless, I
give Gus a brave smile when he returns to the table with the food. “It’s
nothing a little mostaccioli can’t fix, right?” I say brightly.
Chapter Six
He’s not impressed. Nor is he fooled. Shit. I
should have known that the easy (a.k.a., “lazy”) solution wasn’t going to be
the ultimate solution. And now I’ve wasted days on material that’s going to
have to be scrapped.
When he glances up from his iPad, I try to
deliver a confident, approval-seeking smile, but I know it falls closer to
“grimace” on the continuum of facial expressions. Thankfully, he returns to his
reading too quickly to see it. I think he was mostly checking to see that I’m
still sitting here, that I have the nerve to still be sitting in his
presence. Maybe that was a signal that I should leave before he explodes.
But, no, his expression—if I had to try
to break it down—contains bemusement, mixed with hints of confusion,
contemplation, and… what is that…? (all the other expressions are getting in
the way)… uncertainty? Yes! As uncharacteristic as it seems, he definitely
looks unsure of himself. And I have plenty of time to study him to make sure
I’m correctly interpreting the look on his face.
Swipe, swipe, swipe. For the third time, he
paws at the tablet resting on his knee to return to the beginning of the
passage I most recently delivered to him. Scratches his head. Pinches his chin
between his forefinger and thumb in the universal gesture of deep thought.
Clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Blinks his green eyes and then
rolls them as if he’s trying to deliver moisture to a pair of contact lenses,
which he doesn’t wear.
Oh, fuck. This is torture. I’d rather he rant
and rave and tell me it’s horrible than make me sit here and wait for him to
come up with the perfectly devastating words to say. Because that’s obviously
what’s going on. Any old insult won’t do. Its severity has to perfectly
doing a disservice to all those aspiring writers out there by not being more
accurate and honest, but even the frankest portrayal winds up glamorizing
things, despite efforts to the contrary. So I didn’t worry too much about it.
Good thing, too, since the real story thus far has been too anti-climactic to
make it marketable.
I took some
creative license in other passages, too. After all, we didn’t lead an exciting
life, for the most part. We were average Midwesterners who lived on a working
farm. While that may be exotic to someone who’s never stepped off the pavement
of a metropolitan area, it was difficult for me to see it with fresh eyes and
pluck out the events that would be interesting to an outsider. They were there,
but I had to dress them up a bit. It’s true that my mom almost gave birth to my
youngest sister in the car, because it was a long drive from our house to the
nearest hospital, but she wasn’t out in the corn field when she went into
labor. I embellished that part. We didn’t even have a corn field.
But then, as other
parts of the story unfolded on the monitor in front of me, I realized I didn’t
need to do anything to make them funnier or juicier or more tragic. They were
poignant and heartrending enough in their original forms, and they wrote
themselves. In those instances, it became important to me that I not alter
a single detail.
When I approached
Tullah for representation, I deliberately packaged the book as pure fiction and
said nothing about it being “based on actual events,” because I didn’t want to
become the story. I wanted it to begin and end on the page. I knew all along
that I wasn’t going to tell anyone that this “story” was my personal history.
Anyway, if that
detail gets out at this stage, I’ll really look like a fraud. Everyone will
know that my imagination can’t compete with the facts. I’m a historian, not a
novelist. I don’t create characters; as a matter of fact, two of them created me.
Nevertheless, I
give Gus a brave smile when he returns to the table with the food. “It’s
nothing a little mostaccioli can’t fix, right?” I say brightly.
Chapter Six
He’s not impressed. Nor is he fooled. Shit. I
should have known that the easy (a.k.a., “lazy”) solution wasn’t going to be
the ultimate solution. And now I’ve wasted days on material that’s going to
have to be scrapped.
When he glances up from his iPad, I try to
deliver a confident, approval-seeking smile, but I know it falls closer to
“grimace” on the continuum of facial expressions. Thankfully, he returns to his
reading too quickly to see it. I think he was mostly checking to see that I’m
still sitting here, that I have the nerve to still be sitting in his
presence. Maybe that was a signal that I should leave before he explodes.
But, no, his expression—if I had to try
to break it down—contains bemusement, mixed with hints of confusion,
contemplation, and… what is that…? (all the other expressions are getting in
the way)… uncertainty? Yes! As uncharacteristic as it seems, he definitely
looks unsure of himself. And I have plenty of time to study him to make sure
I’m correctly interpreting the look on his face.
Swipe, swipe, swipe. For the third time, he
paws at the tablet resting on his knee to return to the beginning of the
passage I most recently delivered to him. Scratches his head. Pinches his chin
between his forefinger and thumb in the universal gesture of deep thought.
Clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Blinks his green eyes and then
rolls them as if he’s trying to deliver moisture to a pair of contact lenses,
which he doesn’t wear.
Oh, fuck. This is torture. I’d rather he rant
and rave and tell me it’s horrible than make me sit here and wait for him to
come up with the perfectly devastating words to say. Because that’s obviously
what’s going on. Any old insult won’t do. Its severity has to perfectly
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