Several months into the coronavirus, a friend pointed out that a) I liked writing and b) I had ample time for it during the lockdown, so why wasn’t I?
There was no way around it. Writing was probably healthier for me mentally than going through old clothes. And, honestly, I’d developed a bit of an unhealthy obsession with crosswords after a friend got me a trial Wall Street Journal subscription. So, I started writing a story I’ve had knocking around in my head for years. And then, because I still have this dream of being paid to write novels, I started poking around to find out how one would look into getting published.
A friend I asked suggested writing essays. This came only months after another friend had suggested a book about grief.
And I don’t know what to do with those suggestions.
It’s not that I don’t have things to write about. Honestly, give me a topic and I can probably whip out 750 words without trying too hard. I like writing. No, it’s not the actual production that’s the problem. It’s the marketing. Myself. The story. Colin’s story. I don’t know how to turn this mess I’m in into something that people would want to read. Which is where I stop and think “Well, of course, no one wants to read about a dying kindergartener.” So, it becomes a question of thinking of how to write something that people should read.
To me, if I was to embark on an essay/book about grief strategy, I feel I should have something useful to say. Here’s how this problem hit me. Here’s how I got through it. Here’s how you could get through it too. Or, here’s a problem wound up in the whole situation. Here’s a possible solution. There has to be, in my mind, a journey from this awful point to a place where I don’t necessarily solve the problem, but get us somewhere with a view of something helpful.
I don’t have that. I can write you up 25 essays tonight if you want, but the morals of the story will be “Childhood cancer is really awful,” or “It’s terrible watching a 5-year-old die” or “Nurses who sign up to help families with sick children shouldn’t quit without notice.” I kind of would hope that those lessons are self-evident.
I mentioned this to Christina and her response was to think about how everyone has reacted when we tell them the story. All the details about the diagnoses and the doctors who expect you to somehow keep a child calm while they’re sticking a needle into their skull and the nurses who disappear on you and the lady bringing you a wheelchair for your dying child, who asks right in front of him “So, how long does he have, anyways?” Everyone is horrified. And it’s not that we don’t expect this. But having lived through it, it’s almost like a twisted, bittersweet memory. We can sit on the patio and talk about the one awful nurse at the hospice or the other mother at the hospice who made the really good lasagna. And it’s not as if we look back at this fondly or have forgotten the pain. I think it would be how two tornado survivors would say to one another “And remember how the roof disappeared?”
And she’s right. If I wrote down the whole story – OK, I’ve done that already – it would probably terrify anyone who came into that cold, but it’s not like I take us anywhere. It’s not like I bring us to a place where we’ve learned or achieved anything.
Would that be enough? I can’t say I feel it would. One of the first things I did when I got back to work was to try to convince the health reporter to do a larger story about the problems with Germany’s home health care network. He seemed interested. Then Covid-19 came along and health care reporters haven’t had a lot of time for extra projects since.
So, that would leave me to tell the story. And I’m stuck with nothing other than the thesis of “Well, that was terrible.” If he had to die and I have to write about it, then I want it to be something good. If I’m forced to accept that life handed me some of the worst lemons there are and it’s now my job to make lemonade, I’d like it to be something useful, not just “Hey, look at this horror show.” I have to fight the fact that there’s a part of me that wants desperately to get published, but I can’t use my child’s death as an excuse to make that happen. I’ve got to find something to say about it that matters. I feel Colin deserves that much. So, until that point, I guess that’s what this blog is for.
Perhaps things are just still too raw right now, so maybe you’ll find that during the next year or so you’ll discover “something useful” in the story that could get published. As for me, like other readers of this blog, I could find the usefulness of it because of how you combine style, rawness, and even humor. I’m confident I’ll see you published someday.