The Day My Dad Died

            The day my dad died I was one month shy of my nineteenth birthday and six months pregnant. I’d spent the day with my husband, whom I would divorce three years later, driving around Lake Winnisquam, looking for a place to rent so we wouldn’t be stuck in our second floor, two-room stuffy apartment in Laconia. I’d grown up on Lake Winnisquam and needed a place with fresh air where I could walk outside with my baby, barefoot, maybe even see the lake shimmer in the distance. If really lucky, we’d find a place where I could sit under a tree by the water and wade in to cool off on hot muggy days.

My brother and I at the lake

            We drove all afternoon and found a place, a small two-room cabin just down the road from my parents on Hill Road, across from the right-of-way that gave everyone on the opposite side of the road access to a swimming spot. The right-of-way, as we always called it, held memories of neighborhood swims and my first kiss from an out-of-town boy called Punk. When I needed space from my family or a retreat from a fight with my dad, I’d slip down to the right-of-way and sit under a big pine to daydream, cry or cool off.

            The day my dad died, we rented that cabin, relieved to find a place we could afford. I thought how lucky I was to be near my lake when the baby came. As we drove down Hill Road and approached my parent’s house, something happened that I’ve only been able to describe as a flash of light, as if an old-fashioned camera bulb had popped in my face and blinded me for a moment. I clutched at my rounded belly and said, “We have to stop. I need to see Dad.”

            I’d been taking Dad to the VA hospital in Vermont, checking on him for my mom when she was at work, but being so wrapped up in new-found love and baby making made me blind to how ill my dad was.

Dad, me and my brother Kent picking beans

            My husband didn’t like my father, so he drove past the salmon-colored ranch-style house that my father spent years remodeling, my life-long home only six months earlier. As we pulled out onto the Route 3, I glanced back at the house where my dad had tended his garden and raspberry bushes, a house that he insisted was “salmon-colored” not pink. The tiny porch wasn’t big enough for a chair, but it was a good place to get out of the weather and take off boots, to greet guests, to sit on the steps as a little kid with a friend or my brother or sister. I remember window boxes, having always had a soft spot for them, but I’m not sure they existed.

Kent, our Beagle King, Wendy & I

 Aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends, and co-workers would pass through that front door for parties, holidays, and summer gatherings. Christmas was our favorite holiday because mom always over did it with presents and Dad would complain that she was driving him to the poor house. When I think of my dad, I picture him sitting in his recliner, smoking Winstons, eating his Bridgemix and reading a book, if he wasn’t watching our new color television, the cause of one of my parents’ biggest arguments that left them not speaking for days and put us three kids on our best behavior because one thing we never doubted, even through the bad times was the great love our parents had for each other. I may have doubted my dad’s love for me at times, but I never doubted that my parents were in love.

Me with my mom and her sister Vera on our "porch"

            When my fights with Dad started, it was normal teenage fare, the whole unfairness of life. Why couldn’t I ride in cars with my friends? Why did I need to be home at that hour? Why couldn’t I hang out at the Tony’s Pizza Parlor? That’s when I became the cause of their arguments. Mom wanted to give me more freedom; Dad didn’t. Mom said the reason Dad and I fought was because we were too much alike. Dad said it wasn’t me he didn’t trust; it was boys.

            After leaving Hill Road, after deciding not to fight with my husband about stopping at my parents’ house, we drove in silence and when we reached our two-room apartment in Laconia, I trudged up the outside stairs, wanting to go back. We had just entered the apartment when the phone rang. My husband answered it, then handed the receiver to me.

            “Valerie, this is Dr. Robinson. I’m sorry. Your dad is dead. He shot himself.”

            I screamed and dropped the phone.

My son Jason was born three months later. I never doubted I was having a boy, even from the beginning. After Dad died, I was even more convinced it would be boy. I don’t remember picking out a girl’s name, although I know we did.

            Jason looks uncannily like his grandfather and has his wicked sense of humor and wit, his mannerisms, his work ethic, his sense of responsibility, but thankfully no health problems. I think my dad would have loved him. Or, would the two of them been too much alike and rubbed each other the wrong way? I don’t know.

Mom and Dad

            My dad was responsible right up to the end. On the day he died, he bought a new license and tags for the dog, made sure there was enough paint for one of us kids to finish the garage, and went to the barber for a haircut. He told mom all this in a letter he left, including letting mom know was no suicide clause in the insurance policy. The letter glows with his great love and adoration for my mom. He didn’t want to be a burden on the family and knew the way it was going, he would be. He included a p.s. to me, saying he was sorry he wouldn’t be there to see his first grandchild and, to the end, tried for humor by writing he hoped we wouldn’t give our baby his middle name, Horace.

            Our family still carries on his insistence of having manners, table manners being high on his list: elbows off the table, sit up straight, slow down. Dad would often say, “Don’t eat like your mother,” meaning the English way with knife and fork reversed and fork piled high.

            But this is also a man who sometimes did not eat what mom served for dinner, instead breaking Saltines into a bowl of milk after a day of working outside in the heat and humidity. He ate slowly, chewed each bite over and over, driving us kids crazy. This kind of control extended to the way he raised us. When he couldn’t control us and we fought him, he’d punish. “You might not love me,” he said once, “but one day you’ll respect me.” He was wrong. All I really wanted was to love him and be loved back, but he was a hard man to please and he took my rebellion personally.

            I have grandchildren now and, if I lavish them with love, it’s because sometimes all a teen needs is a hug and a “It will be okay. You’ll get through this.” Many times my fights with my dad might not have happened if I hadn’t felt judged and shamed, if I hadn’t felt my emotions being negated by a parental need to be perceived as in control and being seen as a perfect family.

            Don’t get me wrong. I’m not kidding myself here. Teens have their emotional needs and drives that often supersede anything parents can provide. Guiding teens through their teens is probably the hardest job there is as a parent because they’re competing with peers and hormones. Dad had two more children coming up fast behind me and I’m sure that crossed his mind as we battled and he grew more ill.

Dad

            And he was ill, more than I knew. He battled rheumatoid arthritis and prescription pills, and was unable to work toward the end. The only way out for him, as he concluded, was suicide. He did what he thought was the responsible thing, plus it would end his pain and sense of powerless. In his besieged mine, the only way our family would survive would be if he didn’t become a bigger financial and medical burden. I don't doubt that that indeed would have happened.

            Yet on the day he died, he didn’t realize he exchanged those possible burdens on us for bigger, emotional ones.

            Time has given me perspective and knowledge of suicide. Time has given me an understanding of how a need for control can also cause a loss of control. Some have said to me that suicide is the ultimate show of control, but I don't believe that in my dad's case that's true. If he hadn't been ill, he would have never given up. But when he couldn't be the husband and father he wanted to be, needed to be, he couldn't fake it anymore.

            Time has also, above all, shown me that perception should never overshadow love. I don’t care what others think about what my family goes through. We all have problems and I choose to be friends with people who share them and exchange knowledge so we can help out each other. The generation of our parents living in a “keeping up with the Joneses” and “what will the neighbors think” culture better be over because they’re faulty paradigms and destructive on so many levels, especially for a writer like myself who was conditioned to keep a lid on everything of importance and has had to fight to be free and express myself truthfully.

Kent and I in snow

            A few days ago, Mom said to me on the phone, “I wonder what our life would have been like if your dad had lived.” I couldn’t say. I couldn’t imagine it. I hope she visualized something sweet and carefree, something that, like in an act of creating fiction, she formed in her mind while erasing sickness, lack of money, a crazy political world that would have turned my dad apoplectic. I hope she saw her and Dad, retired by the lake, him fishing, her reading or talking on the phone. Maybe they even hold hands while sitting in chairs on the dock. 

Poppy day or Memorial Day around 1961

But maybe they would still be attending their American Legion activities, maybe still dancing as they always did so beautifully. I think she can create that in her mind, create her own story for a life they'd live now. I doubt very much that they would have ended up in Florida where she now lives. I think he’d had enough of hot and humid. But maybe, after shoveling snow one hard winter, he'd have been happy to join the snowbirds. Why not?

* * * * *

            I remember one winter day after a storm had dumped a foot or more of snow. Dad was out shoveling the walkway and I was playing on one of those high snow mounds the snowplow had left along the road. I dug a hole, probably one of those “digging to China” holes, and I dug it so deep, I couldn’t get out. When I realized this, I yelled over and over, “Dad! Dad!”

            When he finally heard me, he walked up the mound, looked down, shook his head and laughed. Then he reached down for my hand and lifted me out.

Dad, my mom's mom Nannie Smith holding me, and Mom

 

In Loving Memory

Albert Horace Brooks ~ April 3, 1916 to April 30, 1970.

Why I Haven’t Blogged in Over Two Months

            First, my heartfelt thanks to all of you who responded to my last post, “Being Cheryl Strayed.” You energized me. You made me believe in myself again and my writing. When I read your comments, I wanted to reach out and hug you all and let you know how much I believe in you.

I hope you’re all still digging deep for that authentic self, the one you always carry, the one that sometimes gets layered over with other people’s expectations, perceptions, and needs. The one that gets lost in our modern world, the world that keeps us so distracted we forget who we are and what makes us powerful creative beings. A toast to all of us.

            Now to tell you what happened after I wrote my last post. And it wasn’t what I expected, not by a long shot.

I truly expected to have a mega burst of creative energy. I was raw, open, and a little scared, but raring to go, especially to finish my novel.

            Instead, I found myself drop kicked to the ground. I just couldn’t get up. I couldn’t find the energy to write, to keep up with my responsibilities, to even be excited about the novel. What was wrong? What was happening? When I finally dragged myself to my feet and examined myself, I had a whole new problem to figure out and another layer to dig through.

            It was morning, a few weeks after the last blog post when I dragged myself out of bed and realized I was anxious and depressed. I’m not one to be depressed. It’s just not me. I took my usual half hour to wake up, my usual easing into the day. Dan was downstairs, drinking his coffee and reading the paper. He knows not to talk to me first thing and woe is he who asks, “What should we have for dinner tonight?”

            I stumbled around, heated water for tea, and tried to remember what my last thoughts were before I fell asleep and what I’d dreamed about. I often use sleep and dreams to solve problems. When I’m fully in tune with myself (happy, excited, adventurous, expectant), I go to bed with a story problem and sometimes wake up with a solution. My dreams are vivid, Technicolor, intense, full story dreams with a beginning, middle and end. Sometimes they are simply stories. Sometimes they are a collage of recent personal events and fears, or my fears for the world. Before 911, I had, like many people did, dreams of being in a tall building that was crumbling around me.

            But that morning I couldn’t remember anything about my dreams or what I’d wanted to process before I fell asleep.

While my tea brewed, I wiped down the sink, put dishes away from the night before, and read part of the paper standing up at the counter. I grabbed pencil and paper and wrote down a few groceries we needed. My fuzzy morning brain was waking up, but I wasn’t happy. I plunked down on the kitchen stool. When was the last time I was happy in the morning? When had I last woke up feeling excited, adventurous, expectant? I couldn’t remember.

Okay, the best way to push through all this was to prepare for the day. I flipped to a new sheet of paper and decided to write down what I would do that day. I started a list:

Write a blog post.

Then it came back to me, what I’d gone to bed mulling over and worrying about—I could not come up with a subject to blog about.

I’d never had a problem writing this blog. Never. I did think about what my readers would find interesting, but for the most part, my topics came from what I found interesting. Readers would find it worth reading or not. Sure, I worried about execution, the old “Can I pull this off? Or will I sound like an idiot?” I didn’t worry too much about the last part. I’ve sounded like an idiot before and it didn’t kill me.

Okay. So the problem was a topic for the blog. Easy then. Quit trying so hard. I could do a follow up to the reader comments from the last entry. I’d take the “Being Cheryl Strayed” to another level. I wrote that down on my list. I could write about my decision to drop the pirate persona, how I now found it tedious, and I’d explain why.

Nah, that wasn’t even interesting.

I took a deep breath. My mind was all over the place with ideas but I just couldn’t get excited about any of them. Okay, don’t panic. I’d set that aside for the moment. I would make a list of everything I needed to do and start working on that. Crossing things off a list was always therapeutic. I wrote:

Check your Facebook page because you’ve let that go.

You forgot to check ValinParis account for comments.

Post the Cheryl Strayed piece to Women Writing the West Yahoo users group.

Set up Hootsuite; need to follow hashtag groups.

Goodreads—woefully out of date!

Go through all your email; needs attention!

Respond to SheWrites messages and post to groups.

Write the column for Books By the Bed.

I set the pencil down. I felt a little sick. I stared at the list.

Internet.

Internet.

Internet.

Internet.

Internet.

Internet.

Internet.

Internet.

I took my now cold tea to my writing room and stood there, looking at my library of novels and reference books, the stacks of literary magazines and the binders full of research. A partial manuscript was tucked in my laptop bag with all my revision notes.

Reading area in my writing room

What used to make me happy, excited, adventurous, expectant was writing. Writing fiction. Why wasn’t I devoting every waking—and sleeping—moment to finishing my novel? That’s what I used to fall asleep with—characters, story, plot problems, structure possibilities. I know I can’t do that all the time, but I remember when I’d wake up in that fuzzy first hour, noodling ideas and excited about perhaps a scene I needed to finish.

Internet.

Internet.

Internet.

Internet.

Internet.

Internet.

Internet.

Internet.

That’s why I couldn’t move, couldn’t be excited, was depressed. I’d been letting all this online networking and social media—creating a web presence, as they call it—take over. What was the use of having all this “presence” if I didn’t have a finished novel? What good did it do anyway? Who were these people who said you had to have a web presence if you wanted to be an author? Who were these gurus who insisted that this new world of publishing demanded an author FB/Tweet/blog/Google+/Klout/Pinterest, etc.?

I drank my cold tea and pushed away that old Puritan who said, “How dare you question authority.” What authority, I asked? I used to work in advertising and marketing. I understood the old caveat emptor warning. So I asked myself, Who is selling us on the idea of all this social media and internet marketing?

I don’t begrudge anyone the opportunity to recognize a need and create a service to fill that need. They have to make a living and they do give away lots of good info before asking you to buy something. I subscribe to three of these social media gurus e-newsletters, so I asked myself, What roped me in?

 Use of their urgent language? Use of their authoritative tone? The fear of not doing it?

“If you don’t do this, you won’t succeed.”

Well, maybe. But does anyone have the numbers to prove this? Sure, I want to be successful. I want to be ready for the moment when my book is published. But what price am I paying?

            If I’m sacrificing my happiness, my creativity, the immersion time I need to write, if I don’t have time anymore to read other novels, why bother? I’d even dragged these demands to Colonyhouse retreats because when you’re on that many sites, you have to keep up on a daily basis. You have to get online and be “present.”

            No, I said to myself that morning. Not if it means you can’t be fully present in your writing. In that wonderful creative half-awake state that morning, not once had I thought about my novel.

            Not once.

I had to do something drastic.

So I did. I dropped all my social media activities and went on a blog hiatus. Just like that.

Once again, I was back in the land of the writer. I went to bed with my novel, woke up with it, noodled it in the car, devoted myself to it for a month, and fell in love again. The novel grew stronger and deeper with this immersion; the writing was some of my best.

I finished April 1, the deadline I’d first set for myself, and that’s not an April Fool’s joke. The novel is now out with five readers and I’m happier than I’ve been in … damn, I can’t remember when. Probably sometime before I dove into the social media. Even Dan has commented on how much happier I seem.

            I've heard the argument for balancing both, limiting my time online, giving myself one hour in the evening, etc. etc. But let’s be honest. How many of you have been online for an hour? It’s more along the lines of look at the clock and gasp because three hours have gone by. And never mind trying to return to your writing, fully present in that. No, you’re concentration, that precious immersion in story, has been infected. With internet.

            As many of you know, the gift of being a writer is the joy of noodling an idea, slurping it around the mouth, playing with the creative food. It’s about immersion. When I’m writing, even the bad days are good. Even when I’m writing drivel, the days are better than anything else.

            I did have pangs of guilt for not being on all those internet sites I’d joined. But it didn’t depress me or make me anxious. After the novel was done, I decided to clear up my writing room, weed out saved articles and old magazines. Spring was in the air and I like order. As I went through articles I had saved, I came across one that took away any residual guilt about my dropping out from the internet.

The article, “Inner Space: Clearing Some Room for Inspiration,” by Frank Bures examines the same problem I’d been dealing with and that many creative people face. When I was online every day to do my social media, I had what Bures admitted he developed, what researcher Linda Stone calls “continuous partial attention.”

Continuous partial attention.

Lake Winnisquam

Ping! I couldn’t stay in the story or daydream or be in the warm fuzzy creative space upon waking. My focus was chopped up into too many small bites. I yearned for my childhood days when I would spend hours sitting under a tree beside Lake Winnisquam, making up stories that I’d spin into words later on paper.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m organized. I have systems. I keep great files. I’m pretty good at time management.

This, however, is something entirely different. Overuse of the internet slices and dices your brain. It damages your focus, your creative headspace.

So here we are in this modern tech age when we are expected to be online every day to create a presence and it’s rupturing the connection to our creativity? And what of our writerly isolation and prolonged sitting? (Lots of new info on how dangerous that is.) I know I have even more reason to limit that “online presence.”

I do love my online communities, the amazing, helpful, wonderful people, the great resources. But I will from now on be absent when writing and promise to give you a heads up.

And yes, I finished my novel. Relief! Happiness! Fulfillment!

For fun—after the novel was done—I ran the first page of it through the website “I Write Like …” and came up with David Foster Wallace. Yes, go ahead and play with the site. Drop a chunk of your writing into the box and see who pops up. I wanted my writing to be like Margaret Atwood’s, but David’s would definitely do.

I’m celebrating, both the finish of my novel and my new freedom. You’ve been with me for almost a year and a half, given me support and courage, and for that I’m giving away a copy of Cheryl’s memoir Wild. If you leave a comment, your name goes into the hat. Either use the comment box or send to the ValinParis email.

Also, I would love to have your reactions to my story. Do you have similar stories and concerns? What are they? Have you experienced a negative effect on your writing from being on the internet? Or not? I’m really curious. I know we have to market our books once they’re published, but is all this social media necessary and does it work? What do you refuse to do? What do you think is really necessary? How do you make those decisions?

Thanks again for being there, for reading this. Please join the conversation. In the meantime, ask yourself this: what is running around inside your head when you wake up? Does it make you happy or anxious? Why?

And for your information, I won’t be blogging weekly. I’ll blog when I’m inspired and want to reach out to you.

Until then, hugs all ‘round.

Val

p.s. If anyone heard the NPR Morning Edition story about this same subject/issue, please let me know when you heard it and if there's a link to it. I didn't hear it, but was told about it. Thanks!

Also, if you're interested, check out the books I'm reading, Books Beside the Bed, at We Wanted to Be Writers.

Why I Hate Writing - Part II

            Back again, me hearties, to finish this tale from last week. I’m enterin’ a stormy sea, so grab a gunwall and hold tight.

            In my last log, I confessed to tellin’ a lie. True. Aye, I don’t hate writin’, but it’s like boarding the Publishing King’s boat—bloody exhaustin’ yet exhilaratin’. That’s not what I’m blabbin’ about his time, however. I was tellin’ ya why I didn’t take up the flag of art. More importantly, I’ll tell you how I took up the flag of writing.

            All right. I left ya with motive, if you be rememberin’. Now, motive can be as simple as “Thar! A Ruling Kingdom ship, full of absconded wealth. Let’s lighten their load, right, mates?” See? Simple. I see a ship, I want that ship, I take that ship.

            But motive can be like the feelin’ you get when you’re surrounded by fog, but you know somethin’s out there.

            Same with the art. I couldn’t figure out what awaited, but something weren’t right.

            If ye also remember, I told you scallywags ‘bout my early years in Oregon, chasin’ an artist’s life. What need be told is the tale of my beginnings, why art had me in its clutches, while something valuable lay at the bottom of sea, waitin’ for me to drag it up from deep.

            The cold Atlantic state of New Hampshire was my birthplace. If you take a gander at a map, you’ll find it tucked between Maine and Vermont with a port of Portsmouth and a measly coast, the shortest of all the states, of eighteen miles. I loved the land, the bodies of water called the Lakes Region. An idyllic childhood of swimmin’ in Lake Winnisquam, pine forests surrounding the houses, offering a playground where imagination ran wild and fantasy found footing—that is ‘til ‘bout twelve years of age, when the real world locked you from that playground and rules, when broken, brought swift punishment.

            Arr, we all know ‘bout being pressed into service by parents, neighbors, teachers. Art was my escape hatch. It came easy. I grabbed every line art threw my way. Painting scenery for the school plays, art editor of the high school yearbook, illustrations for the school newsletter, signs for rallies. Even at my New England Tel & Tel job, they took me off the switchboard to paint murals on the wall or create fancy presentations for the district manager. My high school paintings were showcased in the library, then a bloomin’ real art show at the school. Community members attended. I sold two pieces to faculty at the local prep school. A few pieces were even stolen. Har, har! High praise, indeed! I was perceived as having a gift.

            And there lies the rub.

            Aye, lads and lasses, my talent, my gift, brought recognition, reward, praise. What more motive did I need to keep my compass pointed in art’s direction? Even landlubbers love praise. But while I was bein’ rewarded for one creative venture, I was being punished for another.

            Like many young ladies do, I kept a diary where I confessed my secrets and yearnin’s, my crushes and fears. I also formed a small secret club of friends who wrote and swapped short stories, fantasies, mostly, of where we wanted to sail and with whom. Our sexual exploits made it to paper when most of us had never been kissed.

            Then the boot came down. First, my dad let it be known at the supper table that he’d secretly been reading my diary. Shamed by this, I metaphorically threw the diary to the fishes. And then, alas, in class one day, one club member passed a story to another girl and the teacher confiscated it, looked it over, turned red-faced, and marched it into the principal’s office. He called in the author and her parents. The club was disbanded. We never spoke of it again.

            So art was praised and writing was punished. Around this time, I, the good daughter, found her pirate heart, cursed the mighty, and eventually, my rebellion led to Oregon.

            You know the Oregon story. While I took art classes, while I make a living illustrating products for Bi-Mart, the writing ever so slowly surfaced. A sea chest of understanding had to be dragged up from the deep and I found the motive that kept me hooked to art. Productivity, status, and recognition were the currency of my youth, and perception ruled the rule makers. It didn’t matter if you were happy. It didn’t matter what skullduggery played out behind adult closed doors, those same rule makers, as long as no one opened their doors. To expose the hypocrisy would most probably leave you in shackles. The scheming liars who pretended to be God’s own, or privy to special consideration, would do anything to protect their wealthy ship. Poor Grace Metalious of Peyton Place fame lived in a nearby town and frequented the store where my mother worked. When she laid bare the rotten innards of our fair community, she was shown the metaphorical gangplank.

            The heart of a creative soul is often cut out to save the reputation of the status quo. Why are we pirates? Because our other option is to become slaves.

            So I spoke of hatin’ writing. Thar’s some truth. I could have continued sailing in sparkling artsy waters, but for me, fine lads and lasses, art wasn’t a passion. Writing is. Why? Is it the challenge? Or is it as one of me dear merry friends, me own Roll Around Heavenly Seas pirate chum, Jessica, said, “Do you think it's our potboilin' Celtic blood?  The Celts are such word folks they basically won't shut up! Storytellers, all.”

            Aye, Jess. I’d say that has much to do with it. But as we wordy, tall-tale tellers discover along the way, it’s a bountiful way to fill our need to express ourselves. In words we can engage all the senses. People move and act on the page. It’s oceans and landmasses of imagination that feel fully alive. We just have a passion for painting with words instead.

            Well, mates, I bet ye thought I’d forgot about motive, now, didn’ ya? Nay, I’ll tell ye what sets my sail for followin’ the writing life.

            Remember what I loved drawin’ most? Aye, people. For me, and my apologies to the artists out there who feel different, life drawings never came fully alive. With words I can render people with all their senses, from body odor to speech patterns, from obsessions to hidden desires, from a brush of the hair to a powerful punch in the jaw, how they act, who they fornicate with, what they prefer in good grub. What fills my heart like a wind-blown mainsail is uncovering their motives, especially when I know they’re still in the fog. Where will they go next? What will they do? How will they bloody survive? There’s satisfaction in charting their course, in giving them an adventure, and hopefully lettin’ them find their purpose or what makes them happy. Bloody, bloody exciting’! So there it is. Maybe it’s the challenge, somethin’ I never felt with my art.

            Well, my fine friends, I hope your sea chest is open and full of treasure, and if not, you’re having your own adventure to discover it.

            Right now, before I dry my ink and close my book, I’m lookin’ out my cabin window, and the ocean blends with a wintry horizon. A whipping wind has run cowardly from fierce sunshine while ponderous clouds aim to sink that sun. Luck on ye, ol' sun.

            Wishing you a hearty good night, and bless this ol’ ship that carries us forward.

            Captain Val

Coming Up!

“Sink or Swim: the Dangers of the Writing Life”

"The Fountain of Creative Ideas, or Why My Resume Wouldn't Land Me a Normal Job"

 "Platform, Flatform"

... and an interview with Jessica Maxwell of Roll Around Heaven