The End is Where We Start From

Where We Start From

The Retiree awoke before dawn. He put his shoes on.

Gradually, as the sleep fog lifted, it came back to him that no job was waiting. He was an ex-commuter. And it was not before dawn at all, it was after 8 AM, and the sun was above the trees and lighting up the bedroom window. He took his shoes off. He made his way to the bathroom sink, splashed cold water on his face, and he walked on down the hall to confront the new day.

A new day for a new beginning. After 40 years of working for other people, trading time and energy for salary, he had finally arrived in the promised land of retirement. All the anticipation and all the planning, and it still felt a bit unreal and overwhelming. Like a kid with an all-day pass at a brand new amusement park. The calendar on the kitchen wall was lined with columns of bright, white, unmarked boxes, and he scanned them contentedly as if admiring stacks of gold coins. He had an urge to run his fingers through the white boxes and toss them into the air. Time was finally his, but – and this sobering reminder was always nagging – only for as long as fate allowed. He was determined to spend it wisely. More time for family, friends, and travel was a given, a part of the baseline time budget. Now he had the luxury of discretionary spending and he would use it for a new beginning, a new occupation, a quest that required brainpower and ambition and commitment. An intellectual pursuit. Something with a challenging learning curve that he could accelerate into and enjoy the chase.

The candidates for the next adventure mingled in his mind and vied for attention. Life-long interests that had been let out for occasional exercise, but never long enough to build serious momentum. There was science. A fascination for physical sciences and numbers had grabbed him as a young boy and pulled him all the way to a college chemistry degree. The degree opened the door to his first job, but the career had had little use for pure science. The passion was still there, and there had been a few attempts at mastering new subjects through book learning, but none had gotten far before hitting a wall. And there was music. The desire to experience music beyond passive listening had pushed him finally to pick up a guitar. He had actually practiced to the point of being better than awful, but there was a long way to go.

And there was writing. The career had required a great deal of it, all technical and as non-fiction as you can get (unless you count the long-term business strategies), but with room for just enough imagination to make it interesting, and to tempt the Retiree to believe he could create much more. There was that time he wrote the anonymous parody article that was published in a local newspaper. Not just published, but dissected, analyzed, and given a rave review. There were the creative emails to friends and coworkers that elicited LOL replies and you’re-in-the-wrong-business accolades. So many ideas for stories. Like music, writing had a special appeal because it was both an intellectual and artistic pursuit. His inner artist had rarely had the chance to come out and show his stuff.

It was really no contest. Writing should be the first pursuit. Probably. Or, maybe not. The trailhead on the path to creative writing was lined with warning signs covered in yellow-triangles and black-diamonds. The list of reasons for not writing was daunting. His inner skeptic kept the list updated and read it back to him whenever the artist started whining for attention. He was reading it now. For one, he was too old to start. Next, his formal education in language and literature had ended in long-gone college days. And, unfortunately, his childhood was relatively trauma-free, with no alcohol-fueled parental beatings or psychological torture. (His parents were clueless on how to raise an artist, but to be fair they weren’t trying to.) To top it off, he had no idea how to put his ideas into writing that might be read beyond his inner circle of friends. The internet would typically be the place to start research on a new project (Google ‘creative writing’?), but that just seemed comical. Or should that be ‘risible’, or ‘ludicrous’? The inner skeptic added ‘mediocre vocabulary’ to the list.

The Retiree sat quietly and listened to his inner artist and inner skeptic battle it out. It was not a fair fight. The skeptic had years of experience in the real world and knew all about steep learning curves and obstacles and how difficult they were to overcome. The artist wasn’t even sure if he existed yet. If the artist were to have any chance at all, the Retiree needed to get him some help. He poured a cup of tea, flipped open his laptop, clicked the search box, and entered ‘creative writing’. He was sure he heard a giggle from the search engine as it dumped the results on his screen. More than 106 million hits. Formal creative writing courses caught his eye first. Going back to school, even if online, had a recaptured-youth appeal. It would be a powerful motivator, but up-front investments were required, and that raised red flags and set them to waving. A classic beginner mistake, like purchasing expensive exercise equipment only to watch it rust. Something zero cost would be more appropriate. He found free on-line lectures, sampled a few, and heard the same nuggets of advice over and over. Write what you know. Writing skills are muscles that must be exercised regularly. Coming up with ideas was the easy part, writing them down was the hard part. That one hurt, given that he considered idea generation to be his strong suit. The consensus was that the worth of ideas was somewhere between zero and a dime a dozen. The more generous of these estimates would value his current portfolio at approximately seventeen cents.

He glanced at the clock and saw that more than two hours had slipped by. The tea was cold and barely touched, and he hadn’t eaten a thing yet. He filled a bowl with cereal and wolfed it down as he considered his next move. He had to admit that searching for free education was not working, and probably just a delaying tactic anyway. What he needed was a place to set up shop and get started. Returning to the screen, he trudged through the pages of hits, and the phrase ‘writing community’ caught his attention. That sounded right, a community can be a place after all, so he narrowed the search and learned that communities came in a variety of shapes and flavors. First, a writers’ circle. A circle had a confessional, support-group feel to it, with every member on view and no place to hide. Too much pressure. Next, a writers’ café. He envisioned veteran authors lounging around small, cup-strewn tables, puffing little French cigarettes and heatedly debating the exact time of death of postmodern literature. He wasn’t up to that and didn’t even own a beret. Then, a writers’ forum. Again, a very public place, where tribunals assemble to hear readings from the rostrum. Was there a writer’s hideout? Yes, but it gave off a spiritual vibe that didn’t resonate on his agnostic wavelength. A writer’s sanctuary? Yes again, but with a writing-as-business angle that wasn’t for him.

A revelation of the obvious pushed him back in his chair. Aside from the questionable effectiveness of judging communities by one word in their titles, his selection criteria were being driven by an irrational, and powerful, fear of public exposure and failure. His search was being undermined and he suspected that the skeptic and artist were working together on this bit of sabotage, one painting the ominous scenarios and the other bringing the fear. This was actually encouraging in a weird way. Where was this fear coming from? Maybe some hidden traumas that would be worth exploring?

The Retiree leaned back in and noted a link with a simple, no-nonsense name: Writing.com. They must have been around for a while to get an address like that. He clicked the link. The first impression was encouraging, especially the ‘FREE Account’ part. It had an open feel, with no apparent bias toward any particular genre or skill level. It had started in 2000, so he was right about it being around for a while. Over a million members? That would be a big community, roughly the population of the city of Dallas. He suppressed the urge to continue comparison shopping and dove in to create the account. He entered his new community.

The Retiree had the sense that he had inadvertently wandered into the bedroom of a very serious young lady. A young lady who was trying to keep things neat and orderly, but struggling with the sheer volume of stuff to be organized. Pastel colors and soft fonts. Tall stacks of links and menus, appearing even taller against the vertically-striped wallpaper. Feeling oddly like a clumsy intruder, he backed out of the site, wondering if he had been noticed. He quickly regrouped and shook his head at the absurdity of his overreaction. Not a bedroom, a city the size of Dallas. He jumped back in began to explore. It was going to take a while to get comfortable here, but it could work. The clock had moved past noon. Feeling encouraged that he had made some progress, he saved a bookmark and shut the laptop.

Over the next few days, the Retiree came back to the site and just played, messing around with a few word games and even entering a contest. That involved uploading a short item to his Portfolio which now boldly proclaimed a tally of (1) on its right side. He was quickly rewarded with a few thoughtful reviews, all positive. He suspected that these might be pats on the back for the little newbie, but didn’t care to overthink it. His confidence was at least to the point where an attempt at a short story was within reach. He thought it best not to go to the great idea vault yet. Better to start with something more tangible, something fresh in his recent experience, a simple conflict that the readers in his new community could relate to. It didn’t take long for a simple story idea to present itself. The basic plot and structure came to him quickly, and he thought it might work. He heard a ‘ka-ching!’ as the value of his portfolio up-ticked by almost a full penny.

How to start his first story? He had always been intrigued by authors who had talked of ‘finding their voice’. He understood the concept because he recognized the voices of his favorites, but it seemed impossible to say why. He was hopeful that at his age, if he had a voice, it would be pretty well formed by now. Would his voice be in tune with the readers out there? What would they think if he wrote out of tune? Wouldn’t it be cool if someone invented an auto-tuner for writing voices? No, bad idea, better to be off key than sound like everyone else. Time to just get on with it.

The Retiree began to write.