Can I have a few minutes of your time? I just want to talk... and then I’ll thank you. Just a few minutes...
I’ll be posting a few short stories here from time to time, if you'd like to read them. They’re from the so-called Midlands Series—a phrase which has come to mean (in my mind, at least) that place between dreams and awake, life and death. Reality and fantasy. The oldest, “From the Midlands,” was written a few years ago, at a time when Hawke’s alter ego (me, in other words) wasn’t in what I’d call a good place; I was, in fact, stagnate as a writer and, more importantly, ready for a change. I dreamt up the idea, actually, during a casual, late-night chat with a few other writers, and reading it over now makes me feel a little nostalgic for those times. The most recent, “Punch Drunk,” has yet to be finished, sitting on my desktop in bits and pieces.
A friend of mine asked me before I began the series why and how I would introduce such a radical new change. My works, she pointed out, were fairly successful, while the Midlands idea was like starting from scratch. While she spoke, a rough little “how” fantasy rustled up...
You find yourself on a train station’s platform. It is late. Very foggy. And you are nervous. Anxious. Wondering if you are in the right place... or even should be here at all.
As you stand there you begin to second-guess yourself. Reconsider. After all, previous rides from similar platforms have left you wondering. Puzzled. Perhaps even a tad bothered.
Maybe I’ll take a pass, you think, lifting your suitcase from the slatted wooden floor. After all, there is still time to get out of here before—
But you will not finish that thought. For at that moment a glow in the swirling mist catches your eye, and with it, you know the train’s conductor is already coming toward you holding a lantern out before him.
As he breaks though the fog so dense it seems a living shroud, you note that he is a wizened man—very old and heavily wrinkled. But more than that, he is silent—oddly cat-like, given his age. You tell yourself that it must be the fog dampening his steps; that his shoes really are making noise. But even as you do, your heart races and you find that you are worrying your bottom lip tensely. He draws nearer, nearer... and as he does, you see the gleam in his eye and the grin on his gnomish face and can’t help but grin back at him.
Presently he stops a good dozen feet before you, tips his hat and then with a wide smile and a grand sweep of his hand toward the new train’s shiny side, calls out, saying, “Welcome! Welcome! Looks like you’re ready and raring to go. Well, I won’t keep you. Our first stop will be “The Midlands”: a cozy little hideaway deep in the heart of imagination—a place... between.
"Care to board?”
She asked me if I’d thought it all through. The markets, she pointed out, were geared toward novels, while short stories are lucky to get a first read. After I countered that many might like the option of a story they can read from start to finish during a lunch hour, plane ride, or their children’s nap time, she conceded that it might fly. I said not likely, but by then it didn’t really matter; I had already made up my mind to do it—needed to do it—whether it flew or not.
I should send that friend a link to this site with a little blurb. The blurb will say: I’m not going to say how successful The Midlands is or not, since it is yet to be proven either way, but I can tell you this: the series is flying—at least in my mind. PS: Thank you for encouraging me to give this a go.
I think she’d like that.
Except it’s not about success. I mean, success is wonderful; don’t get me wrong here (I'm not delusional yet). Whether it's a pat on the back or nice pay check, success (whether you define it as monetary, recognition, or both) is what every writer hopes to achieve. But at the end of the day, you have to feel good about what you're doing and where you're going. Your name is on it; it defines you as a writer; writing is wonderful, but it’s only a vehicle for your life.
All the same, you don’t write for success or the money, or you’ll fail. You do it because you need to do it. You do it because you have to do it. You do it because to not do it is inconceivable.
Take, for instance, “From The Midlands.” It’s not the best story I ever wrote (nor the worst); it will never win accolades. But it’s not too bad. Kind of fun, really. I had just finished chatting with the writers the minute before (the same ones I’d mentioned earlier on) and I was thinking about the idea and where I would go with it. Mostly I was excited and wanted to get started as soon as possible.
I have nights where I know I’m going to have a lousy sleep even before I try. It happens to a lot of us, I imagine. I fall asleep just fine, but it’s not long before I’m wide awake and staring up at the ceiling with ideas playing a nasty game of bumper cars with my mind, mostly at the speed of light. By the time I had logged off for the night, I was a mix of emotions—trepidation, determination, giddy excitement. Mostly I was dog-tired, which is not something you want to be when you’re about to journey into uncharted territory.
Deciding to put it away for the night and start fresh in the morning, I went to bed and slept from eleven until around three in the morning. I woke up knowing that I would not get back to sleep. So there I lay, mulling it all over, and I got to thinking about the radical change, and the idea of a place called the Midlands. And I thought, “What would happen if a guy woke up one day, and then, when he tried to move, he couldn’t?” That’s kind of the way most of my ideas begin; “What would happen if—?”
Anyway, I stared piecing out the story, not really making up the words so much as trying to get a grip on the idea. I was remembering a true family story from the bygone era about an great great aunt who had been slightly (and mysteriously) ill and couldn’t move, and the doctor, and the family, and everyone thought she had died. Then I thought how it must have felt to be alive and unable to tell anyone.
Then I thought, “What would it be like to attend your own funeral?” And then I got up and began writing it, and you’ll notice it didn’t turn out exactly as I had envisioned. Then again, they usually don’t.
So getting back to writing. You don’t do it for the money or the recognition; you do it because you have to do it. Anything that comes from it is just icing.
Anyway, I hope you like the short stories I'll put up here, Dear Reader. I doubt you’ll like them as well as you would a novel (if you like them at all that is), mainly because they are indeed short. A novel is sort of like being in a relationship. You can take your time. Learn all the intricate little details and inner workings. I can remember a particularly boring period of my life during a particularly boring teenage summer, and having nothing at all to do because of my friends being on vacation coupled with my dad postponing ours out of the blue (Dad was very much a spur of the moment type of man). I purchased Hellfire, by John Saul, and for a space of about a week (I read it more than once) I wasn’t even having a relationship with that novel; I was utterly engrossed by it (my favourite part was when Beth actually became Amy for a little while, saw what Amy saw, felt what she felt—an eleven-year-old, paid-by-the-piece leather cutter in a mill in 1886, and how Amy would purposely shut herself down, letting herself be hypnotized by the dull routine of the work to get through the hours one at a time... and the fire). Needless to say, I spent the rest of that summer devouring anything and everything John Saul.
A short story is a different animal altogether—it’s more like flirting with a stranger at a red light. Not nearly a relationship, but flirting can be sweet, and it can provide a welcome distraction from the mundane.
Well, that’s about it from me I suppose. Thank you, Dear Reader, as always—because without you, it's a one-way street. If any of the stories I’ll put up provide a little entertainment or get you through a boring plane ride, lunch hour, or your children’s nap time, that's success.
