And suppose you went to AWP, that big conference for writers, which you’ve attended before, except this time you actually felt like a writer —not someone who wants to be a writer or is thinking about becoming a writer— but someone who is, someone who’s done the work, the ditch-digging, pipe-laying, solo barn-raising work of writing stories and sending them off like wishes or prayers or feathered seeds blown from a dandelion stem, hoping to God that some will take.  Now suppose you return home, elated and exhausted from the work of knitting yourself into this community, hoping your newly-woven confidence doesn’t unravel from the act of fledging, from the act of flying home.

Suppose when you got home, you found a package from someone important to you, who has decided to rid him or herself of your existence because of something you have written.

It’s your Mark Doty moment, and if you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about, you must stop and read (or at least Google) Doty’s “Return to Sender” now.  If you’re not wondering, then you know what I mean and you are groaning with sympathy, or empathy, depending on where you are at with your own work.

Such moments in a writer’s life are not to be taken lightly, but in truth it feels as tragic and cliché as a scene from a movie.  Like that scene from Top Gun, where the dueling egos of Maverick and Ice Man during a training flight cause Maverick to fly through Ice Man’s jet wash — the turbulence sending his plane into a tail spin, whirling Tom Cruise’s cocky character into a desperate plea: “Eject! Eject! Eject!”

Blue ocean, sad music.  Something has been lost.

I want to crawl into my bed, bury myself under the blankets, keep the shades drawn tight.  Sometimes I wish I’d never followed this stupid dream of becoming a nonfiction writer.  Should have stayed with geology.  Should have kept myself occupied with unearthing our layered history, of investigating contamination, of remediating our mistakes.

Except — isn’t that exactly what I’m doing?  Examining the road cut of an experience or a life and trying to understand?  The difference here is that I’ve decided to share my notes.  I’ve forgotten the sharpness of my tools.  Forgive me.  I haven’t made anything up.

A few years ago, I went to a nonfiction writing workshop with Alaskan author Seth Kantner, whose work is acclaimed for its honest portrayal of the native culture, the tension between wilderness and modern society, between the members of his family.  He’d taken a risk and told his story, even though native Alaskan culture regarded such acts as hubris, indulgent.  I had asked him: “How did you get past that anxiety? How did you find the courage to tell your story?  Weren’t you worried about what they’d think?”

He said, “Do you want to be a writer or not?”

Here is what I want:  I want to reconcile this impulse to share my story with the sense of betrayal if I do.  I want to tell the truth without feeling like I’m doing something wrong.  I want to acknowledge joy and searing pain and everything in between.  I want to understand.

I want my confidence back.  I feel stuck in this cliché — at the edge of the ship, contemplating the deep and endless blue.  I’m leaning into my motorcycle at dusk, watching from a distance the other planes taking off.  I’m fingering the silver dog-tags of this person I might have lost.

Do I want to be a writer or not?

Forgive me.  I haven’t made anything up.

Image credit: Andrew Holt/Photographer’s Choice/Getty Images

From http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/airplanes6.htm

The post Notes on a Tail Spin appeared first on Mary Heather Noble.

My husband was the one with the fascinating stories.  At the time, he’d just cared for a patient from Afghanistan who was involved in an international peace conference, and provided humanitarian aid and education for Taliban-oppressed areas.  Gavin had admitted him to the hospital, advised him against traveling due to his serious heart condition, and tried to help his patient’s son obtain a travel visa so he wouldn’t be hospital-bound alone.  Gavin was the one who met interesting people like that, not me.  I worked in a government agency cubicle, sometimes collected samples of water in the field, and when I did, sat in vacant parking lots, pumping breast milk for our daughter in the cab of the government truck.

Perhaps it was the parking lot pumping that prompted me to reconsider my creative pursuits.  After all, what did I possibly have to lose?  How could it get any worse than that?    

The writing conference I attended was the now-defunct National Writer’s Workshop, sponsored by The Hartford Courant.  The conference drew big names that year (2005): Garrison Keillor, Elizabeth Berg, Bob Edwards of NPR’s Morning Edition, and Sebastian Junger.  Sebastian Junger.  I loved The Perfect Storm.  I loved that his best-seller was true.   To me, Junger’s success represented the full potential of the creative nonfiction genre.   Plus, he was young and hot.  Maybe it was time to take this writing thing more seriously. 

I went to the conference, and listened to a humble Junger claim to not know much about writing, that he was just a curious adventure-seeking gonzo journalist “trying it out” and accidentally striking it big with The Perfect Storm.  He was delightfully down-to-earth, funny, self-effacing.  He talked about the extraordinary circumstances that prompted his upcoming book, A Death in Belmont, and about his recent travels in Afghanistan, where he was researching his next project.  He was taking his first big steps in what would turn out to be an extraordinary writing career, and I was there to see it.

As writing conferences go, it was a great first experience — the National Writer’s Workshop was a big event, which offered the security of anonymity to a writer like myself.  While dozens of people rushed the podium after Junger’s talk — eager to introduce themselves, press their business cards and e-mail addresses into his palm, maybe even glean some advice about finding an agent — I watched from afar.  Why?  Because I am one of those writers who lingers on the edge like Ferdinand the bull, my adrenaline-filled chest throbbing with angst from the mere thought of saying something intelligent to the literary elite.  In general, I’m unskilled at penetrating circles of conversation.  It’s an unsavory condition, this anxiety, but watching from the walls feels more comfortable, more secure.  The problem with this approach, of course, is that avoiding someone’s path means your paths will never cross.

— Unless you’re at the National Writer’s Workshop in Hartford, and find yourself on an elevator with Sebastian Junger.

I was heading to a late-afternoon panel discussion — on what I can’t recall — but I was standing in the elevator and it was well after lunch.  The sliding doors opened and a half-dozen people filed out.  Then a dark-haired, tallish guy in jeans and a black button-down shirt stepped on.  He didn’t look like a writer, or at least not an ordinary writer.  He looked like the kind of writer who preferred to do other things than write.  The kind of writer who would be named “Sexiest Writer” by People magazine, if such a category exists.  I glanced up casually, smiled meekly like one does in elevator spaces, and looked back at the floor.  Then I realized who it was and felt my head snap up.  For a fraction of a second, I locked eyes with this man, looked directly into his impossibly blue eyes, and realized that I was alone on an elevator with Sebastian Junger.

I’d like to think that I at least said, “hi” — that I behaved, to some degree, like a normal human being.  But in truth, I can’t be sure.  I wanted to tell him that I loved his book, wanted to tell him how amazing it was that his nonfiction had become a bestseller, that his research and storytelling were an inspiration to people like me who were devoted to the truth…  I wanted to ask him about Afghanistan, tell him about my husband’s patient, tell him how we’d invited the man over for dinner and that he’d eaten so fast he’d gotten indigestion and had to go back to the ER.  I wanted to talk to him like a person.

But instead, I was mute.  I looked down at the toes of my cute Mary Janes, hid behind my hair, said nothing.  Then the doors of the elevator opened and Sebastian Junger walked away.  It was strange.  I was strange.

— Which is what I’m still thinking, nearly nine years later.  The truth is, the Sebastian Junger elevator incident was a turning point in my writing conference experience.  The nagging memory of an awkward silence punctuated only by the bell tone of the elevator floor indicator is what motivates me to do things differently, what motivates me to participate in writing conferences, rather than to merely attend.  This memory is what forces me — even when every fiber of my being is pulsing with resistance — to make eye contact, extend my hand, and introduce myself.  Hello, I’m Mary Heather.  I’m a writer, too, and I’m so excited to meet you.

With AWP Seattle rapidly approaching, I will be spending my evenings psyching myself up for my planned and chance encounters with the authors whom I admire.  Mentally preparing myself for the gift of an introduction — reminding myself that writers want to hear from their readers, want to meet new writers, want to exchange stories and ideas.  Reminding myself that the last thing someone wants is to be alone on an elevator with a woman admiring her shoes.  After all, what do I possibly have to lose?  How can it get any worse than that?

Here’s to an inspiring AWP — don’t get caught admiring your shoes.

________________

Image courtesy of SebastianJunger.com.

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