On story-writing

 “What kind of stories am I writing?!?” Bart yelled.

“What do you mean?” Sam inquired.

“Basketball… running away… desires… rejected love… armageddon… I’m in a rut!”

“They say to write what you know…”

“Yeah, and ‘what I know’ says a lot about my life… it’s crap. I have these dreams and desires and either they get fulfilled or they don’t. I’m sick of writing about my life.”

“Well, Bart, what would you do if you weren’t writing about your life?”

Bart paused. He hadn’t thought of that before. Every story he’d written had deep elements of his life embedded all over: a story about an imaginary cat who became anthropomorphic and joined a secret club with his best friend, a story about World War III descending on the United States and many a daring soul fleeing the border, a story about a basketball player having tensions in his professional life and his personal life, a story series about distance, unsaid words, said words, and unhappy and lacking resolutions… each story managed to escape reality just enough to be technically different, but still tethered to this world. Each story was about relationship with other people. That’s all Bart ever really knew, or desired to know.

Bart sighed. “I don’t know, Sam. I just don’t know.”

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“Woo-hoo!” six-year-old Calvin screamed with excitement as he hopped off the school bus outside his house at the end of a school. “I’m free! Free to do whatever I want! No responsibilities! Just the rest of the day to myself! Wheeeeee….”

Hobbes leapt onto Calvin as soon as he opened the door. Calvin’s excitement turned to shock and anger as his best friend grabbed him, knocked all the books out of his hand, and plunged him into the dirt in the front yard as they began tussling and turning.

“Get OFF me, you lunatic!” Calvin yelled while punching Hobbes in the back.

“Why don’t you MAKE me?!” Hobbes retorted while he flipped Calvin to his front side.

Calvin managed to get a hit on Hobbes’ jaw. Hobbes, of course, hit him back in the chest in return. By this point, the two friends and momentary enemies were exhausted from fighting and grabbing each other that they’d let go and rested on the ground.

“Calvin!” his mom came out the front door. “Why do you do this every day? I’m sick and tired of having your clothes getting dirty, day after day after day!”

“It’s not me, mom! It’s Hobbes’ fault!” Calvin tried to argue.

“I’m not taking this anymore! You need to take responsibility for your clothes! Get in the house, put your clothes in the wash, and you can stay in your room until dinnertime, mister!”

“But, mommmmm!”

“No ‘buts’! Get going!”

Calvin groaned in frustration as he picked up Hobbes, his stuffed tiger, and stomped into the house.

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“No,” Sam cut in.

“What?!?” Bart responded.

“You know what I’m going to say.”

“Actually, no, I don’t…”

“You can’t just write a story with someone else’s characters. They’re copyrighted. And besides, Bill Watterson has used that storyline many, many times. You gotta think of something else.”

Bart slumped in his chair.

“Try again,” Sam ordered. “I know you can do it. Think of something that’s never happened, or is not likely to happen, and write about that.”

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The count was 0-and-2. Anthony Rizzo stepped back in to the batter’s box against Neftali Feliz. It was the bottom of the eighth inning, with the Chicago Cubs down by a run, and a runner on third base. The date was Saturday, October 22nd, 2016. The time was 9:41 PM. The place was Cubs Stadium, just completed earlier in the year in its new location, the Near Northwest Side in Chicago. Cubs president Theo Epstein was proudly observing what was expected to be the crowning moment of his overhaul project that was five years in the making. He looked over to owner Tom Ricketts and General Manager Jed Hoyer and said, “This is it. We’re gonna win this tonight.”

Rizzo hit a double into left-center field, scoring Darwin Barney, the baserunner on third. After him was Albert Almora, the number 5 hitter and the young outfield phenom who’d been called up to the big leagues just that year, in late-July. Almora worked the count full, and smacked a single into right field. Rizzo was waved around third and beat the throw home. The Cubs Stadium crowd went wild. Their team now led by a score of 4 runs to 3.

The crowd became louder as the game went to the top of the ninth. Cubs pitcher James Russell finished his warmup tosses and anticipated the heart of the Tampa Bay Rays’ order. With each pitch, the crowd continued to increase in volume in excitement. With each decisive pitch, the anticipation of such an elusive victory increased, as well as the competitive tension that always comes along for the ride. Will a hero or a goat emerge? Who will it be?

It was two out, and two runners on. Evan Longoria came up to the plate. Russell fired the first pitch. Longoria looked. It was a ball. The second pitch, a hanging curve, met Longoria’s bat on the way to a sharp line drive – into the stands a few feet outside the foul pole. The crowd was getting nervous. Were we going to choke? Was this to be the culmination of Epstein’s five-year reconstruction project: a last-second collapse? Wrigley Field was dead. It had collapsed, two offseasons prior, on a windy day that set wind-speed and destruction records for the city of Chicago. The upper deck on the third base side had fallen into an irrecoverable heap, made largely possible by the mayor’s and governor’s steadfast refusal to rehabilitate the old park. Would Wrigley’s ghosts continue anew at the new Cubs Stadium?

No. James Russell snared a sharp line-drive by Longoria for the final out. Final score: Cubs 4, Rays 3. The rest of the team came out of the dugout and formed a pile near the mound. The fans celebrated wildly. The long wait was over. They’d done it: the Chicago Cubs had finally…

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“No,” Sam interrupted.

“Come on! Seriously!?” Bart interjected.

“If you’re going to talk about things from real life, make it realistic.”

“You told me to think of something that’s never happened!”

“I’m not talking about the Cubs winning the World Series. I’m talking about the Cubs moving out of Wrigley Field. ‘Cubs Stadium’? Really?!?”

Bart groaned.

“If you want to talk about real life, make it realistic. Don’t… like, talk about Secretariat and put him in a world with Charlie and the other unicorns. That’s just lazy writing.”

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It was Friday night, and that meant dinner and guitar night at Thomas and Jim’s. Nathan and Dan had made a trip to the store to pick up some ingredients, and they brought their guitars over for later. It all started in the kitchen, as the four brothers, plus Phil and Tim, banded together to make a simple dinner over a deep, spiritual conversation.

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“I’m sorry. I just don’t have the energy for this,” Bart moaned.

“OK. Just remember, you don’t have to force yourself,” Sam reassured. “Even the greatest authors didn’t write their whole stories in one day.”

“It’s just tough. I don’t think I have the ability to focus on adventure or an actual moral for a long enough time. I can be creative, but without boundaries – and the only boundaries I know are whatever is true in my life – I can’t make something out of nothing. I just can’t.”

Sam paused. “Maybe, Bart, you’re just not cut out for writing. … I mean, I’m not saying your stories or your writing is bad. But I think your creativity is in a different place. To be an effective writer, an effective storyteller, yes you need creativity, but it needs to be focused enough in such a monochromatic space. Words are just one dimension. Pictures are another, and music another. And so on. … I’ve seen your other work. I think you work better when you combine multiple media.”

“Maybe…” Bart pondered, “but there’s so much unresolved in the stories I have… what’s going to happen to Nick once he picks his new team? Is the rest of his life going to magically come together? … What about Thomas? Does he ever figure it out, or is he going to be stuck in his crap forever? … What about Kristen, for that matter? … And Maggie? ... And what happens with Bosendorfer? Does he ever come back?”

“That’s the problem with stories that follow real life, Bart,” Sam interjected. “They don’t have endings. There’s a new chapter being written each and every day, whether you like it or not…”

“…There are days that people remember for the rest of their lives, and…” Bart interrupted.

“…There are days like today,” Sam interrupted back. “I know we’re not gonna remember this day. And we don’t need to.”