By Jim Hagarty
As we try to make our way through life, it’s important, at some point, to figure out what we are. Maybe even more vital, is to come up with some conclusions about what we aren’t.
We are told, and I’m glad we are, that we can do anything we want to do. But that presents us with a lot of choices, and sometimes that can be bewildering.
At some point, it became clear to me that I am a writer. And as a writer, I should be able to write anything. But after a lifetime of writing, I am not sure that is true. As it seems to have turned out, I am a pretty good short story writer, best at penning little fables about life as I observe it in all its wonder.
But I didn’t just arrive at that grand realization one day when the clouds parted and God pointed right at me. I tried writing other things.
I am OK with poetry but I have only a fundamental grasp of the craft and have never been interested enough to study it further. On reflection, I could have maybe made a living writing greeting cards poems.
“When the days begin to shorten
“And you look into the sky
“And wonder at formations
“In the clouds as they drift by…”
Yadda.
Yadda.
And yadda.
Fifteen years ago, after I left my job teaching journalism at a local college, I tried freelance writing. I had the occasional thing published but basically came to hate the process.
But people always told me there were probably a few good novels in me. So I tried that too.
My first attempt was a humourous look at higher education. It was a book called Off to College. I might have finished three chapters. It sucked.
Another humour novel sprang to mind.
Billy and Charley hit my computer monitor. Three or four chapters in, I was bored out of my mind, ready to kick William and Charles in their boring behinds. Spoiler alert: If the writer is bored, the reader will be suicidal.
Then it dawned on me that I needed to tackle something meatier.
Presenting, Death Comes to Cold Hill.
Gratefully, death came to Death Comes to Cold Hill in fairly short order.
I had one minor success. A book about being a stay-at-home father called Poor Daddy. I am proud of it but the only reason it works is it is not a novel but a collection of more than 40 shorts stories.
But my freelance career was careening off a cliff, same one, probably that was featured in Death Comes to Cold Hill.
I went back to work on a newspaper. And before long, I resurrected my old humour column. Weekly short stories about the little ups and downs of life. I knew I was once again where I belonged and so did my readers.
We call people who work with wood, woodworkers. Good name. But within that classification are dozens of sub classifications. Same with cooking, decorating, glass making …
And writing.
I don’t know the origin of this quote or the context in which it appeared, but some smartypants somewhere once said something to the effect: “Life is a casting off.”
That seems to have been true with me. I didn’t find the right road till I had driven off down a bunch of wrong ones. I am glad I went down them, but grateful that I backed up and tried other ones.
The way I sometimes was headed, I might have ended up on Cold Hill and we pretty much know what awaited me there.
