The beginning of a story

A Thursday tease

I’ve been writing mostly nonfiction lately. Essays for this newsletter and essays about my exit from academia and essays about witchery. In the past, I would have had lots of thoughts about this. Is spending time writing essays the best use of my finite time as a writer? Will it “advance my career”? Is this what I should be doing right now? What is the point?

I still have those thoughts, but they’re much quieter. They whisper at me and in the kindest voice I can summon, I whisper back, “If this is what feels good to me to be doing right now, this is what I’m going to do.” There are no should’s. There’s a freedom in having no contracts and no agent and no expectations that come from anyone but me.

Then this week, I decided it was time to start reading through my short stories again. They’d marinated long enough since the last edit. I’m better at taking my time with that now. In the past, I would have felt rushed. Impatient to get the stories out into the world. To move onto the next thing. But I feel more and more that I’m moving on my own timeline and that’s okay.

On this read-through, I started at the end, going backwards to the beginning. The stories ended up making most sense in the same rough chronological order in which I wrote them. That means the first story has gone through more edits than the last one. This is usually the way it works with novels, too. The first twenty pages or so get edited like crazy. The ending, not as much.

Gilly and the notebook

I bought a new notebook the other day. It’s got a design of sun and moons and stars on it. I feel a creeping need to fill it with a story, but I’m not sure what that story is yet. Surely something magical. I’d like to write another novel, but it’s a big commitment. For now, I’m thinking of who and what I want to spend that much time with. I’m taking my time.

But here is my slow concession to impatience or maybe generosity or maybe just a whim. I read the opening of one of the stories, the second to last one, and I loved it so much I wanted to send it out into the world RIGHT NOW, so here it is, the beginning of a story.

Return

            When the pandemic was over, James decided that he was done with San Francisco. He was done with California. He was done with that whole idiot, go-west, American dream that kept getting rebooted one generation to the next. Frankly, he was embarrassed by the fact that it had ever been appealing to him in the first place.

            He pulled out a map of the country he’d found tucked under the passenger seat of the 2010 Honda Civic he’d inherited from his older sister. He would do this the analog way. He was tired of a digital life. He closed his eyes. He spun around once for good measure in the tiny apartment he shared with three other people slowly giving up on their own California dreams. He bumped into his roommate’s wall of dying plants they did not have room for in the first place. He hovered his finger over the map and then pushed it down so hard his knuckle popped.

            “Fuck,” he muttered, at the knuckle and the spot he’d landed on. Texas. No way he was going there.

            “What are you doing?” one of the roommates called from behind the sheet that turned part of the dining room into an extra bedroom.

            James ignored him. He tried again, minus the spinning. Connecticut. Bleh. Montana. Definitely not.

            He left the map where it was and pulled out his phone. He Googled, “the opposite of San Francisco.” He Googled, “most boring town in the Midwest.” He Googled, “when will things get better instead of worse already.” He took a nap. Got up. He texted his mom, “What was the name of that town where Grandpa Joe lived?” He Googled, “Lanier, Indiana.”

            Three days later, his car was packed and he was headed east, the direction of return.