Two Worlds

05.02.20

When you have a burst of creativity, an unrelenting urge to produce, you have to ride it. It doesn’t matter where that surge takes you. It could be a new novel or a collection of paintings or a beautifully crafted dress. When we are riding this wave, we have no choice to take it to its logical conclusion or the wave could toss us into the water and make us regret surfing in the first place. 

This is exactly how I felt when I began writing my new book. The Poet’s Guide to Basketball, which I just released a few weeks ago. I’d had the idea for a number of years and never did anything with it. I convinced myself that it was a silly idea, that nobody would be interested in reading poems about basketball or that basketball fans don’t enjoy poetry. The idea, however, was relentless and I had to see where it took me if I let it loose on my world.

The poems poured out of me. So much so that I had to write them down whenever they came to me, even if the moment was inconvenient. After two weeks I realized that I had a collection on my hand and I was able to track down a talented up-and-coming artist to draw some accompanying artwork. This idea was becoming a real thing. I no longer cared that it might be a silly idea because I was owning it. I loved the writing and collaborating with an artist. This was going to be a book and I would release it myself, which was a journey I’d never taken before. 

It has inspired me to continue on this path and combine other loves with poetry. That’s what I want to get at today. This might not be true for anyone else, but I tend to think a lot of my ideas are slightly crazy. Or, if anything else, ideas only I appreciate or would spend significant time reading. Part of me thinks that this is a good thing because I don’t blindly pursue every idea that pops into my head. On the other hand, it has prevented me from making good on ideas that others might not find crazy. Some of which I have fully produced…and that sit in notebooks or on hard drives. I may have taken the worst of all my fully finished ideas and turned it into a book. I really don’t know. Perhaps the worlds of poetry and basketball weren’t meant to be married, but I did it anyway. I’ve had a nice response thus far and it turns out that there are a few other people out there that thought it was a good idea!

Now I’m excited to continue this adventure of combining other loves with poetry (at this point I have a whole series planned that I’m calling Pop Poetry). It’s not the only thing I’m working on (I still have my graphic novel series that I’m writing and other poems that I’m submitting to journals), but it’s a great side project that is pressure-free and fun. I would encourage everyone to have something like this because there will be days when the creativity doesn’t come easy, but if you have another project to work on, one that combines two things that don’t normally belong together, you’ll have a fun distraction that can turn into something. You never know.

I hope that everyone is healthy, safe, and productive during these trying times!

Thanks for reading! Please reach out via email (matthew@matthewjdaley.com) or Twitter (@matthewjdaley). I’d love to hear from you.

The New Yorker Goes to Summer Camp, Pt. I

02.29.20

While I could spend this entry celebrating all the things that come around once every four years (like this day, February 29th, presidential elections, the World Cup, the Olympics), this extra day tacked onto the end of February every four years doesn’t feel all that special. I’m not asking for it or expecting it to be a holiday (Leap Day?), because I cannot wrap my head around how we would even celebrate. I am somewhat surprised February 29th hasn’t been used in more fictional properties, but I think that’s because it comes and goes with little fanfare. I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge it before diving into the real topic and all that I can muster is, Happy Leap Day.

My wife and I decided two weeks ago that we are going to send our oldest child, our only son, to summer camp for a few weeks this summer. He’s twelve and ready to be away from home for the month of July. I was fortunate enough to have some camp experience under my belt (one week every summer for about eight years) that I could verify he would thrive in a camp setting. Since we have been neck-deep in camp lore, I’ve been reflective of my own experiences. Again, I wasn’t sent away for the entire summer, so I never had the experience that I saw reflected in movies (summer camp is an endless well of inspiration for creative types; there are so many movies and books/graphic novels that celebrate the wonders of camp). I went for one week and it was a basic experience.

But basic was good. I knew no better. For a majority of my camping years, I went to soccer camp somewhere in northern central Pennsylvania. The cabins were rustic, the food was simple, the counselors loved The Grateful Dead, and most of the kids were happy to be there. To attend the soccer camp, you were supposed to be in high school, but my family knew one of the organizers and I was allowed to attend when I was ten. I was a target for some kids (especially two freshmen boys who threw me in a prickly bush, dumped all my clothes in the pool, and stole the snacks my mom packed for me), but for the most part I got along fine with everyone. 

One of the reasons I was excited to go to camp was to read. This was the summer of 1991, so it was obviously pre-internet/pre-smartphones, but TV could be a distraction. Even though I was only going to be gone for a week, I was determined to tackle a big book. That book was The Stand by Stephen King. I’d already burned through IT the summer before, so I wasn’t intimidated by the length. My plan was to read in all the free time I had, not realizing that most of the day was filled with soccer drills and games and I’d be too exhausted to do anything but lounge in the pool during free time. My intentions were in the right place and I made a few futile attempts to get through the first 100 pages of The Stand early in the morning or after lunch. 

Reading wasn’t a top priority at camp. Since all campers but me were of high school age, they were there to play soccer and hook-up at night. Why bother bringing books when there were hormones to exercise? I didn’t know this at age ten. What I did know - and noticed right away - was the one other person at camp who was interested in reading. He was an 11th grader with a shaved head, a penchant for sneaking off for a cigarette, and a small collection of worn-out magazines. His name was Paul and he sat on the porch in the early morning with his legs dangling over the side and his arms resting on the railing and one of those old magazines clutched in his hand. After the first three days of camp, I worked up the nerve to join him and ask him what he was reading. I brought my copy of The Stand with me to prove to him that we were simpatico. 

He took one look at my book, nodded and said, “you’ll grow out of it someday” (which also happened once in college with a girl I liked; we had a Lit class together and talked often and went to the movies and all seemed to be going well until she found me on a bench outside the library reading Everything’s Eventual and she said, “you’ll grow out of it someday”…but I haven’t, despite the willful insistence of two well-read people). I didn’t understand what he meant. I sat down next to him uninvited. I asked him what he was reading and he handed me his magazine. The font was small. The words were stacked and columned. They framed a piece of writing that I understood to be separate from the rest of the text. 

“It’s The New Yorker,” he said. “I’m going to be a poet. You like poetry?”

I did, but I had never seen poetry like this before. Nor had I ever heard anyone ever say, “I’m going to be a poet” before. I didn’t know this was something one could be. I loved Shel Silverstein and a few Poems for Young Readers anthologies I borrowed from the library, and yet it never clicked to me that a person could be a poet. It sounded fantastical and mythical. He could’ve said, “I’m going to be a dinosaur hunter” and it would have had the same impact. 

“I do,” I replied.

“Well if you do, you gotta read this,” he said and handed me the magazine. The issue had been worked over and folded and carried in back pockets and stuffed into backpacks and passed around; it was treasured and abused. I read the words but didn’t understand and I passed it back to him. “I have more if you want.” 

I said yes and he told me that he kept them in his tattered suitcase and I could take one any time as long as I put them back. That was his way of both opening a world to me and telling me to leave him alone. I wasn’t going to be able to converse with him about the poems he so admired, so there was no other reason for me to occupy his porch. But the offer was sincere and I borrowed each issue he had with him over the course of the next three days and treated each poem like a puzzle I could solve. I couldn’t. I wasn’t there yet. It was, however, a start. 

Thanks for reading! Please reach out via email (matthew@matthewjdaley.com) or Twitter (@matthewjdaley). I’d love to hear from you.

Dream Logic

02.09.20

Dreams mean everything. Dreams mean nothing. Dreams mean something. Each of those statements could be true, depending on the person. Some people invest deeply in the purpose and meaning of their dreams. Others can barely remember their dreams. Some see symbolic connection to their lives, while others view dreams as a brain dump, your subconscious cleaning out your desktop by moving things to the trash bin. 

Regardless of your opinion about dreams, there’s no denying their influence on our lives, their ever presentness. Consider the roots of psychoanalysis or the thousands of books and websites and films that deal with dreams. It’s fair to say that we don’t know as much about dreams as we will in ten, fifty, or 100 years from now, and even still, there won’t be a definitive stance on them. Nor should there be. Dreams are one of the few personal and personalized experiences we have, one that we can share or hold privately. No one is expected to do anything with them. 

Am I fortunate to have vivid, memorable dreams at least 3-4 nights per week? It depends. I appreciate the time I spend thinking about them and trying to understand “what they mean”, along with sharing them with my wife (who only puts credence into 1-2 dreams per year, which she shares with me and I like to play armchair psychologist…and maybe that’s part of the allure with dreams, that we all like to interpret and diagnose), who listens kindly and offers quick, direct feedback. 

I only have one reoccurring dream, which features my father and I repairing a house. This could only happen in a dream because my father and I are two of the least handy people on planet Earth. If we were expected to repair anything, we’d demolish it, then call someone who could fix it. Should I be applying a fine-tuned analysis to this dream? Probably not, so I don’t. 

The reason that dreams are on my mind is because I had a dream last night that played out like a Jordan Peele movie. Or, I should say, that, within the dream, it felt like my wife and I were the lead characters in a Jordan Peele movie. This wasn’t triggered by watching Get Out or Us before going to sleep (I watched the new concert documentary Kamasi Washington at the Apollo Theater…everyone should watch it for numerous reasons, though I cannot guarantee that watching it before you go to bed will place you in the middle of a Jordan Peele movie; I must also mention that I ate Chinese take-out for dinner and on the rare occasions that I eat Chinese or Indian take-out, my dreams have a more cinematic quality to them). That might make sense, though my dreams are rarely influenced with what I consume before I go to sleep. 

It should be said that I love both Get Out and Us. This isn’t a hot take. Both films are brilliant and are just as good when you watch them the fifth time. I hope he continues to make original stories and take big swings because that’s a lot more interesting than him making a Marvel movie (I like Marvel movies, but nowhere near as much as Get Out and Us). While I try my best not to care too much about awards, the Oscars are this weekend and it’s disappointing that Us wasn’t recognized at all and I’d argue it’s an awards-seasons travesty that Lupita Nyong’o wasn’t nominated for best actress. Back to dreams.

When I woke up this morning and told my wife about my dream, the first thing she said was, “that sounds like a Jordan Peele movie”. As a creative person, I wondered what my dream would be like as a movie or book. The problem with this particular dream is that it is too specifically Jordan Peele-esque that I would be sued. Rightfully so. Even though I have vivid, memorable dreams, there was only ever one time that I tried to adapt one of my dreams and after a month, it reached its logical conclusion (i.e. why did I think this was a good idea?).

But there might be people out there who have been able to use their dreams in their work. I’m not one of them, but I am curious how they would do it. I’ve never been stuck with a narrative problem, gone to sleep, dreamed a resolution, and woke up and said, “ah-hah!” That’s not how my creativity works. I have woken up feeling renewed and ready to take on writing issues, whether those be plot for a book or diction for a poem, but I’d credit the process of sleep over the power of dreams to cure writer’s block. 

Rather than trying to adapt dreams, I think it’s more interesting to capture their essence, their feeling, their flow, their disorienting nature. This isn’t new at all, but it is a more logical approach than trying to use them to build narrative coherence. I’m also happy to admit that I could be completely wrong, that this particular dream would make for an exciting story. Or what’s closer to true is that the dream and the conversation with my wife would be better suited for a poem. Or the real lesson here is don’t eat Chinese take-out too late at night.

Thanks for reading! Please reach out via email (matthew@matthewjdaley.com) or Twitter (@matthewjdaley). I’d love to hear from you.

The Pleasure of Pencils

02.02.20

When my phone began giving me a weekly report regarding the amount of time I was spending on it, I was taken aback. There was no way I spent that much time on my phone every day because I wasn’t addicted to being on my phone. It was clear that my phone was lying to me. There was no other explanation. Or some goblins were sneaking into my house at night and doing nothing but run up my screen time average. 

Or I had to face facts and admit that I spent too much time looking at my phone. Unfortunately for me, this wasn’t the only screen time I had. I spent a lot more time on my computer and enough time on my iPad that my life was becoming screen time central. I could justify the time I spent on my laptop, since I rely on it for writing and for work…and for the time I waste reading the news or checking NBA scores or reading up on the latest movie news. But for the most part, I needed my computer. The iPad and phone were different stories. 

I was appalled by the amount of time I spent on my phone and the easiest fix was to delete all social media apps off my phone. I realized that in any downtime I had, I’d check Twitter or Facebook, and in all honesty, it was for no other reason other than to fill downtime. After I removed those two apps, I essentially removed them from my life, which was freeing. But more importantly, in the moment, it helped me cut my screen time in half. 

This led to a more radical approach to life. I wan’t going to disconnect, because that’s extreme and my livelihood and craft depend on being connected, but I didn’t need it any other time. Even for my writing. Early in the process of me trying to figure out how to be a writer - roughly from ages 18-22, I wrote everything by hand. I filled notebooks and legal pads with stories and scripts and poems and typed the work that I thought was best. I recognized that this added time to the process, but I preferred to it. Until I was told I was an idiot.

During my first year of life in the “real world” - which is also fondly referred to as “life after college” - I was struggling to figure things out as a new teacher all the while maintaining my focus on writing. One of my co-workers helped me as a teacher and also took an interest in my writing. He was gracious enough to read some of my work and provide constructive feedback. He had a mentor within the educational world who happened to have published a few books about teaching and he was happy to introduce me to her. He admitted that she might not know anything about publishing fiction, but she would undoubtedly have some advice that might prove fruitful. She came to have lunch with him one day and I was allowed to act as third wheel. She was in her early 80’s and as sharp and vigorous as someone one-fourth her age. She asked about the type of work I wanted to write and my routine, and after passing the first test, she asked, “yeah, but how do you write?”, and I thought was tasking me with judging the quality of my work and I responded with the humble answer of, “I’m a work in progress”. “No, no, no. What I mean is, what do you write on? What kind of computer do you have?” When I told her that I write in composition books and legal pads she looked at me as if I just told her that I actively time traveled on the weekends. She said I was an idiot and outright crazy for wasting my time with writing by hand, that the future had arrived in the form of computers, and I better get on it if I was going to keep pace. So yes, a senior citizen was telling the 22-year old me to get with the times. I tried to defend my practice but she said I was wasting my breath because there was nothing I could say to defend the amount of time I was wasting. 

Even though I liked my process, I took her advice. I abandoned the composition books and legal pads and did all of my writing on my laptop. It felt like she was write because I wrote so much more and a much faster pace. The quality was probably worse, but I became fixated on the quantity. 

Fast forward nearly two decades later and I can say with pride that everything I’ve ever published was first written by hand. At least the first drafts. I’m a pencil person. It’s who I am and it’s part of my process. I need the physical act of writing first. I’ve written PLENTY of other things that were first typed, but none of them have ever seen the light of day because I’m not a type-first writer. I need to wear down pencils. It helps me to slow down and consider what I’m writing instead of enjoying the rapid pace of words racing across the glowing screen. 

The books that I’ve published so far have all been graphic novels. Writing those by hand is natural, because it’s nice to format a notebook page the way you see the layout of the final product - yes, I like to draw boxes and write inside them. Every time I’ve tried to write a novel, I hit the laptop and go. And I always rush and overwrite and struggle to jump back in and fix the things that need fixing.

For example, last year I wrote a novel that I had cooking in my head for some time. I finished about 75% of it and then realized how much better it would be if I made one major change. But by that point, I was more invested in finishing it than anything else, probably to remind myself that I could write an 80,000 word story. Needless to say, that book has gone untouched since finishing it about thirteen months ago. That’s fine. Sometimes I have such bursts of creative energy that I need to just get it out of my system. 

I do wonder if I would have more success writing a novel by hand and then I realize that I’m not a novelist. That’s not to say that I don’t have a good novel in me, but that the process I was discouraged from using - and embracing and standing up for - is better suited for the type of writing I have the most passion for. Namely, poetry and comic books (on a quick side note, it’s interesting to me that these were the two forms I loved reading most as a kid and I somehow convinced myself in early adulthood that I should want to write movies and novels instead…but that’s just the way these things work…all of which I’ll explore in a later post). 

I say all of this, from screen time woes to feeling obligated to write everything on a laptop, as a way to encourage anyone and everyone to go back to basics. Get a notebook. Any will do. Get some pencils. For the most part, any will do. Get a good sharpener. Trust me, you don’t want to be frustrated by a lousy sharpener; it’s a frustration that should be avoided. Once you have these three things, write. It’s a tactile experience. There’s a joyous kinetic energy to it, the pressure of the pencil on the paper. Ideas will flow differently, but naturally nonetheless. You can only write but so fast and it feels like a more sustainable and appropriate pace, where your ideas aren’t tripping over each other at the speed of 100 words per minute (or however fast you type). Pencils also force you to pause to sharpen them and it’s like you’re taking a moment to sharpen your ideas. And just as well, it’s much lighter on your back and shoulders to carry around a notebook than it is a laptop. There’s also a strange pleasure, a point of pride, in working a pencil down to an inch or two and moving on to the next one. Beyond all of this, it is better for your eyes - less screen time just might give your eyes a few more quality years of use. Yes, you’ll have to type your work eventually, but if you’re a skilled typist, you can keep your eyes focused on your notebook and not the computer screen. 

This is not an anti-technology creed. Rather, it’s a personal movement for finding what works best for me and why. You might laugh at all of this and think I’m wasting my time with pencils and papers, but I’d urge you to try it. Besides, the most distracting thing you can do with your notebook and pencil when you should be writing is doodling and doodling is just another act of creativity. Not so for a laptop.

Thanks for reading! Please reach out via email (matthew@matthewjdaley.com) or Twitter (@matthewjdaley). I’d love to hear from you.

The Art of Rejection

01.04.20

Today, I received my first rejection of the new year. This might not seem like the type of thing that I’d broadcast to the world, but rejection is as integral to the writing process as anything else. While it’s - at least for most people - the worst part of the process, it must be learned like every other stage of writing. Others could argue for any other phase of writing as the worst part; for instance, some writers fear a blank page/screen while others detest editing/rewrites while many hate the thought of self-promotion, but I’d argue that rejection is always the least pleasant part of the experience.

Last year, I went through a few stretches of writing a lot of poetry, especially when I wasn’t working on drafts of my next book. I wrote two thematic collections that will never see the light of day (neither are complete embarrassments, but they were more exercises than anything else) along with over 200 poems. It was a prolific year because I was determined to be a more productive poet…or, more aptly, to actually, finally become a poet. I also spent a lot of time going back and editing and allowing some breathing space and going back a few more times to edit/rewrite. That, along with taking a poetry class, really helped me get closer to my goal of having a poem accepted into a journal. 

Having previously published works and having spent a few years exclusively as a writer has helped me hone my skills as a poet. At least in theory. Every type of writing offers its own dynamics and challenges and I am starting at the ground level with this pursuit. Which I should. Having previous experience/credits in another medium shouldn’t give me a leg up on anyone else. Just because I can write a decent comic book script doesn’t mean I have any business trying to write poetry (though there are parallels…something I will tackle in a future post). It does, however, prepare me for the hard work required and the amount of “no thank you” I’ll encounter. I knew how to approach the writing and editing and submission process with intelligence and care, which also means I had to be prepared for rejection.

Every writer is guilty of submitting a piece and believing that it is pure genius and it would be absolutely impossible for this diamond in the rough to be rejected. They have finally cracked the code and the world will be a better place once this piece is published. Such confidence is good, but it’s also detrimental to the process because many great works were initially rejected. Rejection is expected. What would life be like if everything was always accepted? What would we learn? How would we grow?

This is not to say that rejection is fun. It sucks, at any point in your journey, whether you’re a complete novice or a veteran of your craft. Rejection hits hard. It should. It’s okay to be upset. It’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to think that the editor is a complete idiot. It’s okay to feel/think all of these things…for a few minutes. Then you have to move on because rejection is complicated and if you don’t receive any concrete feedback, you have nothing to go with. Part of it is your work, but there are also a lot of other factors that play into why you were rejected. It could be that the editor honestly didn’t like your work. That’s okay! Editors are overworked/underpaid people who base their decisions on dozens of factors. They might genuinely like your work but don’t think it meets the need of their publication/press. They might have something else similar to what you’ve submitted that they just committed to. They might be having a rough day and reading your work doesn’t change that. Or they might think your submission sucks. The truth is, you rarely know what it is and you can only beat yourself up so much before getting back to work.

And that is the most important thing about rejection. It forces you to think about what you did right/wrong with your submission, gives you the opportunity to improve your work for the next submission, and reminds you that you aren’t a genius (even if you technically are a genius). Yes, you’ll be angry or hurt at first, but don’t take it so personally that you quit. That would be foolish and most people who want to write have a short timetable for acceptance/success. Based on the law of averages, if you continue to submit and continue to improve, you will get somewhere. You probably wont’ be rich and famous, but if you wanted to be those two things, you wouldn’t have set out to be a writer. 

Most writers have a history of rejection. But if you really care, you’ll never get used to it. It’ll bother you enough to take an honest look at your work and figuring out ways to become better.  That’s what a rejection should do. It shouldn’t stop you. It should redirect you. 

I know I’ll receive many more rejections this year. Each one will sting for a few minutes, but more importantly, I’ll figure out - through writing, editing, asking for help, etc. - how to make sure some of my work is accepted. When that happens, the rejections become a point of pride, not a festering wound. While rejection is my least favorite part of writing, I recognize and accept its importance.

Thanks for reading! Please reach out via email (matthew@matthewjdaley.com) or Twitter (@matthewjdaley). I’d love to hear from you.

One Cold to Rule Them All

01.02.20

The end of the year often forces us to reflect upon our experiences of the past 365 days while making grand plans for the next 365 days. Reflection and resolutions. This is what happens during the transition from one year to the next. We all go through this process. More often that not, we focus on what did not go well and resolve to make those changes for the next year. Even though most people don’t stick to their plans, they still make a concerted effort to make plans. We want to do something better or make improvements to ourself/our lives. 

I was charging full steam ahead with the end-of-the-year, hoping to squeeze in as much quality time with people as I could all while determining strong, purposeful, meaningful goals for 2020. I was staring down nearly two weeks of vacation and I was excited, more excited for a break than I had been in two years (the last time I needed a break so badly was summer 2018). Not only was I going to spend time with family and friends, but I was also going to clean up some of the better poems I’d worked on in 2019 and prepare them for submission to various journals. Everything was ready to go…and then I got sick.

Fortunately for me, I rarely get sick. I do my best to keep healthy habits - which is important for someone who works in a school and has three children - and it tends to pay off. The flip side of typically having good health is that when I get sick, I really get sick. I don’t half-step it, going full in to the point that I wonder if my body somehow stores up small illnesses and waits to unleash a super illness on me. I’m being facetious, but it does make me wonder how my body handles these things. This particular December illness came at the worst time. I had family/friends to see and many things to do. But rather than get to go with things accordingly, I got an ear infection and a head cold and a recurring fever. Happy days indeed.

The head cold and fever would have been a bad enough combination, but the ear infection took things over the top. I haven’t had an ear infection in about thirty years and they are beyond annoying. This particular ear infection was bad because my ear canal was swollen and I had to wait over a week for the swelling to dissipate and my treatment to begin. I thought - quite ignorantly - that the ear infection might go away on its own, but it had no such plans. It waited until my ear canal was ready and thrived during that period. The medicine I received has worked out okay so far; the issue is, it’s a ten-day treatment and I’m still in the middle of it. Fingers crossed it’ll all end soon.

My intention with this particular blog post isn’t to complain about being sick or how my vacation plans were mostly thwarted because of illness. Rather, there was a silver lining to being sick. It’s a sliver of a silver lining, but I’m an optimistic person and I always try to find the good in situations. Getting sick at the end of the year forced me to slow down. Really slow down. I had hours to spend in bed or on the couch and at first I griped, but then I eased into it. I was able to - in a very particular way - become productive in my miserable state. 

One of the first benefits was I was able to research dozens of journals that I can submit poetry to. I love producing work and editing that work, but I’m not great at slowing down to research journals and truly appreciate the incredible work they’re doing. I’ve become a fan of so many journals (and, because I have numerous ambitions and an ego and a streak of craziness, I began thinking about what type of journal I’d like to create and might dive head first into it someday, though I know it’s an tremendous amount of work and keeping one going is next to impossible) that I will return to regularly. These journals are organized and run by such intelligent/talented people and I’m inspired by what labors of love they are. I hope that I can contribute to many of them, though in reading so many of the selections I recognize that I have a lot of growing to do as a poet. 

A second benefit was having time to read. I read The Best American Poetry 2019 ( so many great selections) and Ali: A Life (I’ve read a lot about Muhammed Ali over the years and still learned so much) and about half of Little Women (so great to return to this world) and the newspaper. Honest to goodness printed newspapers. I forgot what a pleasure it is to hold a newspaper and discover articles as you go, rather than clicking on articles that seem to interest you. I spent a week reading the Sunday Times and I need to make more time to do so. I also caught up on some long form journalism that I’d had saved in my favorites folder and had inadvertently ignored for some time. And I also grabbed books off my shelf and perused them, pulling out favorite sections and realizing that life is not a race to read as many books as possible.

A third benefit was having time to watch stuff. I didn’t go overboard, because I didn’t want to burn my eyes out - or, frankly, to become addicted - and feel even worse than I already did. I watched Marriage Story (intense) and both seasons of Succession (who says spending twenty hours with despicable people can’t be fun?) and a few episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine (always excellent) and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (a family tradition). There are way too many TV shows and films to “catch-up” with and when I lived in LA I tried much harder to be up on top of things. Now that I’m back in New York, I don’t bother. I’m choosy and that’s fine. It was nice watching as much as I did. At some point in the future, I’m going to write a post about the theory that serialized TV has replaced reading because I have some strong thoughts on the topic.

I wish I could say that a fourth benefit was that I rested and slept a lot, but I could not do either…which is exactly why I had so much time to research and read and watch stuff. Even though I didn’t end the year with one last big push, I still had the opportunity to reflect and plan for 2020. While I have personal and creative goals for 2020 and beyond, this year marks my fourth decade of existence; above all else, my goal is always being part of the solution and not the problem. There’s no guarantee that I’m accomplishing this, but I’ll continue to work hard to do so. I’m excited, as always, for the new year and what it brings. I hope that everyone who makes resolutions is supported and motivated to stick with them. I hope that those resolutions make a difference. And right now, I hope that this ear infection/head cold goes away. I’m ready to get to work. 

Thanks for reading! Please reach out via email (matthew@matthewjdaley.com) or Twitter (@matthewjdaley). I’d love to hear from you.

Paintbrush Freedom

12.28.19

How often do we do things we aren’t good at? That we understand we lack skill or talent and yet pursue anyway? As adults, we don’t take risks that often and we rarely step out of our comfort zone. We don’t want to be embarrassed. We don’t want to take the time to develop the skills we need to be good at something (we have a myriad of excuses for this, but it typically boils down to time…we’re too busy with this, too busy with that). We also don’t want to suck at things. When we’re growing up, we’re expected to try things to figure out what we’re good at and focus on those, from academics to athletics to hobbies to interests. As adults - at least for most of us - we’ve established who we are and we stick with it, double down on it, even when those things are no longer pleasurable or fulfilling.

When I turned 30, I gave myself a gift that I expected would help shape the next phase of my life: a one-semester stint in an art class. For years, I’d wanted to paint but didn’t have the nerve or know-how to start. I had ideas for paintings, created characters in stories who were painters, and loved studying art and artists. But I never took the plunge myself, too self-conscience of being terrible or wasteful. I decided to make a change when I turned 30, enrolled in what was supposed to be a beginner’s class, bought all my supplies, and arrived early my first night. The professor was reputable and I was eager to learn under her. When I sat down and listened to introductions, I realized that the class was improperly marketed. This wasn’t a class for beginners; in fact, this was a class for MFA’s who were building their portfolios for galleries and publications. I was the only non-artist in the class. I began the first exercise as instructed, but the professor wasn’t giving me the time of day. It was uncomfortable and my fears about being terrible were realized. Everyone in the class was a trained artist and I was a schlub off the streets. At the end of the three-hour session, the professor finally acknowledged my presence. She didn’t bother to look at my output and told me, “this class isn’t for you…I’ll make sure you get a refund”. I asked why the class was misrepresented in the course catalog and she said I should take that up with the people who put the catalog together. I pushed further, knowing that she would be responsible for submitting the course description and she brushed me off. That was the beginning and end of my art education.

It left a bitter taste in my mouth. I had considered taking other courses, like poetry or memoir, but I knew I had enough skills to tackle those things on my own. Painting -and art in general - was something I needed help with from the ground up. While I still had an urge to paint and had many ideas for paintings, I convinced myself that it wasn’t for me, that the terrible experience with the class was a sign that I was meant to stick with writing. 

So I did. For the next seven years, I focused my creative energy on writing. Some of that energy was misguided and misused, but it was more positive than negative. Then, in the summer of 2017, I lost my job. I was fortunate enough to find a job in education right away, but the shift from working in both the corporate/creative spaces back to education was jarring. I tried to maintain a writing routine throughout this transition and was fortunate enough to develop what will become my next project, but the writing was difficult because I was going through so much. My head wasn’t clear. I was putting myself under a tremendous amount of pressure. I had new, challenging, time consuming responsibilities at my new school. And I was still chasing a dream that I only cared about in theory. I was pushing myself to the brink. I did this for about ten months. I was hurting myself emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, and creatively. I was forcing things and it all came to a head that next summer. I was on a break from work, truly getting away from it all on the other side of the country. I had writing deadlines that I nearly killed myself to meet and I barely adjusted to the first year at my new job. I was exhausted. And yet I still had creative energy that I needed to release. This energy, however, could not be spent through writing.

I was going to paint. 

I had bottled up the desire to paint for so many years that I couldn’t contain it any longer. I drove to Michael’s, bought the supplies I - and my kids - needed, made a makeshift studio outside, and began to paint. It was the most freeing creative exercise of my life. I was mixing colors and testing brushes and figuring things out on the fly. It was also wonderful because my kids were painting right alongside me. I really didn’t know what I was doing and the results proved it, but I felt the stress melting away. And I wanted to paint more and more and more. There was nothing stopping me from doing so.

To be completely transparent, I’m not an artist at all. My paintings look like someone dropped a few vials of paint on a canvas and accidentally sat down on them. Which is fine. Could I get better? Perhaps. Have I thought of trying to get better? Sometimes. But I’m more invested in painting as a creative outlet that allows me to destress and be hyper-focused on a task that puts me into an interesting and unpredictable creative space. I’ve considered creating a blog around my experiences, but I doubt anyone would want to read that. I’m comfortable with being bad at it and I don’t need to strive to be better. It’s something just for me (and of course, my kids, who like getting messy with paint). 

Does this, in any way, tie back into my writing? Absolutely. Painting frees me from having to channel all of my creativity into one pursuit. When I’m suffering from writer’s block or too caught up in life to give writing the time it needs, I can paint. It’s working different creative muscles and I don’t put undo pressure on myself to constantly produce with writing. Painting makes me a better writer because it allows me to give my writing some breathing room. There are many people who are talented in multiple creative fields. I’m not one of them and that’s okay. One pursuit still informs the other. I used to try to write my way through everything, but now I can follow a different path. And if by chance I ever painted something that wasn’t a compete abomination to the art world, perhaps I’d try to write something to accompany it. 

In general, I’d encourage anyone who thrives in one creative field to try another creative pursuit. It’s okay to be bad at it because it will open possibilities and teach you things about yourself. And you never know where it will take you.

Thanks for reading! Please reach out via email (matthew@matthewjdaley.com) or Twitter (@matthewjdaley). I’d love to hear from you.

Learning to Breathe

12.16.19

I used to be a sprinter. Not literally. I never ran track and field. Not because I have anything against running. I’ve always enjoyed it, actually, and took up jogging all the way back in middle school as a way to keep in shape (for soccer and for a short lived basketball career). Jogging also gave me an excuse to listen to music, first on a walkman, then discman, then iPod, then phone. I would wake up early and jog and listen to whatever album I wanted to commit to memory. I enjoyed being outside, regardless of the season, breathing in the fresh air and pushing myself to be a better runner. It always helped to be in shape during soccer season and it became a routine I continue to this day. Running and writing go hand-in-hand (it is monotonous, solitary, and requires routine and dedication) and writers with far more skill than me have already tackled the subject. 

The reason I bring it up is because I was always a jogger, working on distance and even paces, except when it came to writing. With writing, I was a sprinter. I didn’t apply the good lessons of running to developing my craft as a writer. I wasn’t interested in building my endurance, finding a suitable pace, reflecting on what was/wasn’t working, and thinking about long-term goals. Instead, I wanted to move as quickly as possible and get through it. Did this mean I wasn’t enjoying the writing? No. I enjoyed creating, but not much else about the process. 

For long distance runners, they have to prioritize pacing and breathing. For sprinters, they have to get from Point A to Point B as fast as humanly possible and worry about breathing once they cross the finish line (I’m sure sprinters have an intense breathing regiment that they develop and practice, but I doubt it’s quite the same as it is for distance runners…but if I’m wrong, I’d love to hear more about it). Why was I a jogger in one realm and a sprinter in another? The disconnect might be more typical than I realize; for me personally, I wish I could explain my behavior better. As stated in an earlier post, I judged my writing based on quantity and not quality. To be fair, I was also in love with every new idea that popped into my head, believing that it was more magical and attractive than the last one. The new ideas were never better and because I pride myself on being loyal, I didn’t want to quit on ideas that I’d already started. Which meant that I would rush through them in order to move onto the next idea. 

Quantity ruled me for about fifteen years. I have produced a ton of work and about 95% of it is forgettable (fortunately not regrettable). A few people, including editors and mentors, would tell me, “let the project breathe and come back to it”. I’d commit to doing that very thing, and then abandon it immediately and jump right back into the project. I never gave it space or breathing room, which I needed as did the project. And because I was in full quantity mode, I never associated my stunted growth with my inability to let things sit for a while. 

Until I had no other choice but to let things breathe.

My latest project (not the poetry work, but my next book - still not announced and I won’t spoil it yet) is my most ambitious undertaking yet, both in scope and scale. I’m thrilled to be working on it, but along the way, it’s hit a few roadblocks that had nothing to do with the project itself. Lots of things - including deadlines and people - shifted around and I had no other choice but to sit with it. And it was a painful experience. At first. But once I allowed for some breathing room, I recognized how helpful it was. The first book was finished for a year until I came back to it and once I saw it with fresh eyes, I realized how much needed to change. Changes that would benefit this book and the entire project moving forward. That meant a major overhaul that the editor had to approve, but once I pitched it to her, she was on board. It opened up the entire project. I also thought that I was ready for the rest of the project and I’ve had the luxury of more breathing time and things are changing again. New ideas come to me and I’m now seeing if and how they can fit. 

All of this sounds wonderful, but how do I assure that it becomes a normal part of my process? The first thing that I have to acknowledge is that many projects don’t have this luxury. If you’re writing under a strict deadline, you don’t have much breathing room. I’m fond of deadlines and believe that they are essential to most creative endeavors, but now I’m seeing the benefit of having some flexibility (which is why I enjoy the book writing process over more deadline-heavy projects). I used to juggle multiple ambitious projects simultaneously. For example, I’d try developing a book series and TV series and movie script all at the same time. Again, I was an idiot. Some people can do it, but I always tried to do this while also holding down a career. It wasn’t working.

The new approach is more logical and straightforward. I have one major project I’m working on and then supplement my breathing time with poetry. I’d never advocate to anyone to abandon writing altogether (yes, there are people that can do this quite successfully, but most creative types need to flex that creativity…the only exception I make for myself is when I’m working on a painting, which I’ll save for another blog post). Poetry allows me to be compact with my thoughts and language and dive back in shortly after to improve upon it. It’s very different than the writing I do for my book project, but it compliments that work nicely. I’m still indulging in language, honing my skills in clarity, and improving my work as a self editor. It’s a medium that I love and if it’s all that I did, I’d be satisfied. It has, as of late, also forced me out of my bubble (to take my class and later this week, to my first reading) and aided in my process for learning how to breathe. 

It’s something that I’m still working on and will continue to work on, but for now, I’m doing a lot more jogging than sprinting. 

Thanks for reading! Please reach out via email (matthew@matthewjdaley.com) or Twitter (@matthewjdaley). I’d love to hear from you.

The One Great Work Theory

12.12.19

In my second year of adulthood (i.e. two years after I graduated from college), I was working at an all-boys private school, teaching literature, and working on my masters degree in secondary education at Fordham University. I was also in love and planning a wedding (as much as the groom actually helps in this regard) and doing my best to adjust to adulthood. It wasn’t always easy. On top of all of that, I was also figuring out how to be a writer. My intention behind moving to New York and becoming a teacher was to help me design my life around becoming a writer. What type of writer? I was open to all possibilities. Too open, too distracted, too unfocused, but as long as I was working toward being a writer, I felt like I was doing the right thing.

At that point in my life, I was interested in being a novelist, playwright, poet, and screenwriter. Even though I was set on becoming a professional writer, I didn’t have an interest in getting an MFA. I figured that I would learn by doing and living an eventful life would provide me with all the material I needed. The only brief detour toward changing my mind was through applying to Juliard for their playwright program, which I was rejected from; this was for the best, for within six months I was attempting to stage three short plays and my heart was not into it. I would rely instead on routine and hard work. Both came naturally. I’d wake up every morning by 4:00am and write non-stop till 6:00am. Without fail. I wrote multiple novels and screenplays and a smattering of poems. I knew how to settle into a routine. I knew how to work hard. I didn’t know how to work smart. I kept writing and didn’t look back. I wasn’t learning how to edit/revise my own work, I wasn’t joining writing groups, I wasn’t sharing my work with anyone. These are, I’m certain, the mistakes of budding writers. I assumed that amassing a portfolio of work would eventually lead to something, that I could write multiple novels in different genres and someone would pick one of them up, instead of being honest about my output and learning to refine it.

To be completely transparent, I wasn’t reflective at all about what I was writing. That is, not until I had a random conversation with a co-worker.

I’m usually great at remembering people’s names, but for some reason, I cannot remember his. We only worked together for a few months - he left a few months after I started to pursue a different career path - but the conversation stuck with me. He taught Physics, though his real passion was theater and poetry. He wrote many plays and submitted them to theaters and workshops all over the world. He had a stack of rejection letters he kept in a filing cabinet at home. He wasn’t deterred. Though he had a great mind for the Sciences, he loved literature. He read novels at a breakneck pace and we talked at length about a lot of the “important” books that were released that year (2004). After a few conversations, he confessed to his writerly pursuits and asked if I’d be willing to read a few one-act plays and a collection of poems. I agreed, both for selfish reasons (here was someone who could read my work!) and out of curiosity (was his stuff any good?). He was delighted - and I’m sure he had asked other members of the ELA department at some point and was politely rejected - and promised to bring me some work the very next day.

Nothing could’ve prepared me for what he gave me the next morning. I was sitting in the computer lab, overseeing the students who arrived to school early for unofficial study hall, when he entered with a smile as wide as the Grand Canyon and a three-inch binder filled with papers. It was easily over 500 pages double-sided, containing a collection of plays and poems. He told me, “take your time, but I’m excited to hear what you think”. Did he expect me to read all of it? Unfortunately, yes, and since I’d already agreed, I had to dive in. Besides, if I did this for him, he would do the same for me. Or so I hoped. I started to flip through while he was still there and he said, “there’s no particular order to things, so start and end in any order”. That’s all I needed to hear. I didn’t have to read it all. I only needed to read enough to converse with him. That would sate his need for feedback.

It only took me about ten-minutes to understand why he’d been rejected. He was - at least from my estimation - suffering from the same ailment as me. He was working from the principle of quantity, not quality. Everything was overwritten and uninteresting. Not that I was much better at twenty-four, but there were hints at promise. I’d had enough positive feedback to know that.

The only thing I felt driving to work the next morning was nervousness. I knew he’d come to see me during study hall and he’d expect me to have some opinions about some of the work. I’d never been in this position before. I wanted to be honest without being rude. I also didn’t want to delay it because that would only make it worse. I prepared a few surface-level comments for one of the plays and two of the poems. I expected he’d probe deeper for more insight/justification for my feedback and I was moderately prepared for it. He did, of course, visit me during study hall, except he wasn’t ready for feedback. He was more interested in something else, something he’d forgotten to share with me the day before or during any of our conversations.

His theory.

This guy whose name I cannot remember had a grand theory of literature and it was this: every writer, regardless of genre or time period in which they worked, only had one great work in them, one masterpiece. This was true for novelists, poets, and playwrights. My instinct was to poke holes in the theory, but I gave the moment pause and allowed him to continue. “Writers will publish SO much work, but only have one truly great piece in them. So what I’m going for, is finding that one masterpiece that I have in me. When you’re reading, tell me which one you think is probably my greatest work and that’s what I’ll focus on. I don’t want to publish hundreds of poems or produce thirty plays. I only want to find the one work that will represent me. Nobody wants to be bothered with all the rest.”

Disagreeing with him was secondary for two reasons. First, he wasn’t interested in a debate about his One Great Work Theory. There are plenty of artists/writers that have produced multiple works that are remarkable and memorable. Works that stand the test of time. The second reason I wasn’t engaging in debate is because I wouldn’t have to read much of his work. I could skim through it all and find one or two “masterpieces” and tell him to focus on those things. Which is exactly what I did and when I returned his binder with two poems marked by post-it note, he said, “interesting choices” and left it at that. He volunteered to read some of my stuff and I shared with him a short play and his reaction was aggressive: he wanted to direct it and fundraise for it and so on and fortunately, he left before I had to say no.

Life works strangely - which is obvious to anyone who’s living - and even though these few encounters occurred fifteen years ago, the One Great Work Theory has really stuck with me. Not because I believe it or believe in it, but because everyone gets to the point when they begin to measure their accomplishments. I’m not there yet. Thank goodness, though I wonder if I will reach that point when I look backwards and wonder if I ever produced one great work. I’ve been fortunate enough to work as a professional writer in different capacities to varying degrees of success. Having published four books - with more on the way - is something I’m proud of and even if it doesn’t define my life, I do hope someone finds them important. The likelihood of that is slim. As I push more into poetry, I wonder if I’ll ever write a poem anyone will remember. Again, the likelihood is slim, but that’s not why I write. The primary reason I disagreed with my short-term coworker is because he pursued writing for the wrong reason. Very few writers will make a lot of money or become famous or write something timeless, so that can’t be what motivates you. It has to be something deeper, something that has burrowed itself into the fabric of your being and clings on to you till there no longer is a you. It’s a lonely pursuit and even if you don’t reach a level of greatness, you can reach others. That’s what I’m going for. None of us are outracing time or outwitting the Gods. All we can do is stay ahead of our own shadows and keep going and going and going.

Thanks for reading! Please reach out via email (matthew@matthewjdaley.com) or Twitter (@matthewjdaley). I’d love to hear from you.

Hearing it Out Loud

12.06.19

“You have to accept hearing your writing out loud.”

This, according to one of my poetry workshop classmates, was intended for all of us to hear and not just me, but it certainly felt like it was directed toward me personally. I’ve worked over the years to build durable writing habits: writing every day and making no excuses to avoid it, becoming an honest editor of my own work, reading as much as I could even when that meant passing up on watching a movie or starting a much buzzed about TV show, accepting that rejection was part of the process at every level of the game, sharing my work with others and insisting on transparent feedback, and in turn applying that feedback to my work, allowing time between drafts so I could see my work with fresh eyes, etc. 

The one strategy I never adopted was reading my work aloud. I never felt comfortable doing it and to me, it felt ridiculous. Not as a strategy, but as a tool that I would use. The first time I’d heard this advice was in high school. As a sophomore, I took both Public Speaking and Creative Writing during the same semester. Both of my teachers, both of whom were great and influential on me as a teacher and writer, suggested strongly that I read my work aloud before submitting it or presenting it. I tried, but my fifteen-year old self was too self-conscious to make it a habit. So I ignored the advice for the next twenty-five years. Again, not because I believed my writing was so elevated that I didn’t need to read my own work out loud but because I never found purpose for it.

Until, that is, this past January. 

My best friend from childhood and still closest friend was getting married. He and his wife asked if I would be willing to read a poem during their ceremony. It was up to me whether I wanted to find a poem that fit the occasion or write one on my own. Finding a poem that encapsulates thirty-five years of friendship and the particular happiness I felt for them seemed impossible (though I always embrace the opportunity to rummage through life looking for poems), so I warned them that I’d write something for them. It wasn’t just that I had to write it though; I needed to read it at one of the most important days in their lives. No pressure whatsoever. 

Writing the first few drafts was easy enough, but then the obvious dawned on me: this thing might read okay, but if it doesn’t sound okay, I could put a real damper on their ceremony. Nobody wants to be that guy, so I began to practice the poem’s sounds, find its rhythms, and learn how it could and couldn’t be performed. Fortunately for me, I had a six hour red-eye flight to practice and that - much to the chagrin of the passengers surrounding me - made a huge difference. I reshuffled and reworded things and got it to the point where it sounded good. Needless to say, I didn’t embarrass myself or them during the ceremony. It shouldn’t have required such a momentous event for me to do something so obvious, but as mentioned before, I’m a slow learner. 

Ten months later, when my classmate said “You have to accept hearing your writing out loud”, it made it much easier and obvious to adopt and tolerate. The main difference being that we’d be writing live in class and throwing it out to the world (i.e my fifteen classmates) within a matter of moments. I was worried about overwriting - a persistent problem for me - so I focused on keeping it short. It would be easy to ramble and I didn’t want to subject anyone to that. Within the fifteen minute span we had to work, I wrote and edited this:

I couldn’t blame the sun,

The ball was its birthmark

Now an asteroid behind me

I tried, really, to do the only thing asked of me

There’s running and panic,

Whose job was it to mow the outfield?

My father’s bellow echoing off the backstop

With the urgency of beaches being stormed:

“Throw the goddamn ball”, but

I find my hat first,

Send it soaring to the ether,

Retiring my number before I start

Not great, but not terrible either. The strongest aspect of it is that it read aloud well. I mumbled through it to myself and scratched out words and phrases until I got it to the point where I wouldn’t be embarrassed to read it in front of strangers. Because that’s exactly what I had to do. I had time to ruminate the poem for my best friend’s wedding and the audience was friendly, even the members that were strangers to me. This was different. This wasn’t a hostile audience, but we were all trying to impress each other with our poems. On my first night, that’s exactly what I wanted to do. 

I was one of the last to go and every poem performed before me felt so polished and rehearsed. I’m certain that all of my classmates felt the same way as me, pressuring themselves to write and perform at a level that impresses everyone else. When it was finally my turn, I read with as much confidence as I could muster, focusing more on clarity and volume than anything else. And I’d say that it mostly worked. My classmates laughed at the lines I’d hoped they would and provided me with some sound feedback. 

Reading my poems out loud isn’t part of my everyday process. Not yet, at least. I’m saving it for later drafts, after they’ve sat for awhile and had time to be given proper shape. It is, however, slowly becoming habit, especially as I prepare to attend open mic nights. I won’t have a six-hour flight before my first open mic night, but I’m sure to annoy a few passengers somewhere with my mumblings and pencil scratches before I face a crowd. 

Thanks for reading! Please reach out via email (matthew@matthewjdaley.com) or Twitter (@matthewjdaley). I’d love to hear from you.

Taking the Plunge (for Real this Time)

12.02.19

After finishing the fourth - and finally editor approved - draft of the most ambitious project I’ve undertaken, the last thing I should’ve done is jumped into anything else, and yet that’s exactly what I did. Taking a break would’ve been the smart thing today, especially after an intense third-to-fourth draft that left me drained; it’s all worth it, of course, because the approved draft is so much better than where the book started. I’m proud of where the story is right now and all the work is certainly worth it. 

The smart thing to do after submitting and getting approval - following on the heels of moving across the country and starting a new job - would have been to take some time to gather my thoughts, reflect a little, get ready for the next book (first mentally, then plotting out), spend some quality time reading and reading and reading, watch a show or two, and breathe deeply.   But that’s never been my style. Down time makes me restless. Nobody - especially my wife and kids - wants to deal with the restless version of me. 

So I signed up for a class. 

Not just any class, but a poetry class. 

Yes, the poetry bug again.

I’ve never been able to shake poetry and it’s the one medium I always return to. Without fail. It’s the art form that I read every day and write within constantly, and yet I’ve never been able to commit to it fully. It became, more than anything else, my journaling or therapy. I’d get things out with my poems, but never spend quality time editing or submitting anywhere or learning how to make it more than a whim. I’d go through flourishes where I’d write nothing but poetry and those poems would sit in notebooks or desktop files with obvious names (Poems Fall 2018). This has been going on for years. It was even the topic of the last post I wrote over a year ago. I made a vow to myself to get serious about poetry. And yet, I didn’t. I psyched myself out, convinced myself that I wasn’t that good or I should exclusively stick with the writing that got me traction (comic books/graphic novels). I’d been doing this for about fifteen years, building myself up and tearing myself down in a matter of days. 

I couldn’t do that anymore. So I signed up for a poetry workshop. At the worst possible time. Who am I kidding? When is the right time to commit to something? Never. I had to do it. If I didn’t sign up for that five-week workshop, I’d waste another year making excuses. I finally, finally, took the plunge (roughly fifteen years after I should have done so, but I’ve always been a both a slow learner and one who needs to learn the hard way). 

What did I do before the first class, besides read through the last two years of my poetry and determine I had no business trying to write another poem? I talked myself out of going. At least I tried to. I came up with every excuse I could not to go. I just finished my book. Things were busy at work. If I took a class, I’d be home less (albeit 90 minutes per week) at night, which means I’d neglect my fatherly duties. Etc, etc, etc. I was supposed to have done this years earlier and I failed to and I’d already paid for this workshop, told a few people I was doing it, and still tried to figure out how not to do it. 

I dragged myself to the car and drove over and waited so I’d be late by at least ten minutes. Intentional lateness would play in my favor, or so I thought. Until I stepped inside and realized that I didn’t have a seat around the table and had to cause a scene to get a chair out of a closet in the synagogue’s basement and wait for two people to shuffle their seats apart just enough for me to squeeze in between them. I had arrived. Finally. I wasn’t ready, but that was okay. I finally took my seat at the table… 

Thanks for reading! Please reach out via email (matthew@matthewjdaley.com) or Twitter (@matthewjdaley). I’d love to hear from you. 

It’s Been a Little While

12.01.19

It’s been too long…and there’s no good excuse for not using a website I designed and operate to post my writing regularly…but here’s to another round of trying to use the internet to maintain a micro-fraction of relevancy!

Twelve years ago, while attending a screenwriting conference at a hotel near LAX (which attracted thousands of people like me, hungry to learn more about how to break into the screenwriting trade), I joined a small circle of talented, ambitious writers-to-be, all of whom had good ideas. A few had finished screenplays and were ready to sell their work. It didn’t take long for us to realize that this really wasn’t the place for that and after attending workshop after workshop, the one thing that became clear was every presenter, regardless of position, had the same advice: to make it in the business, you have to live in LA. 

That’s not exactly what I wanted to hear, though I wasn’t surprised. I also wasn’t ready to move to LA; my life was in New York. The other thing that I came to realize was that I might not want to be a screenwriter after all. I shared this sliver of information with one of my new compatriots, Lea Black, who has remained a friend for a dozen years (I couldn’t name anyone else from my short-term trusted circle; we only knew each other for three days). Specifically, I said, “this is all interesting and I love movies, but what I think I really want is to be a poet”. She laughed because it sounded ridiculous, but she also laughed because she could sense that I was telling the truth. 

I’ve chased a lot of writing dreams over the years, from book publishing to TV writing to feature film writing to comic book writing. The one constant I’ve returned to over and over again has been poetry. It’s a medium that I’ve loved as a student, teacher, and writer, but I’ve never allowed myself to go for broke and truly try my hand at it. To be even more honest, I’ve never put the work in. That’s changing.

Every once in awhile, I’d write a poem that I’d be brave enough to share with a friend or neighbor. The experience always made me nervous. I was far more comfortable sharing any other forms of writing. It had nothing to do with the nature of my poems (they weren’t nakedly biographical), but rather, that they were poems at all. Writers can hack their way through a lot of different forms, but you have to be highly skilled to write a great poem. 

At this point in my life (38!), I’m freeing myself to write poetry. Beyond that, I want to publish poems and perform poems and not be shy about sharing my poems. This could all be a terrible experiment and I’ll go back to my other writing commitments before long. While that may be true, I have to try. So I will. Not only that, but I’ll chronicle my experiences, whatever they may be. I am finally willing to try and be vulnerable and terrible and perhaps, eventually, okay. I might not ever be good enough to call myself a poet, but I know I’ll figure some things out along the way.

Thanks for reading! Please reach out via email (matthew@matthewjdaley.com) or Twitter (@matthewjdaley). I’d love to hear from you. 

Where Thoughts Collide

#2

Writing for Kids

For reasons I cannot quite explain, I wanted to write a book for young readers. I’d had a bunch ofideas over the years that would be good for middle readers or young adults, but I talked myself out of it because I was worried that I couldn’t pull it off. Writing, in general, is one thing while writing for kids seemed like an entirely different beast. 

Consider all the books that you truly, truly love and I bet there are quite a few that you first discovered as a kid. This is why I have so much admiration for authors of children’s books, middle reader books, and young adult books, regardless of genre. It remains impressive the impact that certain writers had on me, like E.B. White, Shel Silverstein, Madeline L’Engle, L.M. Montgomery, Roald Dahl, Wilson Rawls, Lois Lowry, Crockett Johnson, Katherine Paterson, Mary Norton, Louise Fitzhugh, Chris Van Allsburg, Astrid Lindgren, Mildred D. Taylor, Judy Blume, Ellen Raskin, Lynne Reid Banks, Alvin Schwartz, and a whole lot more. These writers held me in their spell and in a certain way, continue to do so. They made magic with words and in subtle ways, inspired me to want to be a writer. It wasn’t until I wrote my first story and had adults react positively (in the fifth grade) that I wanted to be a writer, but all of that reading beforehand prepared me to even take on such a daunting task of writing a real story. 

The impact of these writers and their works was so profound that I didn’t dare see one of my ideas - good or bad - to fruition. I concentrated, instead, on developing ideas for adult readers. If an adult read my work and didn’t enjoy it, they’d dismiss it and move on; if a child read my work and didn’t enjoy it, they might dismiss reading altogether. That’s a lot of pressure. This attitude - or fear - reminds me of a quote from Roald Dahl. He said: “Children’s books are harder to write. It’s tougher to keep a child interested because a child doesn’t have the concentration of an adult. The child knows the television is in the next room. It’s tough to hold a child, but it’s a lovely thing to try to do.” While it is a “lovely thing to try to do”, it can be daunting. But I no longer had an excuse.

After publishing my first series, the itch to write for children came back. At first, I tried to ignore it. “It’ll go away”, I told myself. It didn’t. It got worse. Finally, I succumbed. I couldn’t run away from it forever. Not that writing for kids was my calling, necessarily, but it could be part of my repertoire. 

I spent more time on “pre-writing” activities with The Not-So Secret Society than I had on any other project. It had to be right before I took it to the publisher because I wanted it to have an impact on readers in the same way that so many great books influenced me. I wanted kids to read it and be inspired to read more and pick up a pencil and start writing their own stories. This is lofty and I totally get it. The likelihood of that happening is slim, but I’m optimistic. Even with all of the distractions that kids deal with. When Mr. Dahl made his above statement, he didn’t have to compete with video games and phones and tablets and…you get it. I could be cynical about this OR I could hunker down and see this as an opportunity. Yes, kids might have more distractions than ever before, but that doesn’t make books less important. It makes them more important. Kids still love to read and if they find a book or a series that they love, it’s even more impressive. 

While it may or may not be more difficult to write for children than adults, it’s definitely more important. And I couldn’t be more excited and nervous for my first book for young readers to hit bookshelves on August 1st. From there, you never know what young reader will discover it. 

#1

Stage Fright, Writer’s Edition

By the time my career is over and I look back on it with pride, I certainly hope that one of the characters I’ve created has a superpower unlike any other: the ability to not feel nervous. That might not sound like the greatest superpower of all time, considering how great it would be (at least temporarily, you know, for a test run) to have Superman’s powers or Professor X’s powers. But how many people get nervous about something? Everyone. Except babies. And certain elderly people when they cross a certain age threshold and stop caring what other people think. But even then, they might get a tiny bit nervous.

Would the ability to not be nervous be all that beneficial? It’s worth thinking about. Being nervous can be a good thing. It can prevent you from doing something stupid. And it can force you to over prepare for a situation. I suppose if you didn’t feel nervous you’d always be overconfident, which would lead to its own set of problems. 

The only reason nervousness or the ability to not feel nervous is on my mind is because, big surprise, I’ve been nervous. The kind of nervousness that impairs my sleep, has me second guessing things, messes with my diet. The all-encompassing type. Externally, I’ve kept it cool. I haven’t chewed my fingernails off or forgotten basic hygiene. Internally, I’m a mess.

All because I have a new project launching in three days. 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited. Ecstatic. Euphoric. Look up excited in the thesaurus. I’m all those words. Being on the verge of a new project’s launch is one of the most intense and rewarding times anyone can experience. I’ve been working on this project for two years and I haven’t spoken about it that often because I like things to be announced before spilling my guts. Call me superstitious. Or call me foolish because, hey, you know what?, maybe talking about it would make me less nervous. Doubtful, but maybe. 

So if I’m all types of excited, why am I nervous? Outside of the fact that nervousness and excitement are quite similar, once the project is announced and once it’s out in the world, I can no longer control it. My work is done. If people hate it, I can’t change it. If people laugh at it, I can’t put up a forcefield to protect it. It lives. Just like Anne Bradstreet proclaimed in her poem “The Author to Her Book” (1678): “Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain”. Writers having cold feet isn’t new!

This is the writer’s version of stage freight. It’s certainly possible for us to go out into the world and make public appearances, read in front of an audience, interact with fans, and so on, but that pales in comparison to a release. This is our opening night performance. If something might go wrong, it’s bound to happen on opening night. The benefit of a performance is that things can be corrected and improved. With a book, every performance is opening night.

So what’s the advice? Get it right the first time? Easier said than done. So much work and rework goes into anything that’s ever published. It’s a minor miracle that anything is ever published, that a writer is willing to let go, to, as Bradstreet put it, “send thee out the door”. Writers want people to read their work - I’m sure there are a few out there that don’t, but that sounds like a reverse psychology marketing strategy that just might work - and when someone spends quality time with a book, they form an opinion about it. Writers do the same thing when they read. The sharing of opinions happens in so many different ways now that you are bound to hear them. It’s almost impossible to tune it out. It always feels wonderful when someone says nice things about your work, but the scathing remarks stick with you. You could hear 100 comments that praise you and the one that calls you a fraud or hack sticks with you more. That’s the way most of us are wired. 

I keep telling myself I’m ready. And I’ll always have to remind myself of this. That this particular book - whichever one it may be from this point on - deserves to meet the world. It’s meant to be this way. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be nervous about it. Or that I shouldn’t be.