A transformative craft
โIf your life were a book, would you like your character?โ
These words have been nibbling at my conscience for years, surfacing at the most inopportune timesโwhile cheating on a girlfriend, stealing from a family member, cooking cocaine in a spoonโฆ The answer was always the same: โNo, I would not like my character. I would hate my character.โ
There are few things in this world as unsustainable and soul-sucking as drug abuse. This is far from breaking news. The hard math states that someone in your orbit is suffering right now, be it your child, sibling, significant other, friend, neighbor, co-worker or yourself. For most, the needle and the crack pipe are a life sentence of enslavement. However, there are exceptions. Some find Jesus, others escape through a 12-step program, and I would never underestimate the healing properties in the love of a woman. But for me, the way out was through the written word.
When I first beganย Consider the Dragonflyย I did so in desperation. It was a Hail Mary, a half-court buzzer beater, my last shot to escape the quicksand of my old patterns and do something honorable. The universe gave me the bonus plan. Barely a few pages into the first chapter, the characters shimmered to life. Protagonists and antagonists whispered backstory into my heart, explaining why they were the way they were, confiding secrets and fears and dreams, drawing me deeper into the world of story. And while I was busy being a conduit, head down, scribbling furiously, a sort of alchemy was taking place in my own world. Impulsivity was converted to discipline. Recklessness was exchanged for structure. I was suddenly protective of my remaining brain cells and mournful of those I had squandered. The craft was changing me.
There is something empowering about writing a novel, something spiritual about plugging into the collective consciousness and transcribing the flow of words from the ether, something transformative. Iโve been clean for a few years now. My second book,ย With Arms Unbound, will be outย this summerย and Iโm presently knee-deep in a new project. Some will say that Iโve merely swapped addictions. Maybe so. Iโm cool with that. Because today when that old question pops into my headโโIf your life were a book, would you like your character?โโthe answer is a resounding “Hell yeah!”
[This post originally appeared on malcolmivey.com 6/1/14 as “Writing: A transformative craft”.]
There is a villain in my second novel, With Arms Unbound, with the unfortunate name of Festus Mulgrew. Heโs a meth cook from central Florida with a pet spider named Junior and a problem making eye contact. Like any decent villain on the page or the screen, Festus wasnโt born bad. There are reasons why he is the way he is. But that doesnโt make him any less dangerous. If anything, his humanity makes him even scarier, or at least more believable.
We’ve all known loudmouths. There’s one in every hood, every club, every schoolyard, every basketball court, every prison dorm. They’re everywhere, beating on their chests, threatening, bullying, shadowboxing, trumpeting their own toughness. And most of the time, we believe them. So it’s always surprising when someone comes along and knocks them on their ass. They were all form and no substance.
I’m not positive when it happened, somewhere between Virginia Tech and Fort Hood. But by the time the little 9-year-old girl in Chicago was murdered in a drive-by while waiting on her school bus, the feeling was unavoidable. Irrepressible. Then came Gabby Giffords, then Sandy Hook Elementary, then Aurora, Colorado. I cringed with every tragic breaking news story, right along with the rest of America. But unlike the rest of America, my disgust was not reserved strictly for the shooters. Some of it I saved for myself.
I’ve been in a slump lately. I think it’s some kind of writer’s postpartum. Now that On the Shoulders of Giants is complete and in the editing phase, I don’t know what to do with myself. Without a working project, I feel adrift. Anchorless. And my old diversions only leave me hollow and unfulfilled.
I just finished reading an amazing book, 10% Happier by Dan Harris. Mr. Harris is the ABC news correspondent who had a nationally televised panic attack on Good Morning America in 2004. 10% Happier is the hilarious account of his journey as both skeptic and seeker. It centers largely on the benefits of meditation. (I can almost see the five people reading this page rolling their eyes simultaneously.) While there is a definite unearned stigma attached to meditation, Iโll leave that for the holy men and gurus to sort out. No sermon here. Promise. I just want to touch on the parallel between meditation and writing.
I’ve always had a thing for the number 9. When I was a kid, there was a local graffiti artist who used to tag it all over South Miami. I remember riding in the back of our family car and seeing it spray-painted on bus stops and the sides of businesses. Once I was conditioned to look for it, the number began popping up everywhere. Highlighted on taxicabs, gas station price signs, and math homework assignments.
My fatherโs father was a writer and the son of a philanthropist. His name was E. Malcolm Collins, II. I never met him but his novel,ย Angel Blood,ย was a permanent fixture on the bookshelf in our apartment when I was growing up.
Malcolm Ivey / Author 