Last week, the city of Los Angeles officially celebrated Ray Bradbury Week in honor of his ninetieth birthday. All across the sprawling urban landscape, plays were performed, films were screened, and books were signed. Circumstances, unfortunately, dictated that I could not attend any of these incredible events, but my heart, as always, was ablaze with the same reverent passion as their participants. As upsetting as my absence was for me, I knew that, much like Christmas, the most important part of any celebration is keeping its spirit alive and well all the year round. In this case, it is stoking the flames of inspiration every day for the remainder of a lifetime, and beyond. That, truly, is how you honor Ray Bradbury’s incredible contributions to the world and universe.
It is the beyond portion of the above sentiments that has been captivating my thoughts as of late. This can, of course, be strictly defined as one’s legacy, but I believe that the term’s connotations unwittingly limit the scope of endeavors to only those that are retold and printed in history books and literary journals. Bradbury, beyond a doubt, will have such a legacy, stretching as far into space and the future as his own imagination has taken him and us. However, not all of us will have the historical literary clout that Bradbury has earned over the course of his thus-far seventy-eight years of writing. And yet, he still issues to all who hear his words the same decree that was given to him at age twelve by Mr. Electrico: “Live forever!” How do we do that?
I unknowingly began contemplating this very question when I began working on Of Sirens and Sand. I suppose it was inevitable the moment I put pen to paper, for the very nature of writing was born out of a need for at least a certain semblance of permanency. Indeed, the core inspiration for the book was my inability to capture in some physical (and therefore permanent) medium the beautiful images that were quickly rotting away in my mind. I was, in essence, trying to make my memory live forever. Over the course of writing the six stories, two vignettes, and single poem that compose Of Sirens and Sand, I discovered what I decided was my personal lesson to be taken from the experience, and the secret that I believe is the key to truly living forever: Realizing that our work is never done, even in so-called death, and the torch must always be passed to another.
We pour our love, our spirit, and thus ourselves into our creative endeavors. When I hand a copy of my manuscript to someone to read, I am giving them more than just the words on the page; I am scooping out a cup of my core self and asking them to drink. All of us have been the receivers of such an offer, because we have spent lifetimes building our minds out of ideas the same way we do our bodies from the food we eat. We consume and digest countless thoughts, notions, and philosophies, laying them down as bricks in the foundation upon which we construct our own tower to the unreachable heavens. In choosing these materials, we continue the work that was begun by their creators, make them a part of who we are and what we do. Through us, and our actions, they continue to live on, their spirit carried from the past and into the future.
I see this as a metaphysical, across-the-ages version of a subject I have touched on before (“The Creative Geode” & “The Tiles”): the need to make connections. Just as we’ve the biological drive to have our genes passed onto another generation, we also have the similarly intense desire to have our ideas (and thus ourselves) be integrated into the stream of time as it flows forth into the infinite future. This is because, on some level, we instinctively grasp what Mr. Electrico knew and Bradbury has been driving at all these years: there is indeed a way to live forever, through your ideas and the connections they make.
It might be argued that such a sentiment only holds true for those whose names history has decided are worthy of documentation, but I must respectfully disagree. The remembering of names and specific actions are indeed great honors, but hardly a requirement. Ultimately, names are meaningless. Anyone can know my name. It can be recorded, written, and recited for all the ages, but it is meaningless and empty without my ideas attached to it. Sure, legends will have their names and philosophies forever bound, but this is simply additional recognition. Who I am, the nature of my actual spirit, is contained more in my words and thoughts, and therefore my work, than it is in my name. In the end, “John J. Walsh IV” is nothing but a label on a container. It is what’s inside of that container that is most important, the stuff in which I dip my inked quill. Therefore, I do not concern myself with tapping history on the shoulder so that it might take notice and jot me down, but rather about making sure my ideas connect with people, whoever (and however few) they might be. This is my ultimate goal as a writer, not fame or widespread recognition. As creators, we must never lose this distinction, else we will most likely fail and fall victim to our own premature hubris.
In this same vein, I harbor no delusions as to my own place in the universe; we are all so small against the backdrop of Creation. Yet, I cannot ignore that we make up some part of that infinite fabric: threads that may be finite, but can be stitched and lashed together to form a string that stretches far beyond our own individual reach. Our spirits carry forth as far as our ideas’ connections. Against common conception, it is not who you know, but who your ideas find. The creative efforts we pour out of ourselves may not reach an audience of millions, but all they need is to connect with one other person, who can make it a part of themselves to be passed on in turn. This is the nature of creation.
In fact, it is this very nature that has led me to the realization that our work will never be finished, no matter who we are or what we do. There is always another story to write, another picture to paint, one more song to be sung. The inevitable death of our physical bodies always draws the line somewhere, and rarely (if ever) where we would draw it ourselves. It forces us to reevaluate how we fit into such a strange and seemingly random universe. If, by definition, the soul is immortal, and we’ve poured that very soul into our work, then we live on in those it affects, no matter who they are, and the great chain continues.
The lesson is simple: put everything you have into that which you create, and even if you think it has no effect upon the world, put it out there anyway. Toss messages in bottles into the sea and let the currents of time carry them. Let your ideas find their own connections; don’t force their direction. If you’ve truly put yourself, your spirit, into your words, your brushstrokes, your musical notes, then they will find their way.
Seventy-eight years ago, that was exactly what Ray Bradbury did when he sat down to write his stories. He wrote to preserve some part of himself and his love in words, and then tossed those words out into the world. Some sixty-odd years later, a bottle landed in my hands in the form of Dandelion Wine. I popped the cork, drank deep of its words, and it changed my life forever. His philosophies were the magic elixir that granted me the secret of immortality:
Do your work, that thing you love above all other things, pour your entire soul into it, bottle it up, and toss it into the universe’s infinite expanse. When it washes up upon another’s shore, when your ideas, and thus yourself, make that connection across time and space, you will continue on into the future. It is in this manner that we can all hope to live forever, even if our names do not long outlast our bodies.
And so, with ninety amazing years of life to celebrate this year, we all wished Ray Bradbury, “Happy Birthday!” In return, he decrees as he always has, “Live forever!”
I know that he will. And, with his words as my guide, I do believe that I shall as well. I raise this bottle in toast, and then toss it into the digital sea.
Since the first people drew on the walls of caves, art has been a collaborative effort. The creative talents of one has helped nourish the creative talents of another. One inspires two, two inspire ten, and in the end there is this vast community of people connected by a love and passion that drives them beyond reason. And it’s when people cherish that web of creativity that amazing things happen.
That is an (unedited) excerpt from one of my very first correspondences with artist Martin Abel. I was, at the time, trying to explain why I, a complete and total stranger, was so willing to assist him in his endeavor to help his then-girlfriend (now fiancée) Hannah return to Australia. At this point, I wasn’t even thinking of asking him to illustrate Of Sirens and Sand, because the project was honestly of a much smaller scale, as this was a mere few days after its extremely humble inception.
My primary aim was the butterfly effect of creative efforts, pushing forth influence in time, but as I look back now at this small chuck of text, I realize that I predicted my own future, in a way I hadn’t considered: a creative loop. Martin’s artwork had certainly been an influence on me, but after the ball got rolling on our friendship, I found myself in his shoes, with my writing influencing him. And so the cycle went, eventually turning into a maelstrom of ideas flowing freely between us. The lines I wrote were the ones Martin inked; the lines he drew became the ones I scrawled. This is an experience I emphatically wish upon every kind soul who wishes to create.
What this has fostered for us is an environment of constant sharing. He peers into my journals, and I into his sketchbooks. As such, I get to see those rough drawings that the (unfortunate) public will probably never get to see. This causes the occasional friendly battle between us, over ideas that I simply cannot bear to see him give the axe. “But I can’t even remember why I drew this!” he’ll say. “The knowledge of inspiration fades, but not the power of what it forged,” I’ll fire back. And so it goes. Sometimes I win this war, sometimes I do not. Ultimately, this is his artwork and his choice. I am, after all, just giving him private feedback, nothing more than my own opinion. However, it does make me think about the nature of this whole interpersonal creative process, and the path of creativity in general.
What I am really saying to Martin when we have this debate is this: Don’t give up on that particular piece, concept, or idea simply because you don’t understand where it currently fits into your scheme of things. Perhaps you aren’t the person who is supposed to figure it out.
When I bought his sketch “Message in a Bottle” from him in 2008, he didn’t even want to let the piece see the light of day, let alone be sold. Hannah (having returned to Australia) pretty much twisted his arm into doing so. The minute I saw the piece, I had to have it; I connected with it right away. When it arrived, I saw that its actual title, penciled at the top of the page, was “Rest Your Soul.” My mind was already at work. Shortly thereafter, I wrote a poem by the same name which eventually morphed into one of the major components of Of Sirens and Sand. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but that was a key point in the evolution of the book.
When I sent a copy of that poem back to Martin, it was only then that he began to understand what his sketch had meant, just as I had to see his sketch for me to begin to fully comprehend what the ideas in my own head were leading me toward. It took two of us to solve these particular mysteries. This experience is a major reason why I believe that you need to open yourself up to the very real possibility that your work will connect with someone else, even if you don’t understand yourself just how.
The other night, Martin and I got into this discussion once more. Looking to explain further why I thought he shouldn’t abandon a particular piece, I finally compared it to a rock:
Your work sits before you, a seemingly dull piece of stone. You look at it from every angle and fail to find any redeeming value. You are tempted to declare the endeavor a complete loss and throw the seemingly useless rock aside as so much creative garbage. But something, or someone, tells you to keep at it. You pick up the chisel and mallet, proceeding to work on the idea. You continue to chip away at it, until suddenly the thing bursts open, bright with glistening crystals. Somewhere, in the middle of what once seemed so dull and ordinary, there lies brilliant meaning. See what you would have lost if you had abandoned your efforts?
One can give the counter argument: But what if you get to the middle of the stone and find no geode awaits you? Is this a waste of time? I contend that it is not. I had several ideas which did not make the final cut of Of Sirens and Sand. However, many of those ideas that did were constructed of the remnants that came from chiseling away at those ideas that didn’t. (In fact, many of the ideas were from a wholly different project, a prior attempt at a one act play.) Breaking apart the big ideas into their components many times allowed me to discover small crystals that would fit into the picture I was composing. Sure, I hadn’t hit a mother lode, but these small concepts added up and sometimes lead me to put together pieces I would not have otherwise considered.
It is my belief that if something comes out of your mind, you should not discard it. Perhaps it doesn’t fit into the project at hand, but it fits somewhere, for someone. That sketch you did, just sitting in your car on a cliff overlooking the sea, the one that you didn’t believe amounted to anything, might just be what becomes the keystone of an entire imagined universe, or the start of an incredible friendship.
As I wrote before, yesterday I finished the revised draft of my book Of Sirens and Sand and sent it off to author Marcus Alexander Hart. While a small handful of individuals have read early versions of the stories in various orders, he was the first to receive a polished manuscript with no real prior knowledge of the details contained within.
Tonight he responded with an email that pointed out a few typos; informed me of the historical battle between that and who; gave a good, solid suggestion for one story; and put tears of joy in my eyes. (More on that later.) What follows is an excerpt, and what I can honestly say is my very first review.
I read your book today. I have to admit, for the first few pages I was a little worried. I thought your prose was overwrought and your dialogue unnatural and arch. After all of the work you put into it, I was afraid to have to tell you what I thought of it.
Then I realized, it’s not you. It’s me.
You don’t write like I do. You don’t hammer words together to satisfy the textbook mechanics of storytelling while sometimes managing to be clever. You use a lyrical kind of prose so baroque that it becomes poetry. This is not a collection of stories. This is a painting of the sea rendered in words. You don’t write like an author. You write like an artist.
Once I stopped trying to shoehorn your artwork into my template the whole thing became strikingly beautiful in its execution. The characters and the stories don’t stack up like bricks into a wall of story. They flow together like trickles of rainwater pouring through tendrils of fog, emerging and mixing and falling away into a sort of lucid dream that lets you know secrets as you need to know them. You’ve managed to deftly paint beauty through the Captain’s longing and horror through the old man’s fear—opposite ends of the spectrum rendered with equal skill and passion.
You have done a wonderful thing here, John Walsh. This is going to be a fantastic book. I’ve already read it twice.
You should be proud of yourself. I’m proud of you.
Without my having breathed a word about the intentions behind the book, he understood them, perfectly. Each and every endeavor I set out to accomplish met with unqualified success. That alone was reason to rejoice, but I had another.
First, a little back story.
Early in his published career, Ray Bradbury met with Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) at the latter’s behest. After they sat down, Huxley leaned forward and asked, “Mr. Bradbury, do you know what you are?” Bradbury replied that he did not. “You’re a poet.”
Up to that point, Bradbury had attempted writing poetry since high school, but had (by his own admission) failed miserably. So he wrote short stories instead. And yet, here was a famous, well-renowned author telling him that he had succeeded at publishing poetry, when he didn’t even think that he had ever tried.
Thus went the day that Ray Bradbury discovered he was unknowingly a poet. Because of that meeting, he came to recognize his preferred style as prose poetry, and has since shared that realization with a great many people, myself included.
This is relevant to the subject at hand because the impetus for Of Sirens and Sand was the maddening frustration of my own artistic shortcomings. I grew up with the sea somehow in my blood, but believed myself, merely a writer, incapable of capturing it the way an artist could with a brush.
Yet, now, here is one of my favorite writers, telling me that I am an artist. To borrow Bradbury’s response to Huxley, “I didn’t know that.”
So I, armed with this freshly-acquired revelation, began to weep tears of joy. Ray Bradbury has been guiding me for seventeen years, be it through his work, words, or personal advice. The man has shown me the path, promised that great things lie ahead.
He was right.
Thank you, Marcus, for your exceedingly kind words. I shall cherish them always.
Since September of 2008, I have lived with a swirling maelstrom of ideas occupying the better part of my brain. It has led me to incredible places, introduced me to amazing friends. My life has changed drastically in that span of time. I cannot comprehend how to explain everything to that younger version of myself who is blissfully unaware, writing in his notebook, enjoying his grandparents’ company nineteen months ago, standing at the precipice of it all, not knowing that he is about to take a diving leap off a cliff and build his wings on the way down.
I have been laid off, moved, dislocated a kneecap, been in a wheelchair, and narrowly avoided surgery in this span of time. I’ve been broke at certain points, barely able to make ends meet. And yet, here I stand. The constant through it all has been this book, this small collection of short writings, which has guided me through life to someplace grand and wondrous. Perhaps I didn’t bring forth the next great American novel, or even a novel at all, but I still did something I’ve always dreamt of doing: writing.
I built an entire universe within the confines of my head, and then proceeded to pour its contents onto the page. I don’t need a publisher’s permission to do that. Hell, I don’t need anyone’s permission. I refuse to judge the success of my life on the grounds of what other people did, or might expect me to do. I wrote for myself; the rest of the world is inconsequential.
But, as fate would have it, someone else saw and believed in the same world I did. He now forges in lead that which I founded in laid ink, the Mugnaini to my Bradbury. This book gave me Martin Abel, and there is no truer a friend for which I could have asked. And, having done such, there is no possibility of failure, for success is already mine. The criteria by which I scrutinize myself having thus been met, I can look forward to and enjoy whatever the future holds for that which I’ve decided to create.
Currently, the revised (second) draft of Of Sirens and Sand rests in the hands (read: email inbox) of one of my favorite authors, Marcus Alexander Hart. I’ve the good fortune of calling the man a friend, but that does not mitigate the fact that I hold him and his writing in extremely high regard. Though he asked kindly to read the first (rough) draft of the book, I had to refuse. I wanted so desperately to call the project good and done, but part of me could not deny that there was still some growing to do. So, I spent several more months working, writing, and delving deeper into the world through whose window I had but glanced.
What developed was a stronger, more mature story, one of which I could be insanely proud. Though there would undoubtedly be many edits in its future, the body was strong, and it begged of me to let it cross over into this universe. And so the draft was saved, compiled, and sent out into the world. I’m simultaneously nervous and excited. I’ve wondered what this day would feel like for a very long time, and I still don’t entirely comprehend it.
I suppose that someday I’ll have to look back at my past self, sitting here in front of the computer writing this blog entry, and explain it as best I can. Perhaps I’ll hand myself a beautiful, illustrated book with my name printed across the front and a hand-written message inside: This is all because of you. Thank you for dreaming it possible.
