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Tom Flanders is a recovering introvert. Writing is his mid-life crisis. Former stand-up comedian, for whom telling a story became more important than making the audience laugh. Published in a couple of the more obscure literary journals. His collection of short stories is available at Amazon.com and has sold literally dozens of copies. He has found that he is more comfortable writing novels because they give him the time to wander down a story's back alleys and find the beautiful horrors that dwell there. Writing novels is what I secretly always wanted to do, but I didn't realize it till I started to read novels seriously at the age of 42. I didn't read when I was young. My brothers read and I hated them and wanted to be different from them, so I didn't read. I watched TV. I've always made up stories. My mother to this day marvels at the fact that when I was a small child she could plop me in a corner with my Hot Wheels and I would play quietly for hours. The cars were merely the catalyst. What I was doing was making up stories about the imaginary people in those cars. I didn't know that this was writing. To me it was just playing. I thought, like those around me, that it was the cars. I thought that they were what was important to me. I didn't find out I was wrong until I went to college, at 17, to be a mechanical engineer. I flunked all but two of my classes. The first was chemistry lab. I got a D. I don't know how. The second was creative writing. I got an A. The teacher, a perpetually stoned hippy, told me I should be a writer, but he was just a stoned hippy, what did he know? I had also assumed that the A came because the course was so easy. I later found out that nearly everyone else in the class failed. This lack of self-esteem would be my prison for a long time. Fast-forward and after a couple false starts I've got a couple degrees in television production and a job at an access cable station. I had fulfilled the dream. My parents were pleased. I was pleased. Then it all quietly stalled. Two years later I was drunk, in debt and bored to tears. I had made a couple feeble attempts at writing. Always in the shortest form that I thought I could get away with. Unfortunately I was under the impression, reinforced by a small parade of the pretentious grad students that guided the few writing classes that I took, that I should avoid reading other people's work, because it would dilute my own voice. So of course I never did find my voice. I doubted it was there. Then I started doing standup. It scared the shit out of me, but I went to the open mic night with my 90 seconds of routine written out on two 3x5 cards, got really drunk before getting on stage, but made it there, and the people laughed. That helped get me out here to San Francisco, were one goes to learn how to do real comedy, before selling out and moving to Los Angeles or New York to have a career. All the time I was searching for my comedy "voice." The hook or persona or rhythm that would take me to the next level. Always flirting but never catching. Then finally I found it. I knew what it was I was trying to say. I knew how I wanted to say it. The only problem was that it wasn't funny. So I stared writing short stories. I started reading. Oh my God, reading! I devoured everything I could find at flea markets and library book sales. I discovered new names. Great names and bad. After a while I started to see why what was bad was bad. After a longer while I started to why what was good was good. I wrote my little stories with little success. Oh they got better. Each one was the best thing that was ever written, until I wrote the next one. But there was always something missing. Then, without intending to do so, I started a novel. It was supposed to be a very short story about a guy picking up a female hitchhiker, and then his car breaks down. Then he developed a back story. Then I discovered that the she had one too. Then they got tangled up in stuff. So it became a novel. It may not be great, but it's mine. Damn it, I wrote a novel! Only now, after the fact, do I see that that it what I always wanted to do. I had more fun writing that novel than anything. So why is the second novel so hard in gaining traction? Simple. I'm taking it too seriously. The first novel was for me. It was fun, but if I really want to be a real writer I've got to write for real. Right? Wrong! I think I've finally gotten things in perspective. One of the problems is my fear that no one will want to read my novel. What if it fails? Well, the best way to get rid of fear of failure is to get some. All those rejection letters from all the literary journals never slowed me down, so why should the novels be any different. So I'm going to submit my first novel to some literary agents and see what happens. Who knows, they might like it. If they don't, I'll be sad for a bit, but it won't kill me. I'll keep trying. I'll keep writing. In the meantime I did something that I am both proud of and embarrassed by. I self-published a collection of my short stories. It was a present for my parents 50th wedding anniversary, but I also gave copies to my brothers and sisters and a few people at work bought copies. While I am proud to see my name on a book cover, I am not thrilled with the contents. Some of the stories I like very much. Others are filler. Most were good at the time, but now I see where they didn't live up to their potential. Some people who read the book didn't understand that this was a guideline to my development. I think they thought the all the stories would be professional a-list kind of stories. They're not. The book, THE SAX HEALER, is available at Amazon.com. On a more practical note: I live in San Francisco in an earthquake cottage half a block from Golden Gate park with my wife and daughter and dogs. My wife is the power behind my life. She is my first reader and a reluctant, but a wonderfully unforgiving critic. My daughter, who is deaf and blind, has taught me more about human communication than any other ten people. She is a wise old soul with an amazing sense of humor. The dogs keep me grounded, distracted and amused. The old house taunts me like a story that can never be finished. Go to replace the water heater and find that the floor is rotten. Go to replace the floor and find the foundation is shaky. Try shoring up the foundation and get side-tracked by the raccoon skeletons buried in the sandy floor. No, I still haven't replaced the water heater. I work as a computer geek for a large insurance company. I love the people I work with and like my day-to-day tasks, but have the usual discomfort caused by working for a large dysfunctional bureaucracy. My favorite writers:
Tom is a recovering introvert who doesn't set out to write weird. It just comes out that way. |