The First Time I Found a Title For My Novel

What you’re seeing here is the very first photo of Fobbit when it lived on a thumb drive and was called Fobber.

I recently stumbled across this image on my computer and it was as unrecognizable to me as a grainy ultrasound photo is to parents after their child is finally born, weaned, and raised to be a walking, giggling toddler. For starters, that name, that work-in-progress title! How wrong-headed could I have been?

I imagine I wrote the term “Fobber” on a slip of a Post-It note and bound it in tape to the thumb drive even before I’d left Iraq in December 2005, back when the manuscript was still a messy jumble of words and when—then, as now—I struggled with the correct grammatical usage of “that” and “which.” In its infant years, Fobbit suffered from an identity crisis, starting with its title.

Some of you are perhaps wondering about the definition of either of those words. That’s okay; before I joined the Army in 1988, I couldn’t have told you the difference between a military colonel and Colonel Sanders. For the un-militarized, a Fobbit is someone in a war zone who rarely goes “outside the wire” into the “real war.” It’s a portmanteau that (or “which”?) marries Forward Operating Base (FOB) with J. R. R. Tolkien’s Hobbits who, as those who’ve read The Lord of the Rings know, were reluctant to leave the safety of their shire. In another time and another war, Fobbits were known as pogues or REMFs (whose full meaning rhymes with “rear echelon brother truckers”). I know all about the derogatory slang term because, between January and December of 2005, I was a Fobbit with the 3rd Infantry Division serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. As I wrote of my main character (a thinly-veiled version of yours truly) in the novel published by Grove/Atlantic in 2012,

As a Fobbit, Chance Gooding Jr. saw the war through a telescope, the bloody snarl of combat remained at a safe, sanitized distance from his air-conditioned cubicle. And yet, here he was on a FOB at the edge of Baghdad, geographically central to gunfire. To paraphrase the New Testament, he was in the war but he was not of the war.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Back to that baby photo of the novel. The sight of it on my computer the other day prompted me to look up my errant use of the word “Fobber” in my journal and that sent me tumbling down a rabbit hole of memory. Here is the first time I ever typed the word in my diary:

February 6, 2005:  I read a newspaper story today featuring some Louisiana Guardsmen who were out on street patrols in Baghdad when their Bradley Fighting Vehicle was hit and two of their comrades died. In it, these hardcore infantrymen said they had nothing but scorn for the soldiers who never ventured outside the wire. They called them “Fobbers,” as in ones who never leave the FOB (Forward Operating Base). As far as I’m concerned, they can sneer in my direction and label me a Fobber all they want—if I have the opportunity to stay hunkered down inside the camp up there, I plan on staying there. I don’t need to see all the tourist sites of downtown Baghdad. I’d rather be a living Fobber than a dead hard-charger. Cowardly? No, just smart (and determined to return to my family in one piece). Hey...possible title for this book (if it ever makes it that far): Fobber: the Diary of a Soft Soldier.

Reading that now, I wither with mortification in much the same way I did when my mother trotted out the family photo album to show my fiancée nude photos of me taking a bath at four years old. I don’t know how I could have lived with myself if my first book had been called “The Diary of a Soft Soldier.”

I went back to my journal, flipped forward a half-dozen months and found the moment near the end of my deployment when I started to realize maybe I wasn’t using the correct term after all....

September 12, 2005:  I hear about some hardcore battalion commander with too much time and money on his hands who had a bunch of uniform patches made at his own expense. They looked just like Ranger tabs, but said “Fobbit.” He also had some that had “REMF” and “POAG” (another derogatory for us Fobbers).

But still, I persisted in using the incorrect term, even after I returned stateside and started taking my first toddler steps toward writing what would eventually become the correctly-termed Fobbit. Truth be told, if I had not been an actual Fobbit, if I had been an infantry soldier patrolling the streets, I would have probably been calling myself by the right name from the get-go. After all, it was an infantryman who first let the word “Fobbit” (and not “Fobber”) fall from his lips (I am guessing the reporter who wrote that story of the Louisiana National Guard soldiers misheard the word, tangled on the tongue in a Southern accent). I should have gone straight to the source of the river of slang.

March 7, 2006: Mark this day! I think I might have—maybe, possibly, perhaps—gotten a start on my novel today. Tentatively calling it Fobber and tentatively starting it out with this sentence: “They were Fobbers because, at the core, they were nothing but marshmallow.” More to follow…

Somehow, miraculously, that first sentence (with the exception of the wrong F-word) survived all the way to publication.

But still I called my characters “Fobbers,” even as the fire of writing the novel waxed and waned. I was now living in Maryland during my final year in the Army when I was assigned to the U.S. Army Public Affairs office in the Pentagon (the ultimate Fobbit job).

As I leafed through my journal the other day, my curiosity about the use of the word “Fobber” had become something deeper: now I was on a journey to rediscover the writer I had been, with all his aches and joys, when he was deep in the process of wrestling with words.

July 9, 2008:  Whatever belly-fire I had for Fobber has vanished. I had been doing so well up until about three weeks ago: rising every day at 4:30 a.m., going for a morning run, then coming in and sitting down to work on the novel, getting in a solid hour’s writing on the book before I have to take the train in to the Pentagon. Now, I still rise at 4:30, but I accomplish nothing. I meander across my desk like a nomad. I read e-mail, download music, putter with household chores. All the while, the words—still at that same stopping place—stare back at me from the laptop’s screen. The cursor blinks. I do not advance, I do not pile more words into the vast blank space—or, if I do, the sentences are limp, vague, and ultimately go nowhere. Even this, writing in the journal, is a means of distraction to keep me from my work.

I flipped ahead in my diary (of a soft soldier) to the year after I retired from the Army and was living in Montana and started a new career with the Bureau of Land Management (where I still work to this day). I clicked the search bar for the next instance of “Fobber.”

August 9, 2009:  My enthusiasm for Fobber started to go into a tailspin today. Engines screaming, smoke streaming past the cockpit, ground rushing up at me, I was only able to pull up out of it when I decided to look to the past for inspiration. For years, I’ve been making flirty eyes at Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead on my bookshelf, the white words on the black spine of the hardback calling to me, but have never had the time to start reading it. Today, I decided the day had come. I’m fifty pages into it and I know this is the right book for me to read right now. Mailer’s narrative moves like a camera across his big cast of characters—something which I’d been fretting about with Fobber. Mailer reassures me in his growly voice: You can do this. I tinkered a little more with what I’ve already written. I'm still not totally happy with it, but at least I’m sitting down at the keyboard and trying my best.

I drew inspiration from Norman Mailer as I pounded away at what I was now thinking was an Impossible Novel. Here is what I wrote in my journal one day while I was fretting over the tone and scope of Fobber/Fobbit. I remember worrying about whether I had the authority to write about war in all its gory glory when I’d spent my entire year bathed in air-conditioning and sipping lattes at my desk. Mailer reassured me I was on the right path:

When you talk about the difference between real experience and the experience you put into a book, you touch on perhaps the single most basic difficulty. For some young writers it’s very disturbing not to tell the story exactly the way it happened. For others it’s equally disturbing to tell it the way it happened. They want to exaggerate it. They want to make it larger. That could be good or bad. If you are truly an ambitious writer it’s not necessarily so bad to exaggerate, because that enables you to dare to take on themes larger than yourself.....I had a lot of experience in the war, but it was not as intense as the experience of the people who were the characters in my book [The Naked and the Dead]. Nonetheless, it was close enough so I could extrapolate a bit. I could exaggerate to a degree, because I had a sense of what the outer possibilities were, as you do when you get a little bit of combat. You get a very good idea of what a lot of combat might be like. Not necessarily a true idea, but a bigger idea. I came late to my outfit in the Philippines, and most of those guys went over for a couple of years already. They had been in other campaigns, so I picked up all the stories of battles that they had been in before I ever joined them. So you could say The Naked and the Dead was on the one hand realistic, and on the other hand it was an exaggeration of experiences I had.

I wrote in my journal: “Someday, when I’m being criticized for not ‘telling it like it was’ in Fobber, I’ll pull out this quote to remind myself that what I’ve done is okay.”

This was no longer an investigation into why I’d mistitled my novel; it was an autopsy of my insecurities and all the fears and doubts I’d had while working on the book. Norman Mailer gave me permission to tell a war story in my own way, through my own lens of a “stay-back, stay-safe soldier.” I will forever be grateful to him for writing The Naked and the Dead which served as a brightly-lit lamppost on my path as I worked on the book from my home in Montana. I needed his words of encouragement because my writing days were a rollercoaster of peaks and valleys. Mostly, as my journal now reminded me, I seemed to live in the valleys.

August 31, 2009:  Fobber continues apace. I rise at 4:30 every morning, work out on the elliptical for 45 minutes, then sit down and write for anywhere between one and two hours. Some days, it’s writing; other days, it’s just typing. Today, I was distracted and the words had a hard time coming. Tomorrow will be better. Today’s total word count: 60,324.

October 14, 2009:  A piss-poor Fobber day. Got up at 4:20, as usual. Showered right away without working out, since I have to be to work early this morning. Got coffee, came downstairs and was immediately distracted by the Internet. Mindless surfing for far too long drained the batteries and so I only typed (wouldn’t even qualify it as “wrote”) 51 words today. Overall, the word count stands at 93,923.

October 25, 2009:  While I’m typing a particular funny scene in Fobber, I get a “Breaking News” e-mail from the Washington Post reporting on two suicide car bomb attacks in Baghdad: “At least 132 people were killed and 520 wounded…The blasts, which the Interior Ministry said were carried out by suicide bombers, detonated under a pale gray sky, shattering windows more than a mile away. Broken water mains sent water coursing through the street, strewn with debris. Pools of water mixed with blood gathered along the curbs, ashened detritus floating on the surface. Cars caught in traffic jams were turned into tombs, the bodies of passengers incinerated inside. The smell of diesel mixed with the stench of burning flesh. ‘Bodies were hurled into the air,’ said Mohammed Fadhil, a 19-year-old bystander. ‘I saw women and children cut in half.’ He looked down at a curb smeared with blood. ‘What’s the sin that those people committed? They are so innocent.’” There’s nothing particular funny about this kind of déjà vu. I squirm while writing similar scenes in Fobber. How can I make readers laugh about the U.S. in Baghdad while blasts are still cutting children in half? I can only hope my intent is in the right place.

January 23, 2010:  After nearly a month’s hiatus from Fobber, I was back at it again yesterday. I’m on the home stretch now and getting impatient, but still overwhelmed by all that needs to be done in the months and months of rewrites. After today’s three-hour session, the word count stands at 143,774. Pages: 479.

January 29, 2010:  Fobber word count: 153,230. Page count: 510. Yes, I’ve been writing like a motherfucker lately.

February 19, 2010:  I’ve hit a dry spell. Work on Fobber has stalled during the past two weeks. I’ve been distracting myself—mostly with the Internet—and have not been writing, which in turn has sent me into a spiraling depression. I know what I should be doing, but I don’t do it. I hem, I haw, I mope. Last night in bed, I said to Jean, “Tomorrow will be the day. I have to do it. To paraphrase that song in Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town: Put one word in front of the other and soon you’ll be walking across the page.” Today, I am determined.

And then, finally—after five years of typing the wrong word—I got it right. The novel received a new title and wore it like a tailored jacket. Here is the day when I typed “Fobber” in my journal for the last time:

March 27, 2010:  Today, a revelation—which must surely lead to a revolution. I have a daily Google News alert which sends me links to mentions of the word “Fobber” in news articles, webpages, and blogs. Today, one of the links led me to a blog where an infantry soldier, scorning the REMFs of today’s war, defined a “Fobber” as someone who moves from FOB to FOB—completely distinct from a “Fobbit” (a soldier who stays in the protection of the FOB, either willingly or unwillingly). Doing my own Google search, I discover that “Fobbit” is the common term for the people who populate my novel. Damn! I’m glad I caught that before it was too late. But now, I must rename everything and get my head trained in the right direction. Fobbit it is from now on. Of course, some agent or publisher will probably come up with a better title when the day arrives.

As some of you know by now, my bleeding-agony struggle eventually had a happy ending. Neither my agent nor my editor had any qualms about calling the book Fobbit (unlike the tug-of-war we went through over what to call my second novel, Brave Deeds. But that’s another story for another day...).

Now, the only thing that remains of “Fobber” is an old baby photo of a book that was still wondering what it wanted to be when it grew up. I look on it now and smile at that thumb drive with a mixture of pity and amusement.


My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands. For information on how to contribute, contact David Abrams.

A Dead Man’s Books: Jennifer Spiegel’s Library

Reader:  Jennifer Spiegel
Location:  Phoenix, Arizona
Collection Size:  No real clue.
The one book I'd run back into a burning building to rescue:  None. See below. That doesn’t mean that I don’t love them.
Favorite book from childhood:  I actually saved a ton for my kids, but my favorites are the Oz Books by L. Frank Baum. I’m pretty sure they changed my life. I love them so much.
Guilty pleasure book:  Maybe The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. I’ve also been known to read a zombie novel or two, though I think I’ve met my quota and I’m done. Oh, and I like political memoirs. And U2 coffee table books. I see a coffee table book next to me, and it’s about Tiny Houses.


I love my nonsensical, random collection of books. My shelves cannot purport to be a library. That’s too noble. I do, however, have a house full of books.

I had a sobering moment in 2015. In the late spring of that year, I helped my mom pack up and officially downsize. She’d been a widow since 2002, and she had lived in the same house since the seventies. Both of my parents were avid readers (though I spent a great deal of time making fun of my dad’s James Michener habit and all of those Cold War thrillers that were turned into Cold War movies). She was moving to a guest house, and she’d hold onto a handful of books collected over a lifetime.

She picked out her keepers. I scavenged and pulled out a few, like Leon Uris’s QB VII, William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice, and Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War. And then I took boxes and boxes and boxes to sell at a used bookstore. It wasn’t because we didn’t love them; it was because we had no room for them. I must’ve had that Sybil book in there (Flora Rheta Schreiber), and Alex Haley’s Roots. James Clavell’s Shogun. Ken Follett, Mario Puzo, Norman Mailer, John Le Carré, too. Maybe one woman: The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. All of these books, these special and beloved books, these demarcations of eras and these veritable points on a map. A lot of my father.

I packed them in boxes.

I loaded them into my car.

I drove to a bookstore.

And they gave me a couple of bucks for them.

That was my sobering moment.

You Can’t Take It With You.

I still keep my books. Most of them, anyway. I still believe in houses full of books. Shelves runneth-ing over. But—and I do not say this lightly—I might value them a little less than I once did. (I might be crying as I write this.)

I will, though, still say this boldly, brazenly: Shame on you if you do not own books.

So, in lieu of a library, I offer you this vision of my shelves.

My beloved travel books, disorganized, with a smattering of others like a Rolling Stone picture book and the scripts to sex, lies, and videotape and Do The Right Thing. That Let’s Go Europe book is from 1990, and readers of my new novel might note its treasured role.

Selected Books-I-Must-Save. Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Salman Rushdie’s Fury and Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and B.J. Novak’s One More Thing. Please note that Ta-nehisi Coates is next to Rick Springfield. I think that Coates’ book is the definitive book on the Obama years. I can’t explain Rick Springfield (we go back) except to say this:

These are mostly my kids’ books: Harry Potter, Little House on the Prairie, and Oz. Below that are the textbooks from my MA program in International Relations, from my defunct politics days.

And these are books that I will undoubtedly make my kids read. Many classics. A lot of Hemingway. Bleak House. Cry, The Beloved Country. Catch-22. The Good Earth. Wait! And what’s that I see? Mockingjay? (And a little stack of my books.)

My kids. I do not have an Allegiant-thing. Sesame Street, yes. Allegiant, no.

You have the Childcraft books, right? I mean, we all do, yeah?

Miscellaneous! Because sometimes you want poetry and sometimes you want Disney and sometimes you want Leaves of Grass, the Bible, and U2.

I fill shelves. Some of my shelves are from Ikea. Some are from friends who were getting rid of them. Some are nice. We even have a secret door in our house, a passageway.

But when I die, you can take my books. They are yours.

Jennifer Spiegel is mostly a fiction writer with three books and a miscellany of short publications, though she also teaches English and creative writing. She is part of Snotty Literati, a book-reviewing gig, with Lara Smith. She lives with her family in Arizona. More information is available at www.jenniferspiegel.com. And So We Die, Having First Slept, a new novel, is about marriage, youth, middle-age, Gen X, and fidelity. Currently, Spiegel is working on a memoir, Cancer, I'll Give You One Year: A Non-Informative Guide To Breast Cancer, or Cancer, I'll Give You One Year: How To Get Your Ba-Da-Bing Boobies On The House!

My Library is an intimate look at personal book collections.  Readers are encouraged to send high-resolution photos of their home libraries or bookshelves, along with a description of particular shelving challenges, quirks in sorting (alphabetically? by color?), number of books in the collection, and particular titles which are in the To-Be-Read pile.  Email thequiveringpen@gmail.com for more information.

Giving Thanks for Books

At this uncertain and unsteady Thanksgiving, I am grateful for many things: family, health, a stable job, and the food I’m about to eat in T-minus two hours. Somewhere on that list, though, are the thousands of books which line my basement walls. They are my comfort, my inspiration, and my escape hatch (down which I frequently find myself sliding these days). Where would we be without the music of words?

Bookish recently asked several authors (including yours truly) to name the one book for which they’re thankful. I could have plucked any number of books from my shelf. I mean, just a casual perusal yields this harvest of books which have comforted, inspired, etc. over the years: A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor, The Collected Stories of Raymond Carver, Rabbit, Run by John Updike, Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware, Rock Springs by Richard Ford, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer, and The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. I could go on and on, but Bookish demanded a single book and so I tried to narrow it down as best I could. My response:

Just one book? Impossible. Narrowing it down to just one shelf of my nearly 40 shelves? Next to impossible. Maybe I could pick just one author out of the dozens who’ve held sway over my imagination for 50 years? Doable, but still difficult. Okay, okay, okay… (takes deep breath, stares long and hard at his library) I’ll choose… David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I could have easily picked ten others from my Dickens shelf (one of the longest in my library), but I’ll settle on this bursting-at-the-seams bildungsroman about a thinly-disguised C.D. as D.C. who makes his way from abused waif to accomplished author over the course of three inches of pressed and bound pages. I am particularly thankful for Dickens’ masterful marriage of plot and character whose happy union always sharpens both my imagination and my pen—never more so than in the personages of Betsey Trotwood, Steerforth, all the Peggotties, Mr. Micawber, Dora, David and, oh, the shudder-worthy Uriah Heep. David Copperfield is a triumph! And God bless us, everyone! Oh wait, that’s from another favorite of mine.

Click here to read the picks from my fellow authors

What books are on your most-thankful list? Let me know in the comments section below.

Friday Freebie: Vanity Fair’s Writers on Writers

Congratulations to Nebojsa Zlatanovic, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: Father Figure by Lamar Herrin.

This week’s contest is for the new essay collection Vanity Fair’s Writers on Writers, edited by Graydon Carter. A partial list of writers (both contributors and subjects) includes: Eudora Welty, Jack Kerouac, Elizabeth Bishop, Reynolds Price, Anne Tyler, Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, Paul Bowles, Willa Cather, Jay McInerney, Jacqueline Woodson, Toni Morrison, Dave Eggers, Judy Blume, Cormac McCarthy, Stieg Larsson, Donna Tartt and William Styron. That’s only a partial list; many other authors populate these pages. Keep reading for more information about the book...

What did Christopher Hitchens think of Dorothy Parker? How did meeting e.e. cummings change the young Susan Cheever? What does Martin Amis have to say about how Saul Bellow’s love life influenced his writing? Vanity Fair has published many of the most interesting writers and thinkers of our time. Collected here for the first time are forty-one essays exploring how writers influence one another and our culture, from James Baldwin to Joan Didion to James Patterson.

If you’d like a chance at winning Vanity Fair’s Writers on Writers, simply email your name and mailing address to

thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line. Please include your mailing address in the body of the e-mail. One entry per person, please. This contest is limited to those with an address in the U.S. Despite its name, the Friday Freebie remains open to entries until midnight on Nov. 10, at which time I’ll draw the winning name. I’ll announce the lucky reader on Nov. 11. If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email. Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning? Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter. Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.

Trevor D. Richardson's Library: A Rob Fleming Dilemma

Reader:  Trevor D. Richardson
Location:  Portland, Oregon
Collection size:  300-ish, plus a lot of comics
The one book I'd run back into a burning building to rescue:  Early 20th-century printing of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, my favorite fictional character
Favorite book from childhood:  The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Guilty pleasure book:  I don't really read things that I'm ashamed to admit, but the closest would have to be The Chronicles of Narnia because the religious symbolism is often a little heavy-handed.

I just moved to a new place and my books are still heaped about the living room in short towers.  I keep thinking about Nick Hornby's High Fidelity.  Rob Fleming (or Rob Gordon as played by John Cusack in the movie) has a fairly extensive record collection that is his crowning achievement.  Throughout the story, he has this ongoing ritual that seems to be a coping mechanism for the drama or disappointment of his personal life: Rob can't stop rearranging his vinyl.  In his search for the perfect system--having tried alphabetically by artist and then by album name and a bunch of others--Rob begins arranging the records in chronological order of when he purchased them.  The process becomes a kind of catalyst for him to reflect on his life and it inspires some of the events of Hornby's novel.

Right now, I am sitting in my new domicile, facing with the same dilemma of Rob Fleming/Rob Gordon from High Fidelity.  What is that ever-elusive perfect arrangement of one's own library?  In my last place, the books were arranged by size at one point, then by color later on.  They've been ordered alphabetically by title and then by author.  They have even been ordered by genre ranging from “analysis of astrophysics” to “surrealist/psychedelic fiction.”  As with many other elements in my own life--and the Rob Fleming in me can attest to this fact--none of it seems right quite yet.

Moreover, there is a reason why my library consists of 300 books instead of a couple thousand.  I lend them out or straight up give them away more often than even I, myself, would like.  It's difficult to explain the urge.  I have the heart of a hoarder where my books are concerned, but I also have a strong desire to create the perfect library and sometimes there's a book here or there that just doesn't quite fit in.  It's a bit like trying to fix your hair in the morning and, after fighting with that one unruly strand for several minutes, you finally decide to pluck it out.  It is not easy--the hair and the book are a part of me--but they simply aren't falling in line and must be gotten rid of posthaste.

Today I am considering a Fleming-esque approach to my books.  Not quite chronological, but still biographical in nature, I want to arrange things according to the many phases and various obsessions of my 29 years.  I begin with the collection of Hardy Boys novels I have kept since elementary school.  At the time of their discovery, my family had recently moved into a new house outside of Manteca, California, and I not only discovered the joys and horrors of a dank, eerie basement, but the leavings of the prior occupants.  Among the boxes of creepy, dusty dolls and rusty bicycle parts had been almost the full collection of The Hardy Boys by Franklin W. Dixon.  I made it the mission of my childhood to complete the collection and, despite having outgrown the series by quite a few years, I still keep an eye out for the final two I lack whenever I go book hunting.

Within this same category, I suppose I would have to include The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.  Yet this brings to mind an interesting question.  Should the biography of my book collection be based solely on when I first read these books, or when I most loved them?  If the latter, Tom Sawyer is still fairly current, where the Narnia books should have their place somewhere around my eighth grade year.  A year of trial and uncertainty, following a move from California to Texas, in which I took comfort in the escape from our world into a world of fauns and lions and griffins and talking badgers.

This autobiographical library will not be an easy task.

And what of my comic books?  I have some issues from the early nineties that should technically be squeezing themselves in between The War of the Worlds and The Jungle Book.  When did Superman die again?  1992?  What about when Bane broke Batman's back and Bruce had to stop wearing the cowl for a while?  Surely these issues must land somewhere between the time I was devouring the writing of H.G. Wells and the time I had gotten really into reading the original stories that inspired beloved Disney films...

No, not an easy task at all.  Perhaps I should go back to color-coding the covers and call it a day.

Next, I move on to an obsession with classical literature that began in my adolescence.  According to the biography of my library, this began with Sherlock Holmes, but rapidly spiraled into J.D. Salinger, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Melville, Tolstoy, Miller.  I remember it well.  Like so much of my literary life, the urge was inspired, or perhaps “caused” is a better word choice, by music.

Like some of the people in Rob Fleming's life, I had friends of that tribe who used their knowledge of music, particularly upcoming and underground stuff, as a kind of bludgeon to browbeat the people around them into some kind of submissive or subservient position.  They were that brand of nerd, the loser, or slacker who realized that the music scene existing outside of Top 40 artists gave them power.  I got as caught up in this wave as I was caught up in the wave of spiritual adrenaline that went with big tent revivals and the promises of Christ.  All of which I have since, gratefully, recovered from.  With music, it happened rather suddenly.  I recognized the band that was “it” one month was suddenly “sell out” dross the next.  The fickle nature of this scene left a bad taste in my mouth and I went in search of things that would last.  This search took me backward in time to things that had been proven and were still going strong.  I began to read old books, the ones that you find on a New York Times must-read list.  And, as for music, I began listening to early 20th-century jazz, blues, and eventually folk.

Folk brought me to Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, The Band, Pete Seeger, The Staples Singers, Neil Young and tons more.  In literature, it brought me to Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Ken Kesey.  I suppose this will have to be the next shelf of my library, the next subcategory.  On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Desolation Angels, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Howl, Sailor Song, Demon Box...this era became the next obsession.

It was at this stage in my reading life that I began to seriously consider pursuing writing as a career.  The words of Ginsberg and Kerouac, Kesey and, eventually, Hunter S. Thompson, ignited something in me that never cooled.  Following the track and history of the Beats, I found Naked Lunch and William S. Burroughs.  Following Burroughs and realizing that so many of these people were all part of one community, largely featured in Kerouac's books, made me see all the interconnecting webs of that era in literature, music, and art.  Bob Dylan was inspired by Kerouac.  Hunter S. Thompson was inspired by Bob Dylan.  Bob Dylan was inspired by Hunter S. Thompson.  Ken Kesey was featured in Thompson's Hell's Angels during a chapter set at his La Honda estate.  It was an endless cycle of influence feeding into and out of itself, influencing America in kind, and eventually influencing me.

My pursuit of writing, however, did leave me kind of jaded as I rapidly began to realize that there was very little else I cared about.  I couldn't imagine myself doing any other job, for example, and my late teens and early twenties were troubled as I suffered unusually powerful growing pains as a struggling writer struggling with newfound responsibilities.  I had staked a lot of myself on faith because of my time in Texas, but in studying literature and pursuing creativity, I began to feel an awakening that made things about that faith not quite sit right.  By the time I was 20, writing was the only thing I believed in anymore.  Books, that was it.  I had no religion, no patriotism, no love of money, no passion for any career outside of telling stories, and, of course, no resources, finances, credit or anything else to my name.

This is when I found the writing of Chuck Palahniuk and, in the space of five months, I read everything he had ever written.  The humor of destruction, the nihilistic poetry that made light of so many of our culture's sacred trusts, and the consistently poverty-stricken characters stubbornly maintaining their outsider status both in terms of their living conditions and their intellectual outlook on life, all resonated with me.

Even now, despite having since outgrown Chuck, I find myself thinking about my library in relation to this line from Fight Club, “I had a stereo that was very decent, a wardrobe that was getting very respectable.  I was close to being complete.”

This library is a sculpture – take a title or two out, add a Norman Mailer book here or a Thomas Disch novel there, and I could be complete...

As for Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor was a particular favorite as it told the story of a guy brought up in a suicide cult who lacked the faith to take his own life when the call came.  Growing up religious and grappling with my own agnosticism, it just felt right.

My wandering 20th year of life took me to a town called Denton, Texas, north of Dallas, where I wound up writing my first novel.  In Denton, I met Shea, who loaned me his copy of Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins.  My obsession with the writings of Palahniuk ended that day and I was now vehemently, even vigorously, centered on this new set of books.  I read Woodpecker in two days.  Then I spent the next week at the local bookstore, unable to afford a copy of anything larger than a Jehovah's Witness pamphlet, basically stealing a chapter here or a chapter there, reading Jitterbug Perfume on the fly.  Since that time, I have gotten all of Tom Robbins' books and even had the pleasure of attending a reading of his autobiography, Tibetan Peach Pie, this past June at Powell's Books.

In Tom, I found something that made me realize how narrow and juvenile the vision of Chuck Palahniuk's books had been.  I saw people, like me, with the same outsider perspective, the same distrust of society's values or disconnect from social norms, but instead of being miserable about it, they were filled with wonder and daring.  I realized that, like Bob Dylan said, “When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”

I turned a corner and began to explore America, not in search of answers or something new to believe in or really anything at all, but just to go because that's what Amanda from Another Roadside Attraction would do or because that's how the great king in Jitterbug Perfume managed to live forever.

The biography of my book collection is starting to look increasingly optimistic.  Filled with this new vigor, I stopped seeing things as the next scene or the next historical moment I had to devour and began to just search for what I liked.  I found Neil Gaiman and read four or five of his books.  I started reading books about physics and math, getting a big kick out of a little known book called Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife in which I learned about the tug-of-war between math and religion going back to when Time was still in diapers.  Then, much later than I should have, I finally got around to Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and, embracing a lifelong love of science fiction, got into Philip K. Dick, Orson Scott Card, and tons more.

Not long after, I wrote Dystopia Boy, my own addition to the annals of science fiction and a love note to everyone on my book shelf.  I learned how to add danger to my voice by obsessing on Hunter S. Thompson for a while.  I found humanity through Tom Robbins.  I found music and poetry and that lowdown eloquence of the poor from listening to too much Bob Dylan and reading too much Kerouac.  J. D. Salinger taught me how to talk in my writing rather than just speak.  Palahniuk showed me how the incendiary can be hilarious.  And my love of the classics held up the firm belief that if something is good, it is timeless, if the writer does his job right, it never suffers the fate of so many bands that my old friends liked for a minute and cast aside like autumn leaves the next.

Like Rob Fleming's vinyl collection, I can see my life in the literature I've consumed.  I have often been a little behind the trends, but typically that's just because I want to make sure what I'm spending my time on is going to last.  It's just another variation on the eternal question Tom Robbins asked all those years ago: How do we make love stay?


Trevor D. Richardson is the founder and editor of The Subtopian and the author of American Bastards, Honeysuckle & Irony, and Dystopia Boy: The Unauthorized Files from Montag Press.  A West Coast man by birth, Trevor was brought up in Texas and has since ventured back west and put down roots in Portland, Oregon.  His numerous short stories have appeared in magazines like Word Riot, Underground Voices, and a science fiction anthology called Doomology: The Dawning of Disasters.

My Library is an intimate look at personal book collections.  Readers are encouraged to send high-resolution photos of their home libraries or bookshelves, along with a description of particular shelving challenges, quirks in sorting (alphabetically? by color?), number of books in the collection, and particular titles which are in the To-Be-Read pile.  Email thequiveringpen@gmail.com for more information.

My First Time: Je Banach

My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands.  Today’s guest is Je Banach.  Je is a member of the residential faculty in fiction at the Yale Writers' Conference.  In 2013 she was awarded the CT Artist Fellowship for Fiction; she was previously awarded the New Boston Fund Fellowship in Fiction.  She has written for The Paris Review, Esquire, Granta, Guernica, Bookforum, KGB Bar Lit, L.A. Review of Books, Opium, and other venues.  In 2012 she wrote PEN's "Final Word" for Banned Books Week.  A long-time contributor to Harold Bloom’s literary series with Infobase Publishing, Banach is the author of publishers' guides to classics as well as works by contemporaries such as Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Dinaw Mengestu, Hisham Matar, and E.L. Doctorow, among others.

My First Yes

“Are you a writer?”

About a decade ago I found myself face to face with Norman Mailer and this was how he greeted me.  We were at his Provincetown home for a reception following a reading in town.  He sat in a chair in the center of the room, and I sat directly across from him on his living room couch until all of the guests who had been lined up to speak with him had finally dispersed with drinks and books in hand.  It had seemed like enough just to sit on that couch in a great writer’s home, but as the night drew to a close I began to think I might later regret not seizing the opportunity to speak with him, so I sat down next to him and said hello, and this question—“Are you a writer?”—was his greeting.  Though I had been writing for some time, I felt that I hadn’t yet produced sufficient work to be able to reply in the affirmative.  I said I was not. “Is your father a writer?” he countered.  I said that he was not.  We exchanged a few more words and soon the magic minutes passed and I was making my way back down Commercial Street in the dark, weighed down with the disappointment that I had somehow misspent my time with him.

When I returned home after that trip, I felt the urge to take a larger, more certain step into the literary world.  Though my background as an undergraduate was in literature, I had become divorced from it and had worked for a local non-profit arts organization in the years after helping to put together exhibitions and then at another local gallery where Arthur Miller had strolled in one day, putting the idea back in my head that I really should be dealing in words and books.  I declined job interviews with the artists Jeff Koons and Spencer Tunick in the hopes of returning to literature.

Though I cannot recall what specifically drew my attention to him, I knew the world-famous literary critic Harold Bloom was living and working in my home state, and I got the idea that he might give me some work as a place to begin, perhaps assisting with research for his latest book.  So I emailed him.  He replied by politely pointing out he already had local assistants and that I was some miles away.  I replied by saying I do not like to let geography limit me.  He replied with his editor's phone number.  I remember staring at the numbers on the screen in disbelief.  If I called, I was certain the editor would inquire about my background and what I had accomplished.  What would I tell him?

I decided I would try, regardless.  When I rang him, he was cheerful and asked right away whether I would like to work on a book—a guide to Tennessee William's Glass Menagerie for a series edited by Bloom.

Could I complete an entire book?  Could I complete this book and do a good job?  How could I be sure?  I had never done it before.

I said yes.  This was my first real “yes” as a writer and is the affirmation that confirmed me as one.  I finished the book—my first substantial assignment—and it led to another project that led to some more, until I could look back and see my own course—the course that I continue on today.  And these were the first important lessons I received as a writer: That one must be able to hear “No” and continue on regardless; that one must be ready to say “Yes” and to make it true.

For weeks after the visit to Mailer’s home, I continued to think about his question—“Are you a writer?”—and to wonder why he had asked.  I had overheard his conversations with the other guests, and he had not asked the same question of anyone else.  So I wrote him a letter.  I thanked him for having me at his home and confessed that I was, in fact, a writer and I had been wondering how he had known.  I also mentioned I was writing for Bloom and suggested I might write about him for Bloom’s series some day.  I can’t remember how much time passed before it arrived, but one day when I walked up my front steps I could see in my mailbox an envelope stamped faintly with a Provincetown address.  I opened it without too much excitement, expecting to find a form letter inside.  Instead, there was a typed letter signed by Mailer which answered my question and made me sure that I should always, always say yes:

      I enjoyed your letter and to answer your question as to why I suspected you were a writer, it is a developed instinct. I think a very good poker player knows when someone has a good hand and is not bluffing when they raise you and they are right most of the time. I am probably that way in spotting young writers.
      I must say, that is a most peculiar job working on guide books for Harold Bloom. I’m not sure that he likes my work much; he’s quite a bit back and forth about it in the occasional references that he makes so he may not be that excited by your suggestion that I am the next one to tackle. But if so, splendid. I think you will do a better job on this venue than anyone else he might choose.

Friday Freebie: Best of Books by the Bed by Cheryl & Eric Olsen and We Wanted to Be Writers by Eric Olsen & Glenn Schaeffer

Congratulations to Will Evans, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: American Dream Machine by Matthew Specktor and The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner.

This week's book giveaway is for those of you who haven't been able to get enough of year-end list-o-mania.  Best of Books by the Bed #1 edited by Cheryl and Eric Olsen, is subtitled "What Writers Are Reading Before Lights Out" and it is guaranteed to add heaps of books to your wishlists or maybe it will prompt you to go to your own shelves and pull out half-forgotten books (to be read immediately or added to the always-towering TBR pile).  Based on the popular Books by the Bed blog, this handy guide provides a happy overload of reading recommendations from bookworms with exquisite good taste.  I had a chance to review the book earlier this year and offered this blurb to the editors (repeating it here because I think it sums up my feelings about the book):

Remember those nights when you use to read books under the bedcovers by flashlight after "lights out"? And remember that feeling like warm syrup spreading through your chest when you found a book you truly loved and couldn't wait to tell others about it in the morning? Books by the Bed re-kindles that happy glow of biblio-love through its lists of well-read books enthusiastically endorsed by readers and writers. Reading Books by the Bed is like being able to crawl under the covers with fellow book lovers and come away with a whole stack of new reading material. Flashlights not included.

The contributions from readers is warm and generous throughout.  And besides, it's always fun to peek at someone else's bookshelves, isn't it?  Here, for instance, is book reviewer Harvey Freedenberg listing the books which are within easy reach from his bed:

Ever since I began reviewing in 2005, my bedside table has become the resting place for an ever shifting array of titles that remind me of the deadline-driven reading that lies ahead in the next few weeks. Right now that space is occupied by Canada, the new novel from one of my favorite writers, Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford, commentator E. J. Dionne’s Our Divided Political Heart, an analysis of our pervasive political gridlock, What Happened to Sophie Wilder, a novel by Christopher Beha, and new essay collections from two very smart people—Marilynne Robinson and Jonathan Franzen. I’m saddened to report that worthy volumes of short stories by Deborah Eisenberg, Max Apple and George Saunders have been relegated to a second stack, along with T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and the slim book, Slow Reading, by John Miedema, which seems like a rebuke to the whole notion of a TBR pile.

One more thing: the trim, slim Best of Books by the Bed #1 is perfectly-sized to fit inside a Christmas stocking.  I'm just sayin'....

Along with Best of Books by the Bed #1, you have a chance to win the book which started the website where you'll find BYTB blog posts: We Wanted to Be Writers, by Eric Olsen and Glenn Schaeffer.  Subtitled "Life, Love, and Literature at the Iowa Writers' Workshop" it's the kind of book that's catnip to authors.  Everyone loves to read other writers writing about writing, don't they?  Or is that just me?  Here's more about the book from the publisher:

We Wanted to be Writers is a rollicking and insightful blend of original interviews, commentary, advice, gossip, anecdotes, analyses, history, and asides with nearly thirty graduates and teachers at the now legendary Iowa Writers' Workshop between 1974 and 1978. Among the talents that emerged in those years--writing, criticizing, drinking, and debating in the classrooms and barrooms of Iowa City--were the younger versions of writers who became John Irving, Jane Smiley, T. C. Boyle, Michelle Huneven, Allan Gurganus, Sandra Cisneros, Jayne Anne Phillips, Jennie Fields, Joy Harjo, Joe Haldeman, and many others. It is chock full of insights and a treasure trove of inspiration for all writers, readers, history lovers, and anyone who ever "wanted to be a writer." Jane Smiley on the Iowa writers' workshop: "In that period, the teachers tended to be men of a certain age, with the idea that competition was somehow the key-the Norman Mailer period. The story was that if you disagreed with Norman, or gave him a bad review, he'd punch you in the nose. You were supposed to get in fights in restaurants." T.C. Boyle on his short story "Drowning": "I got $25 for it, which was wonderful . . . You know, getting $25 for the product of your own brain? You could buy a lot of beer in Iowa City back then for that."

If you’d like a chance at winning both Best of Books By the Bed #1 and We Wanted to be Writers, simply email your name and mailing address to

thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line.  One entry per person, please.  Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on Dec. 26, at which time I’ll draw the winning name.  I’ll announce the lucky reader on Dec. 27.  If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email.  Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning?  Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter.  Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.

GivingThanks: A Writer's Primer

In contrast to the earlier blog post which wallowed in cynical Thanksgiving bleakness, I'd like to offer up a list of things for which I'm truly thankful as a writer.

A is for Apple:  One of my very earliest computers--way, way back in the Pleistocene Era when PCs were powered by brontosaurus blood--was a second-hand Macintosh, given to me by my father after he upgraded to a newer version of a Mac (something which only weighed a svelte 15 pounds).  I enjoyed my year with that device, but when it came time for me to get a new machine, I went with an Acer, leaving Apple computers behind.  It remained that way for the next couple of decades until this past summer when I purchased a MacBook Air (on which I'm now typing these words).  True to its last name, this slim laptop is lighter than air.  A day after bringing it home, I snapped a selfie of my MacBook balanced on my fingertips.  Now, I take my works-in-progress with me wherever I go.

B is for Barnes & Noble:  I will forever be grateful to B&N for selecting Fobbit to be part of their Discover Great New Writers program.  As any Discover alum can attest--especially those of us who are debut authors--this kind of recognition gives our books much-needed rocket boosters in those early days of publication.  While I have mixed feelings about big chain bookstores, I still have vivid memories of haunting the store's stacks when I lived in El Paso, Texas, and Anchorage, Alaska.  On my recent return trip to Anchorage, I asked about the city's independent bookstores and was told there were none--apart from Title Wave Books which is now used-books-only and Fireside Books which is about 40 miles north in Palmer.  So, at least one major American city's readers are grateful to have a bookstore--chain or otherwise--where they can go in and hold real, "dead-tree books" in their hands.  Who knows, maybe they'll discover a new writer along the way.

C is for Children:  I would be less of a man, half-a-husband and an all-around empty-shelled human being if it weren't for Deighton, Schuyler and Kylie Abrams.  They're all adults now, but they're still just as lovable and loving as when they dressed up for Halloween as a banana, a clown, and Commander Riker from Star Trek.  Read my words--any words I write--and you'll hear them there humming below the surface.  They are the second-strongest influence in my life (next to my wife).

D is for Dani Shapiro:  I started reading Still Writing back in June, when it was still in galley form.  From the first day, I decided to take small sips from this inspirational book about writing by the author of Devotion.  I hesitate to call it "writing advice," because that's not really what Shapiro does.  She doesn't advise, she shares and encourages.  Or if she does drop pearls of advice on the page, it's only because we really, really need to hear it:

Here's a short list of what not to do when you sit down to write. Don't answer the phone. Don't look at e-mail. Don't go on the Internet for any reason, including checking the spelling of some obscure word, or for what you might think of as research but is really a fancy form of procrastination....Sit down. Stay there.

Shapiro, who has taught at Columbia, NYU, the New School, and elsewhere, divides her book--which is the size of a small Methodist hymnal--into three sections: Beginnings, Middles, and Ends; she then further separates everything into smaller, bite-sized sections with headings like "Inner Censor," "Fog," "Bad Days," and "Astonishment."  Most of the book is written in plain-spoken language, as if Shapiro was sitting across the table with a steaming mug of tea, honestly telling me what I need to hear.  Every so often, there are densely-lyrical passages which demand to be re-read and then re-read again for their music and meaning.  Like this one:

When it comes to storytelling (and it's all storytelling) I often tell my students that we need to be dumb like animals. Storytelling itself is primal. It's the way we've always come to understand the world around us--whether recited around a campfire, or read aloud in an East Village bar. And so it stands to reason that in order to tell our stories, we tap into something beyond the intellect--an understanding deeper than anything we can willfully engage. Overthink and our minds scramble, wondering: Should we go in this direction? Or that one? Words can become so tangled that our process can feel more like an attempt to unravel the mess we've already made. We create obstacles, then strain to get around them. Our minds spin webs that obscure the light. We second-guess. We become lost in the morass of our limited consciousness.

Is it any wonder that, as I turned the final page of Still Writing this morning, I closed the book softly, held it on my lap, and spent a quiet moment at my writing desk, giving thanks for this gift Dani Shapiro has given me?  I can count on one hand the number of books I've re-read in my life, but I plan to go back to the beginning of Still Writing tomorrow and read a section each day, continuing to glean its pages like it was an Our Daily Bread for authors.

E is for My Editor at Grove/Atlantic:  The first time I spoke with Peter Blackstock on the phone, I could barely understand one out of every three words coming from his mouth.  Peter was a recent immigrant from Great Britain and, along with his accent, he had a habit of rushing his syllables.  I stood there with my cell phone clapped hard against my ear, nodding idiotically whenever Peter paused for breath (idiotic because, duh, he couldn't see my nods on his end of the line).
      The phone call had been arranged by my agent, Nat Sobel, shortly after he emailed me to say that there was a certain young editor at Grove who might be interested in making an offer on Fobbit, but first he wanted to see if I might be a good fit for the publishing house, a writer easy to work with.  I've since learned that "easy to work with" is agent-speak for "agreeable to cutting 130,000 words from a manuscript you've just spent six years writing."  I agreed to call Peter the next day.
      At the time, I was working out of the Montana State Capitol building as part of my duties as legislative liaison for the Bureau of Land Management.  I found a relatively quiet nook on the second floor of the capitol building and, as legislators and lobbyists buzzed all around me, I dialed the number Nat had given me.
      I recounted the scene in an earlier blog post here at The Quivering Pen:

      ....a light, chipper British voice answered, “This is Peter.” When I told him who I was, he immediately launched into a round of embarrassing, effusive praise. Whether it was a poor phone connection or Peter’s thick accent, I had trouble understanding everything he said. I was, however, able to pick out the words “brilliant” and “fantastic” (words which I’d come to learn were some of Peter’s favorites).
      In the first five minutes of that phone conversation, I knew I’d found my champion for Fobbit. I've had many editors in the past, but none so gung-ho as Peter Blackstock. As any writer can tell you, the enthusiasm of a single reader is often enough to help you carry the ball all the way from the 50-yard line to the end zone. Even in that first phone chat, I could tell Peter was the equivalent of a tight end who’d catch Fobbit, tuck his head, and run full-bore for the goal posts.

I simply cannot thank Peter enough for his wisdom, his patience and his never-flickering enthusiasm for both me as the author of the first book he acquired for Grove and for me as a person.  Peter has continued to buoy my spirits post-publication and, frankly, he's one of my best friends.  Even if I can hardly understand a word he's saying.

F is for Friends of Fobbit:  As I was approaching the final stages of writing my comic novel about the Iraq War, I flew into a panic and plummeted in a smoky spiral of self-doubt.  What if they didn't like it?  And by "they," I was specifically thinking of military readers.  Would they think I was mocking them?  Would they not understand that I was on their side in the complexity of emotions surrounding our 21st-century wars?  Would pissed-off readers drive thousands of miles across the country to stand on my front lawn and throw rocks at my house?  My worry was, of course, unfounded and unnecessary.  Certainly there were, are, and will always be readers who don't appreciate Fobbit's satirical look at the buffoonery of the war machine--and I'm totally cool with that.  But since the book was published last year, I have been overwhelmingly touched by the positive response--from both civilian and military readers.  Soon after the book was out in the world, I received this Facebook message from a reader:

      Sir: I am a Public Affairs Officer in the Canadian Army, trained at the Defense Information School and with two tours in Afghanistan. The first was with a Canadian Infantry BG down in Kandahar, but the second was at a Headquarters in Kabul deep in the Green Zone with all USAF/USN enlisted PA staff. Suffice it to say, Fobbit had me in tears I was laughing so hard and also shaking my head at some of the things you wrote that I knew to be true. Best post-War on Terror book I have read yet. Congrats on a fine novel.
      Cheers,
      Ed

Thank you, Ed. You made my day, my week, my month, my year.  And a King-Kong-sized Thank You to all the other readers, silent and vocal, who took time out of their lives to read my book and later said that time was not wasted.  I love you all.

G is for Government Job:  Like 98.6%* of published authors, I need to have a "regular job" to pay the bills and buy food to shovel into the machine of my body so that my brain keeps firing pistons and my fingers don't stop moving across the keyboard.  I am fortunate to be a Writer With a Day Job, in the employ of the U.S. government (I'm the public affairs specialist for the Western Montana District of the Bureau of Land Management).  Despite scary and needless hiccups like government shutdowns, I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing when I'm not writing.  Besides, every so often, I find myself trailing a wildlife biologist while hiking across the slope of a mountain, looking down at diamond glints coming off the ribbon of a river and I'll think, "Damn, I'm actually getting paid for this?"

*A random figure I pulled out of my ass.

H is for Hugs From My Wife:  Every writer needs to be hugged at least once a day.  Jean Abrams gives the world's best embraces.  She really does.  Guys, don't be haters.

I is for Independent Bookstores:  I don't want to live in a world without independent bookstores....and I don't believe I'll ever have to.  Books stimulate conversation at a personal level.  This is what bookstores offer us: gathering places for lovers of language and storytelling--whether that's exulting over the prose of Walt Whitman or Wally Lamb.  Sure, we can grab a cup of coffee while we're at it and maybe pick up a party game or a stuffed animal or a yoga mat along the way, but books will always be the beating heart of these stores.  In the nearly 18 months since Fobbit was published, I've been the most fortunate of writers who has traveled the span of the country for book festivals and bookstore readings from Miami to Seattle, from Texas to Alaska.  I've had the chance to meet many booksellers and I truly believe they, along with librarians, are the superheroes of our American culture (I've even inscribed words to that effect on some booksellers' copies of Fobbit).  The stores have ranged from the huge, multi-storied Tattered Cover in Denver to the small-as-a-shoebox Brazos Bookstore in Houston (though tiny, Brazos easily wins a medal for the way it lovingly displays its books; manager Jeremy Ellis has created beautiful shrines of book pyramids everywhere you look).  Sure, some of those small shops are struggling and I read far too many bookstore obituaries in Shelf Awareness every week, but the one thing I saw in every bookstore I visited this past year was dedication.  These men and women love books and they are determined to keep ringing their cash registers and passing good literature across the counter with a hearty, "Here, read this!"  So, no, I cannot imagine a world without Fact and Fiction, Country Bookshelf, Quail Ridge Books, Elliott Bay Book Company, Auntie's Bookstore, Rediscovered Books, Elk River Books, City Lights Books, Flyleaf Books, Politics and Prose, Green Apple Books, Harvard Book Store, Iconoclast Books or Red Lodge Books.  It would be a colder, bleaker, less friendly world indeed.

J is for Jean:  On his deathbed, President Andrew Jackson reportedly said, "Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there."  As for me, it will be a dark hell of eternity if Jean isn't there with me on the Other Side.  This coming Tuesday marks 30 years since the day we said, "I do."  We've been "doing" quite well since then.  Over the past three decades(!), it feels like Jean and I have merged into the same person.  You might as well call either of us "Javid" or "Dean."  She is me, I am her.  Mathematically-speaking two goes into one once, and stays that way forever.  As a writer, I'm blessed to be married to someone who serves as equal parts cheerleader and goader.  She high-fives me when I get good news, and she pokes me with a stick when I'm in a slump ("Why did you waste your time answering email this morning?  You should be up there writing.").  Is she, on occasion, a jealous "writer's widow"?  Sure, but who wouldn't be?  The work of writers is solitary and done mostly in silence.  Jean is a social person; she needs to have noise and stimulation and desires my company more often than I'm prone give it to her, I'm sure.  And yet, she understands my need to create and the circumstances under which the words must be written.  She is patient, she is kind, she is not easily-angered nor does she keep a record of wrongs.  She is, in every sense of the word, the perfect wife, the good wife, the best wife.  The wife I never knew I needed until she arrived like a gift.  And, hopefully, she is the wife who will be there with me on the Other Side when all breath stops and the blood comes to a standstill in my veins.  Men, don't be haters.

K is for Kindle:  I'm not going to be one of those self-righteous, holier-than-thou writers who go around preaching the evils of Amazon, then sneak home at night to switch on their Kindle Fires.  I'll gladly, freely admit I own a Kindle.  I purchase books from Amazon (along with books from independent bookstores), and I read as many e-books as I do "dead-tree books."  I love the convenience and portability of my e-reader--even if it might be a passing fad which will eventually go the way of the eight-track, rotary-dial phones and the brontosaurus.  I believe this world is big enough for places like Amazon and independent bookstores, that it's not an either-or world.  Kobo (my other K e-reader) is one step toward proving that independent bookstores can be part of e-publishing.  I purchased my Kobo reader from Fact and Fiction and now any books I purchase via Kobo are credited to a sale at F&F.  It's not a perfect setup--indie bookstores only make pennies per e-book sale--but it's at least movement in the right direction.  I have more than 8,000 volumes in my personal library at home and e-book are the necessary solution to reduce the overcrowding.  And so, I straddle both worlds in my reading habits.  I have two hands: one for my Kindle/Kobo and one for one of my 7,000 cloth-bound books.

L is for Libraries:  Two Thanksgivings ago, here's what I posted at the blog as I remembered the first book I ever read on my own--coincidentally an EZ reader about the Plymouth Rock Pilgrims:

      Thinking of this book brought back memories of the days, circa 1968, when I would walk from my brick home on Arch Street in Kittanning to the Armstrong County Public Library. At the time, it was less than two blocks away, just down the hill near the east bank of the Allegheny River. I held my mother's hand, skipping ahead, pulling her along the sidewalk, impatient to get to the House of Books. The library was built in 1860 and had Italianate-style white columns at the front entrance. From my small perspective, it was huge--high ceilings, an imposing front desk which one approached like a royal throne, and, along dark passageways behind the desk, towering shelves full of books (adult books) which would someday be mine once I mastered the English language.
      On this one day in my memory, I went to the children's section--just to the left of the front entrance, flooded with sunshine from tall windows--and found a book which would be the cornerstone of my entire life. Of course, I didn't know that at the time. Back then, it was just a book with interesting people in funny costumes.
      The name of the book and the author are lost to me now, but I do have a very strong sense of the book as a physical property. It had no dustjacket and the cover (or, "boards") of the book had the fine-grained weave of a painter's canvas. It was the color of salmon, of crushed berries, of raw venison meat. Inside, each page had a photo of Pilgrims--suffering persecution in the Old World, sailing on the Mayflower, stepping onto Plymouth Rock, exchanging handshakes with what the book called Indians, walking across fields with dead deer collared over their necks, sitting at a long wooden table groaning under the weight of food.
      In truth, maybe the book had none of these pictures. The one I do remember is a photo of a man encased in conquistador armor, his head lifted as he looks at a distant horizon. For whatever reason, that image is seared in my memory and I am certain of nothing else but this. The fact that these were color photographs and not painted or hand-drawn illustrations must have really fucked with my young, malleable mind. I was five years old and here, right here in this book on my lap, was photographic proof of Pilgrims! The authority of this printed and bound book convinced me they had cameras back in 1621. It took years of primary and secondary education to convince me otherwise.
      This half-remembered, forgotten-titled book is an important landmark in my reading life because it is the first book I recall checking out of the library, taking home, and--for two weeks--feeling like I possessed the words and the photos between the covers. My mother had been reading to me for years and I had probably learned to start "reading on my own" around the age of 4. But this book, this story of Thanksgiving with its photos of faux-Pilgrims, was different because I claimed ownership of the words.
      I have owned them--thankfully, gratefully--ever since that morning in the high-ceilinged, dust-moted air of the Armstrong County Public Library. Nothing of this life I now know would have taken shape if it weren't for those first pieces falling into place: the skipping walk with my mother, the beautiful authority of those white columns, the reverent hush of the air inside the building, the sunlight falling on the spine of this particular book, the librarian rubber-stamping the due date in blue ink inside the front cover, and the two weeks I spent with the Pilgrims as they found a new world.

A grateful nod also goes to the Teton County Library in Jackson, Wyoming for giving me my first paid job when I was 13 years old. A paycheck for being allowed to work with books all day long during the summer? Ecstasy!  A special shout-out of thanks also needs to go to Lee Miller and Regan deVictoria of the Butte-Silver Bow Library here in my adopted Mining City.  They've been overwhelmingly supportive of Fobbit and my writing career for the past two years.  Thanks, ladies!

M is for Mom and Dad:  For the twenty years before Jean came into my life, there were these other two people who had a hand in sculpting my character.  I think they did a fairly decent job.  I am thankful for the foundation laid by Claire and Dan Abrams--both the firm hand of discipline and the soft embrace of tolerance.  They gave me numerous gifts, among them a love for the music of words: my mother read to me most nights as she tucked me into bed; my father, a Baptist minister, delivered the poetry of Scripture every Sunday from the pulpit.  I absorbed it all like a sponge.  Where would any writer be without the nurture and nature of parents?

N is for Nat Sobel:  Agent extraordinaire, a debut novelist's dream come true.  Nat has been in the business for more decades than I've been alive.  And I just turned 50.  There are photos of Nat hanging out with Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne--that's how far back he goes.  He's a Manhattan legend, known for his savvy street smarts and the kind of personal networking that would put an overstuffed Rolodex to shame.  So, when I was in Iraq and I received an email from him saying he was interested in reading more of my writing (he'd seen one of my war journal entries posted online at a blog), I was flabbergasted, flattered and flat-out pumped full of ego.  Nat Sobel, agent of James Ellroy and Richard Russo, wanted to take me on as a client?  Oh, hell yeah!  I spent the next week walking around Camp Liberty in Baghdad feeling superior to every other soldier I passed on the way to chow--those poor schlubs who didn't have a literary agent as great as the one who was now representing me.  That feeling passed as soon as another mortar landed on Camp Liberty, injuring a soldier at the fitness center and reminding me that, agent or no agent, I was still a vulnerable, flesh-made man who hadn't even started writing this supposed war novel Nat was so eager to read.  Well, damn.  Guess I'd better get busy with it.  Now here's the coolest thing about Nat Sobel: he stuck by me for six years--six years, mind you--with nothing to show for it.  I gave him zilch, nada, not even a nibble from half a chapter, in all those years.  Every six months or so, he'd email me: "How's it going?  When do you think I might see some finished pages?"  But he never ever lost faith in me.  He knew that someday he'd have a finished stack of pages in his hand.  And he did, after six years, he finally did.  Thank you, Nat for never giving up.

O is for the Oprah Phone Call I Hope to Receive....Someday.

P is for Pen:  I am grateful for both The Quivering Pen (and all the readers who've come here every day for the past three-and-a-half years) as well as the physical pen I hold between the fingers of my right hand, a Pentel EnerGel, metal tip with a 0.7mm ball.  It has a rubberized grip, a soft weight, and an effortless release of ink which flows across the pages of my Moleskine notebook in an unbroken ribbon.  Most of us take our writing instruments for granted.  Not me.  I'm so thankful we no longer have to scrape the pointy end of burnt sticks across the flat surfaces of rocks.

Q is for Quiet:  Picture me at 4 a.m., sitting in my second-story office overlooking my tree-lined street here in Butte, Montana.  I'm in my shorts, T-shirt, and slippers.  At my elbow are a mug of coffee and a blue glass of water with tiny bergs of ice cubes floating on the surface.  Nothing moves outside, not a car will go by until the newspaper deliveryman pulls up at 6:30.  The room is so still I can hear my cat's paws on the staircase.  My laptop is open, the screen is half-filled with words, the cursor is blinking.  After a few sips of coffee, my brain sputters to life.  I am ready.  I lift my fingers, bring them down on the keys, and the quiet of the day is sweetly, blissfully broken.

R is for Raymond Carver: And Charles Dickens, Stewart O'Nan, John Irving, Washington Irving, Richard Ford, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nathanael West, Ron Carlson, Joseph Heller, Anne Sexton, Norman Mailer, Tim O'Brien, Lewis Nordan, Flannery O'Connor, Russell Banks, Edith Wharton, Michael Chabon, Herman Melville, Elmore Leonard, Billy Collins, Ernest Hemingway, Agatha Christie, James Fenimore Cooper, Ellen Gilchrist, T. R. Pearson, Benjamin Percy, Stephen King, William Faulkner, and The Next Writer With Whom I Will Fall in Love.

S is for Still Writing by Dani Shapiro:  Can you tell I really loved this book?  For the past five months, it has been the rudder of my life.  Speaking of which, here's one more passage--this one is the entire section titled "Building the Boat":

      I was in the middle of my second novel and struggling.  Instead of engagement, I felt a nagging worry. Had I lost my way? Maybe I had taken a wrong turn--but where? One afternoon, I met a friend of mine, a poet and novelist, for coffee.
      I feel like I'm in a boat in the middle of the ocean and there's no land in sight," I told him.
      He gook a sip of his drink and peered at me over his glasses.
      "Yeah," he said. "And you're building the boat."

T is for Teachers:  In particular, I'm thankful for three of my educators who have each done their part tossing vegetables and spices into the stew that is now my writing life:
      Debbie Schlinger, ninth grade, Jackson Middle School in Jackson, Wyoming.  Mrs. Schlinger was one of the first champions of my creative writing.  She recognized something in me that even I hadn't seen up to that point.  The true test of her faith in me was when I turned in an essay--one I was quite proud of--and it contained several sentences which began with conjunctions like "And," "But," and "Though."  I was nervous handing it to her, expecting to be red-penned into humiliation.  To my surprise, she smiled and said, "I like what you've done here."  One month after Fobbit's publication, I received an email from her which said, in part: "I am so thrilled for your success and truly can't believe I had anything to do with it, except I do remember well how much I enjoyed reading whatever you wrote. I did know you had talent beyond normal--or maybe interest in writing beyond a typical 9th grade boy.  It was always a treat to sit down and grade your well written thoughts. Who'd have guessed what could be? Makes me realize the truth in Langston Hughes poem, 'Dreams'--glad you didn't give up on yours."
      Don Simpson, twelfth grade, Jackson Hole High School in Jackson, Wyoming.  Admittedly, Don Simpson was a bit of an odd bird, and he'd probably be the first to tell you he wasn't cut out for the job of teaching high school English.  He came to us that year from the college in Moscow, Idaho and he carried all the pretentious airs of a university pedagogue.  And I loved him for that.  He was so much smarter than the rest of us--he claimed to have written a novel (unpublished) called The Scatological Implications of Brick-Laying.  I loved him even more for that title alone.  Mr. Simpson ("Dr.," actually, since he carried a PhD. in his back pocket) challenged us to think beyond our years and we responded accordingly.  One other thanks I owe him: he introduced me to the works of John Updike.  God bless you, sir!
      Frank Soos, professor at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks.  The success of a graduate student's career depends in large part on how he clicks with his graduate advisor.  To my good fortune, Frank and I fit together like puzzle pieces.  Frank is a thoughtful, laid-back individual--thin as an exclamation point, tall as a drink of water.  When he speaks--in a gentle, Southern drawl--you know the words have been carefully chosen long before they pass over his teeth and tongue.  In my years at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Frank cut me no slack but also pumped me full of encouragement.  To this day, when I approach the renovation of a sentence during the rewrite process, I ask myself, "What would Frank do?"

U is for Uniform:  As any reader of Fobbit can probably guess, my feelings about the Army are complicated.  It was a 20-year love/hate relationship with the scale tipping just a little bit in the direction of hate.  But as much as I may have grouched and groused about my time in uniform (and specifically about having to wear one of the world's ugliest uniforms every day), I am nonetheless overwhelmingly filled with gratitude for my employer who consistently put a roof over my head, gave me and my entire family free medical care, always deposited a paycheck in my back account, and took me to places like Thailand, Africa, Japan, and the wonderland of Alaska for nine years.  It also taught me how to have a strong fist of self-confidence--something I may never have found on my own left to my own devices.

V is for the Valley of Despair:  I'm thankful for the dark days, the blues, the attacks of the Dull Blahs.  For without them, I would not fully appreciate the really good days, the productive, energetic bursts of writing.  Thank you, Lord, for this supremely wise balance of light and dark in our lives.

X is for That Toy Xylophone I Had as a Kid and for the Valuable Lesson It Taught Me:  I should not pursue a career in composing music.

Y is for Yearning:  I want to be a better writer.  I long to compose better sentences, mold more interesting characters out of the clay of words.  It is this leaning forward, this yearning, this scanning the horizon with binoculars which fuels me to keep writing One.  More.  Day.  Here's Dani Shapiro once more with some parting words on the subject:

      The only reason to be a writer is because you have to. Most of the time, even if you've achieved publication and are lucky enough to be one of the few writers left in the country who are sent on book tour, you will find yourself in some small city where you know no one, in a hotel right off the highway that smells like room sanitizer, getting ready to give a reading where you might have an audience of five people sitting on folding chairs, two of whom work for the bookstore, two of whom are distant cousins of yours, and one of whom is a homeless person who gets up halfway through your reading and shuffles out. (True story.)
      The real work involves a different kind of ambition: the creative kind. No writer I know is confident in her work. Just as Raymond Carver marked up his published stories with his red pencil, writers cringe when forced to reread our own prose; we're plagued by the certainty that we haven't quite achieved what we'd hoped we could. The work is only as good as our small, imperfect, pedestrian selves can make it. It exists in some idealized form, just out of reach. And so we push on. Driven by a desire to get it right, we do our work in the hopes of coming close.

Z is for Zzzz:  At the close of the day, there is nothing--and, brother, I mean nothing--finer than pulling back a corner of the bedcovers, sliding a leg onto the mattress, plumping the pillow beneath my head, and spooning into the waiting back of my wife.  She is, simply put, the best sleep companion this writer could ever ask for.  Guys, don't be haters.