Postmortem:”Babe, I Am Going to Leave You”
Filed Under: My Writing, Speculative Fiction, Writing Process
Yesterday, I released my intensely personal story of death, Led Zeppelin, and how families cope with death, “Babe, I am Going to Leave You” as a CC-licensed story. A friend asked what my thinking was behind doing this, so I thought I’d break it down in a blog post, in case anyone else was interested.I wrote this story, over the course of about a year, in an attempt to come to terms with my own father’s death from cancer. I always intended to try and publish it somewhere like any other story I wrote, but once I tried doing so, I found I had invested too much of myself to be able to handle the rejections. Most rejections are slightly painful, but you can shrug them off. I just couldn’t shrug off rejections to this story.
I struggled with whether I should essentially “self-publish” the story. I don’t have a large readership here. I’m not John Scalzi or Jay Lake, although I hope to attract as many followers some day. Am I the only writer who wonders about maximizing the audience for their stories, or do we all worry about that? I don’t make much money from my stories, so I’ve focused on growing an audience more than the money.
I also worried that some would see releasing the story myself as a coward’s way out. I do feel guilty for not trying harder to find a place to publish the story that could have given it more readers than I could on my own. The story is, in a big way, my way of honoring my father. Did I do him honor just releasing it to the handful of people who read this? I don’t know. I was tired of having it here, and having no one read it though. I really wanted to do good with this story. I had experienced something profound and painful, and I wanted to help others get through a similar experience. The chance to do some good, even a little, is what convinced me it was the right thing to do.
I want to thank those of you who linked my story in your own blogs. I really appreciated that. It made me feel much more like I made a good choice here. And those of you who have written me, thanking me for posting the story. I am glad that it has helped you.
In the future, I will definitely continue to release reprints of my stories online under the Creative Commons. It can only help a writer at my stage of career. I don’t think I will release any other unpublished stories though, because I think it’s too easy and attractive to circumvent the rejection/acceptance process.
For example, I have this story about a plague that turns famous people into plastic statues and about the people who collect the formerly famous like baseball cards. It’s got a very political slant, and never found a home probably because of that, or maybe because it’s not as funny as I think it is. There’s a strong temptation to just publish it on the web, especially because it’s partially about Bush and he’s about to leave the White House (I hope) and the story will lose its relevancy at that point. I don’t know. Maybe I can find a publisher for it int he next 9 months. Or I can sell it as alt-history futurism later.
Still, regardless, I am glad I released this one story this way. Thank you for reading it.
A CC-Licensed Story: “Babe, I’m Going to Leave You”
Filed Under: My Writing, Speculative Fiction, Top Post
A CC-Licensed Story: “Babe, I’m Going to Leave You”
I slept very badly last night, and had a migraine to end all migraines. I’m slowly recovering this morning. I recently woke up and, along with this lingering headache, I found I have an overwhelming desire to give something away.
I’ve posted a story online under a Creative Commons license. It’s about death, Led Zeppelin, and how families cope. A lot of it really happened. Some of it did not. It’s so intensely personal that I can’t bear to receive another rejection calling it “slight” or anything else, so here it is, posted for anyone to read and call “slight” or anything else they want to call it. What is important to me is that maybe someone reads it who is going through something similar and feels a little less alone. Writing it sure helped me. But your milage may vary.
With that said, here’s the link to the story. Share it as you see fit.
Babe, I’m Going to Leave You
When my Dad killed The Family Dog
Filed Under: Top Post
My dad died two years ago. It’s been hard to get over. We had a year from his cancer diagnosis until he passed away, and I never wanted to admit what was happening and I’m only just admitting it now. I didn’t want to see him on his death bed in the end, because I knew that if I didn’t see it, part of me could deny it had ever happened. He was 44 years old. In case you’re wondering, I am 29. My parents were young when I was born, and I’ve always banked on that to avoid those tragedies that we all face some day. Life is strange that way. All of my friends with parents in their 50s and 60s still have theirs, and I’m down one already.
You focus on the happy memories at first, but sometimes, there are less pleasant memories that repeatedly rise up like angry ghosts, demanding to be accounted for. They spring on you in the middle of the night, take grip on your mind, and refuse to let go. Lately, I can’t stop thinking about how my father killed his dog when I was eight.
My parents had recently divorced. To this day, I’m not sure what the circumstances were. As part of attempting to make it up to myself, my sister, and my little brother, our parents each got a puppy. That dog that lived with my mother was Beauty. I cannot remember the name of the dog that lived with my father.
The two were sisters, mutts, smallish dogs, but not punters like poodles or chihuahuas. They were loving, but hard to train. And my father’s dog liked to chew things.
I did not see him kill the dog. I am not sure how I know what happened, but I can picture it like I was there. My father was living in the basement of his oldest sister’s house on the east side of Topeka. During the day, he worked as a meter man. He wore a blue uniform that was often mistaken for a policeman’s uniform with black shoes that he kept well-polished. I think he had a special affection for shoes then, given that he walked miles and miles every day as part of his beat. This was before the scooters meter people use now.
He came home from somewhere, I imagine it was to buy what few groceries he could afford after giving most of his money to my mother to feed us, and his dog, the one whose name I cannot remember, had chewed one of his work shoes to pieces and was starting in on the other. It was then, in a fit of anger, that he threw the remaining shoe at his cowering dog, striking her in the head. She whimpered, fell onto her side, and died.
I know this story. Someone told it to me, but it was not my father. He never spoke of it. I saw tears in my father’s eyes several times over my life– he was not the kind of touchy-feely modern man that some fathers are, but he was not so stoic either. But I can remember asking my father about his dog, and seeing him shake his head and turn away to keep me from seeing his tears.
My mother gave Beauty to my father. Despite all the trouble they had, despite the fact that he had killed his own dog a week before, she gave him the dog. If he were alive, he would probably tell me that the reason was that my mother couldn’t handle the dog, that Beauty was constantly making messes and she gave him the dog in frustration. I’m not so sure about that.
A year later, she was remarried, and we moved in with my father. Beauty became the family dog, and at some point, I forgot the other dog. We gave Beauty away to my mother’s sister when my father remarried and we moved from Topeka to Lawrence. She’s long dead now. She was a good dog. Gentle and forgiving of children.
I wish I could remember the dog’s name. I think that some small part of me should honor her like I honor my father. He wasn’t perfect, but I know he never meant to hurt his dog.
