I would be remiss
to exclude my feelings with this project, this year’s NaNoWriMo, this
Twenty-four Hours in Vancouver. The feelings, all of them,
intense ones too, are all over the place. The truth is, I really
don’t know how I feel or where to begin.
I could begin in
1999, November. I wrote the original story then. I was living in
Southeast Portland and working for the Cascade Pacific Council, Boy
Scouts of America. I was 27. I was very unhappy, and for the life of
me now, I have no idea why. I was unhappy with work. I thought I was
a sellout. But being a sellout, as such, doesn’t seem that bad of a
thing to me now. I felt like a fraud working for the Boy Scouts too.
I didn’t like Southeast Portland. All I wanted to be was a writer,
even if I didn’t know what that meant.
I could begin in
mid 2009 and Undertakers of Rain. I say that because I used a
character from that novel, Sam Foley, and I put him in the new
Twenty-four Hours in Vancouver. 2009, I was in Denver. I had
recently graduated from Goddard College with my MFA in writing. In
2009 and with Undertakers of Rain I was really exorcising the
ghosts of 1999. I set the novel in Portland, Southeast Portland and
the characters were both about 27, 28 years old.
I could begin with
January 2023, not even a year ago, and the thoughts I was having.
When I decided to write “real” novels from old drafts, I did so
with a very sober head and clear heart. I knew that these stories
were going to take me to Astoria, as was the case with The
Cataract and I knew Exile was going to take me to Denver,
1993. I loved ever bit of both of those experiences.
Twenty-four
Hours in Vancouver took me to many places, and many places all at
once. It took me to Vancouver, and my memories of the place. It took
me to 1999. It took me to Portland, who I was at the time of the
original draft. It took me to a place, ten years later, after grad
school. It took me to 2009, Denver and who I was at the time of
writing Undertakers of Rain. And in the years since then, I
left Denver, for Portland and then back again and ultimately to the
small town I live in now in rural northern Colorado.
It has been a
little bit of all the things that life brings. It has been all those
experiences that make a life, that make an artist, that make a
writer. It has been a very reflective year with these three NaNoWriMo
projects. I am suddenly very grateful for all the hours, and there
have been many, that I’ve spent writing.
This novel is
number 24. I have one more rewrite for next year. After that, I have
the drafts of three more. In a way, I am very behind on my work. In
another way, I still have so much to do.