She turns 18 today

Fallon Paige Turner

18 Years Old Today

Little Brother, Welder Be

For Alice, to her brother

Little brother, welder be
Fire your torch
Just for me

Heat the shop and strike the hammer
Cut a form
And raise a clamor

No one joined a seam like you
So one more time
There's work to do

Little brother, sailor be
Just a kid
When sent to sea

Around the world you went and back
Learned a trade
A cracker jack

Returned a man, firm and lean
Torch in hand
And acetylene

Little brother, welder be
Ply your trade
Again for me

Weld a shape from a sheet of metal
The form of a box
Then let it settle

Then you and I will climb inside
Lock it shut
So we can hide

Some will say your life was wasted
Better served
If other fruits tasted

A banker, a king, a richer man
They would insist
But they misunderstand

That my brother, you see
Was richest when
A little welder, he

Beware the Shit Spreaders

How can I measure writing progress? I try not to, to be honest, because I then become inevitably obsessed with volume which is something I despise. It goes back to my days as a newspaper reporter.

I was often criticized by newspaper editors for not producing x-amount of news copy per week. Their argument: the news "hole" had to be filled and I had to contribute my share. I earned a paycheck, I was told, for the number of column inches I spat out each week. I was chronically below the mark, and was called into my editor's offices frequently. I had one such editor say I wasn't a "self-starter". Another said I was a "good writer" but a poor reporter.

I would agree with the latter. In fact, I once got into an argument with a fellow reporter who had just been hired and whose weekly output soon became the newspaper's benchmark for success and against which all reporters were measured. This guy wrote five to six stories a day. He was the immediate darling of the paper.

At a conference one weekend we all sat around the lunch table chatting about - what else - the news. He continually tried bringing the conversation around to the latest glowing remarks he received from our editors about the fine job he was doing. (He was a notorious self-aggrandizer) We ignored him. At least, we tried. But after awhile, you just can't ignore a pile of dog shit sitting in front of you.

"I'm surprised the guy before me complained of nothing to write about," the pile said. "It's really his own fault he got fired. He just wasn't a self-starter."

Now, the rest of us around the table liked the former reporter covering the northern beat. He was a good kid, smart, fun to hang around. His firing had shaken us all up.

The pile had crossed a line.

"I mean, come on. How hard is it to produce three stories a day up there? I do five in my sleep," he said.

"And it reads like it, too," I quipped.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me," I said. "Your stories read like you wrote them in your sleep."

"This coming from the guy with the worst production in the entire newspaper," Mr. Pile said, smugly. Apparently the editors had been busy sharing their frustration with me to anyone who would listen, and Pile thought he had something on me.

Now, before I say anything else, let me be clear. I don't have an overinflated view of myself as a writer. I believe I was a solid reporter. I was not prolific, and I was not the best writer either. (Read Dan Snapp's column here. I worked with him at a newspaper and I feel he's the best writer I've worked with.)

I've moved to fiction and feel the same way: I've got talent, but I'm not the best. I stopped trying to be the best when I realized that it's about improving yourself, and not a competition.

So, back to the Pile.

The Pile was one of those types of reporters who bought into the notion that more was better, and therefore measured ability on the amount of words he wrote, not on the quality. He was the type who would go to selectmen's meetings and squeeze five stories from it when one average-sized story would suffice. His articles were about road salt purchasing or how to deal with mailbox vandalism or where to put the new public ice rink. Important to about a hundred readers, but not worthy of five anemic, cliche-dripping articles.

I call these types of reporters "shit spreaders" because they're obviously trying to fill a daily quota, not trying to write quality stories people can really benefit from. I covered a selectmen's meeting once in which an hour was spent arguing about a local farmer's manure-spreading activities. The selectmen used the term 'shit-spreader' no fewer than 20 times. It was the biggest waste of an hour of my life. My editors insisted I write the story separately, however, to my utter astonishment. I kept the term shit-spreader in the article, out of protest, forcing the editor to have to read every word so that the profanity didn't make it into print.

Since then, any article I read about the mundane, the inane, the insanely irrelevant, I call a shit-spreader. A story written to fill a quota. Read your local paper. I know you know what I'm talking about.

So back to Pile. He was a real shit-spreader. He wrote 20 to 30 articles a week, and maybe one or two were legitimately worthy of print.

So what does this have to do with my writing today?

Well, I've noticed I keep falling into the habit of checking my daily output as some sort of indication of how well I am doing. It gets me down, I become dejected, and inevitably depressed.

I need to stop shit-spreading. Writing to meet a 5-page quota, because when I re-read those five pages, they really stink. But when I go over the half-page that I struggled to produce, it's flawed, but it rings true.

I can fix flawed. I cannot do anything with a pile of shit except flush it.

A New Blog

To change the pace, and do something entirely different...

http://allthatsheis.blogspot.com/


Come over, become a member, comment if you'd like.

Our Seven Wonders: Truly Thankful, Truly Blessed

Fallon Paige

Harrison Scott

Alyssa Jean

Ty Gabriel

Bailey Orrin

Gabrielle Marrae

Griffin Alan Kent

Meet Mr. B

Today, Bailey came to our house to live full-time, capping three months of transitioning that included several drives to Winthrop where he lived with his foster family.

The state requires a transition period, during which we were able to gradually introduce ourselves to him, and him to us. He latched on immediately, began calling us Mumma and Dadda from the start, and has always called our home his own. He came to our house a few times, for overnights. And a couple of weekends.

Because of the ease with which everything has gone, we were able to speed up the transition.

He will have to live with us for six months before we can legally adopt him. A state requirement. But as far as we're concerned, he's ours now.

Corrine served a brunch for everyone - Bailey's foster family and their adopted son, who is Bailey's biological brother. Corrine's parents came, as did her brother and his family. All of our kids - except Ty - were here as well.

The coming days, following Thanksgiving break, will be a process of getting him into a school. We have a meeting with the local school district about the details on Tuesday. His is a peculiar case that needs the assistance of special education in order to meet certain developmental needs. We are treading in unfamiliar waters here. As his new advocates, there are more questions than answers. What does he really need? What should he be getting? How do we ensure that he's not treated just as a source of income for the local school district?

It's an ongoing education for us. But what isn't in life? We're ready to tackle it, that's fir sure.

The Courage to Write

Corrine had a great idea yesterday. Why not turn our experiences in adoption into a short memoir? From a man's perspective - a father's point of view? Start from about a year ago when we took four weekends of classes together, and finish when B is legally ours, which would be sometime next June (if the current schedule holds.)

I loved the idea. It makes perfect sense, in fact. I'm a writer, a father, a man, and I think I could easily fill a couple hundred pages on the subject. I think people would read it, too.

Now, before you spew coffee through your noses this morning, please understand the motivation is NOT to profit off the adoption of our son. If you're a writer reading this, you're smiling. Because you know only about a half a percent of writers actually make money from their writing.

This is not a get-rich-quick scheme, Alice.

Corrine's argument (I was skeptical at first) went something like this: "Do you know how rich we could get off this!?!?"

She's a hustler, that girl of mine. Always checking the angles.

Actually, what she said was that a story about the adoption of a child, from a man's point of view, would be a welcomed change. People associate adoption with women, I guess. Or with sentimentality. Or with things like feelings and emotions. You know, stuff guys don't really have?

And God knows men are not sentimental creatures. Well, unless we're watching Brian's Song or Field of Dreams or The Natural.

I, on the other hand, am a well of emotion. A veritable spring of gushing sentiment. I can cry on cue, almost.

So, I agreed with her. A little memoir about my feelings and experiences with adoption. I've started scribbling notes. Some ideas about theme. It can't be just a chronology of events. That would be boring. There has to be a thread through it. What would it be? Well, I can't determine that now. It will expose itself in due time.

And as I sat jotting initial thoughts down, pieces of my life started creeping into it. Things not specifically associated with the adoption itself. Things about being a father, about having a father. Some funny anecdotes of my childhood. And poignant scenes, too, like when Fallon was first born.

And after about an hour of this brainstorming, a fear crept in. If I'm to write about my feelings, and if the sphere of storytelling continues to expand so that it includes Fallon, and Harrison and my parents, etc. ... how much do I put in? Naturally if I write about parenting, then it stands to reason I would have to include Fallon and Harrison's mom, from whom I am divorced. Do I include the sordid details of the divorce, too? And will she balk at the idea of her being in a memoir?

Ahhh, the bogeyman has paid a visit. The age-old dilemma of memoirists: can you be true to your story without violating the trust of those who share a life with you?

Now, listen. I'm not saying I want to write bad things about these people. But, you know, there are things in my life (as there are in everyone's life) that are painful. If I am to be honest - and that's what a memoir is, honest - then I need to include some events that may or may not reflect too well on myself, and therefore, not too well on my loved-ones.

How far is too far? Do I need these people's permission to even include them? Do I change their names to protect them? But then again, let's be real, people will know who they are, I mean, come on.

This is not a tell-all. It's not an expose. It is, however, an exploration of my feelings about parenting, in a broader sense, and as it relates specifically to the adoption of a child. Naturally, I don't live in a vacuum. I interact with other humans, many of whom have helped shape my personal history. Including (significantly) my first wife, my parents, my siblings, my children.

Do I tip-toe, for example, around my divorce? Do I delve into the specifics (scandalous, many would say - sorry, but that's a part of my life, too) or do I just say "Voila! one morning I woke up I was divorced)? This passage of my life affected my children both positively and negatively. And it called into question (in my mind) my skills (or lack thereof) as a father.

The thing is, some parts of my life, when exposed, will not reflect very good on me, but it will reveal me as a human, with flaws, particularly as a father. It will also delve into my relationships with my own parents, some good, and some bad. That's the whole point of this. No one wants to read a story from a guy who comes across as having nothing wrong with him, who has made all the right choices and lives a trauma-free life.

Yuck.

So back to the memoir. What was a great idea yesterday is now scaring the hell out of me. Which means I have to do it. There's no turning back. I've been presented with a challenge: to be brutally honest about who I am as a human, a father, a man, with all the blemishes, but within the context of this adoption. People I know may or may not embrace it. I will have push back, I'm sure. Resistance by some who will insist that either my version of events is flawed (and therefore a big fat lie), or that I have no right whatsoever to mention them.

Oh boy.

Deep breath.