Since the Paris Review put all their author interviews online, there’s no reason for a writer to ever be bored. I love reading interviews at night, before sliding off to Dreamville.

The other night before going to sleep, I read this interview with Haruki Murakami.

If you’ve never read a Murakami novel, the best way to describe them is like reading a dream.

Murakami’s Mind

While I really liked Murakami’s memoir about running and writing, it’s his novels that floor me. Not so much in their craft (that’s not to say they aren’t well crafted, because they are), but there’s something about the dreaminess and flow to a Murakami novel that I really enjoy. (Not that I can claim to be an expert on his books, having only read several things he’s written.)

There’s a section of the Paris Review interview that seemed particularly telling to me in explaining the dreamy aspect of Murakami’s writing.

Murakami’s Process

If you want an in-depth glimpse into how Murakami’s structured his life in order to write, pick up What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Vintage International) (affiliate link).

One thing new to me that was discussed in the interview is how Murakami just jumps into a book, planning be damned! He uses the example of opening a novel with a murder:

“I myself, as I’m writing, don’t know who did it. The readers and I are on the same ground. When I start to write a story, I don’t know the conclusion at all and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. If there is a murder case as the first thing, I don’t know who the killer is. I write the book because I would like to find out. If I know who the killer is, there’s no purpose to writing the story.”

- Haruki Murakami

Don’t Wait

I know everybody is different in the way they approach writing. Some writers must have a detailed outline before they can begin writing. Others focus on their environment — they must write in the same place each day. Still, others wing it, writing wherever and whenever they can.

I would never insist there is one way to write…but I will say this: if you’ve been talking about writing more than actually writing, put your ass in a chair and write!

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know where you’re going; clearly, if you’re not producing, what’s it going to hurt to be like Murakami and just do it!

It Really Does Work

A confession: I usually don’t know where I’m going when I write — even when I think I have it all figured out.

I don’t know how the novel I’m currently working on ends. I’m okay with that, though, because the last thing I wrote…ended differently than planned. My first novel didn’t end entirely as planned, either — and the novel I shelved after writing my first novel? Same thing: the ending wasn’t what I thought it would be.

It’s not that I believe the characters take over and tell their own story or anything like that; I just believe you can’t truly know a story until you sit down and actually write it.

And that means much of your time is spent moving into things you didn’t plan, whether you’re working from a detailed outline or not.

Read it Again

If this is good enough for an international, best-selling novelist, isn’t it at least worth trying if you’re not doing much more than only thinking about writing?

“I myself, as I’m writing, don’t know who did it. The readers and I are on the same ground. When I start to write a story, I don’t know the conclusion at all and I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

A dream can’t happen until you make it real, and the only way that happens is by finishing things.

Image by PSD (http://www.flickr.com/photos/psd

Sometime this morning, after a groundhog tells us all what to expect for the rest of the winter, an armadillo will leave its burrow down here and the message will be: “It’s Texas — who the hell knows what to expect!”

It’s been in the mid 70s, lately. While winter in Texas is much different than winters growing up north of Chicago — even by Texas standards — it’s been mild.

And it’s been busy.

What’s Been Up?

Between the passing of my father in law on Christmas morning and a very busy couple months at the day job, things seem to be getting back to normal. I actually got the chance to open A Magic Life and get some work done, recently.

I’m working on a new design for my personal website, and planning things for The Juggling Writer. (There have been a few requests for more videos, so I’ve been considering what I’d like to do for that.)

And I’ve been trying to get some more interviews lined up.

Speaking of Interviews…

I’m pleased to announce that on February 7, I’ll be running an interview with author, Alex George.

Alex’s book, A Good American (affiliate link), will be released that day. It’s a great interview that gives a glimpse into how Alex juggles being a lawyer, a single father, and staying active in his community with writing novels.

We also talk about how music plays into A Good American, how Alex has been dealing with all the wonderful praise the book has received before its release, and the good and bad sides of being a writer.

In conjunction with the interview — I’ll also be doing a giveaway for a copy of A Good American, so be ready for that!

The Rest of February

And that’s it!

I’m sure more will come along as the month goes by, but that’s what I have planned for February.

If there’s anything you’d like me to write about, leave a comment or get in touch and let me know.

Here’s to a great month!

On Monday, I wrote about how all stories have — in many ways — been told before.

While that should never stop a writer from writing the story they want to tell, it’s not the only obstacle we face as writers.

Sometimes the timing of things can send a writer into a wall.

Two Months in Atlanta

A big handful of years ago, I went to Atlanta for two months with the job I had at the time, working with a flight training center to turn their CRJ200 training program into a CRJ 700 training program. Stuck in a city I’d never visited, I tried seeing in the trip an opportunity.

I pitched some travel articles to a publication that accepted my work before, but nothing developed. (“We recently did a spot on Atlanta,” they said. “Bad timing on this one–sorry.”) On weekends, I worked on fiction in my hotel room. One day while running through a list of differences between the CRJ200 and CRJ700, it hit me: “Atlanta is where Williams Street Productions is based…”

Williams Street Productions is the studio responsible for Adult Swim — The Cartoon Network’s nighttime lineup. My first novel, Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors had gone nowhere as a novel (agents liked it, but said it was too quirky and they didn’t know how to market it). As a screenplay, it had a few close calls, both in competitions and in chatting with some studio contacts. But that was it — the story had run its course.

Unless…

The Pitch

I chatted with people I knew until I had a contact at Williams Street Productions. I sent a quick pitch, letting the contact know I was in Atlanta for two months and would love to discuss the project in greater detail if they had time. Somewhere into the trip I heard back, and this was the gist of the message:

“Hey, this sounds really cool, but we’re working on this thing called Lucy, Daughter of the Devil, and we can’t do two devil things at the same time.”

Now, you might say, “Well, most production companies have several similar things going at the same time,” and you’d be correct. But like it or not — despite how different Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors is from Lucy, Daughter of the Devil — that was the decision. Maybe in the same situation to make the decision, I’d have said the same thing — who knows.

It had nothing to do with what I was pitching (the contact loved the idea), but it was all a matter of timing.

When I mentioned what happened to some people, they said, “You should just figure out what’s popular and write that.” (As though it’s that easy.)

Why I Don’t Chase Trends

I never try guessing what publishers and production companies want because I know no matter what I write, the timing of it all may or may not be on my side.

I once got a screenplay I wrote into the hands of a contact I had at a large studio that was being acquired by a larger studio. I was told, had I sent the screenplay a year or so earlier — before the acquisition — that they would have fought to get the movie made.

My timing was off.

The first travel article I wrote was pushed back almost a year after acceptance because the area I covered ended up in the news for other reasons. The publication felt they’d given the region enough coverage, and decided to sit on the article until I followed up much later.

My timing was kind of off.

Other times, things I’ve written were accepted quickly because it was exactly what a publisher needed at the time. (The publisher that pushed back my first travel piece jumped on another article I pitched and asked me to expand it because they were looking for the very kind of article I offered to write.)

Sometimes, my timing’s been good.

The Point?

Whether we like it or not, timing and luck play into making it as a writer.

What may not be needed one month or even year may be the hot trend years down the line. (There was a time it seemed only Anne Rice could sell a vampire novel — now vampires are everywhere.)

Sometimes you write the most perfect thing and the timing of it all seems to almost conspire against you.

But write enough and keep submitting things, and sooner or later, time will be on your side!

It’s bound to happen: as you work on a story, you read or see something very similar to what you’re doing. Sometimes, so similar, you might even consider stopping.

It happened to me recently, while reading The Night Circus (affiliate link). Not that I even remotely considered stopping work on A Magic Life, but I did think, “If this plays out more as this book goes on, I could see somebody thinking, ‘Hey, he ripped that from The Night Circus!’” when this particular thing was something I was going to do in a comic book script that never saw production back in the mid 90s, long before The Night Circus was started.

The Failure of the Aluminum Hat

I’ve heard more than a few sorta-writers say, “They stole that idea from me!” (They being a publisher or movie production company.)

“Oh,” you say. “Did you submit your story to their company?”

“Well…no.”

“Did you pitch it in person?”

“Uhm…no, I didn’t.”

“Did you have somebody pitch it in your stead?”

“Huh? No.”

“Ah! So you’re saying your aluminum foil hat to keep production companies and publishers out of your head failed you?”

“Well…no, I just like the way I look in aluminum foil, okay? Like I have a Hershey’s Kiss for a head — sue me!”

“No problem — to each their own. But…I don’t understand how they stole from you if all you did was think of something you never acted on.”

“Okay, so they didn’t technically steal from me. But we had the same idea. I should be the rich one…not them!” (They usually say this as though it’s that easy to make it big.)

These “writers” don’t know the truth most writers who actually produce know: somebody’s already done what you’re writing!

Is Harry Potter Timothy Hunter?

Neil Gaiman and J.K. Rowling are well-known authors, right?

In the early 90s, Gaiman wrote a comic book mini-series called The Books of Magic. The story is about Timothy Hunter, a teenager who lost his mother and comes from a less-than-ideal family. He wears glasses and finds out he’s destined to become the magic user of magic users. He has a pet owl. He is trained in the ways of magic and struggles with just trying to be a kid.

Sound familiar?

When Harry Potter came out, some accused Rowling of using Timothy Hunter as the basis for Harry Potter. While the media tried blowing it up, making it seem like Gaiman believed this, too (he didn’t) — even if Rowling had lifted aspects of Tim Hunter for her famous boy wizard, Gaiman didn’t have the market cornered on young wizards with glasses. Hell, the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon had a boy wizard with glasses, and I’m sure that wasn’t the first.

The Funny Thing about Stories

Here’s the thing about stories: no matter how much we like to think something is new, it really isn’t — at least on a thematic level.

One could say my first novel, Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors, is a cross between National Lampoon’s Vacation and Stephen King’s Christine.

Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors begins with a father and son buying a station wagon. Along the route of the road trip in the story, the O’Brien family stops in West Virginia where the more…”rural” side of the family is introduced. National Lampoon’s Vacation begins with a father and son buying a station wagon, and Randy Quaid will probably be forever known as Cousin Eddie.

But Cousin Eddie didn’t influence Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors — relatives in Ohio and West Virginia did. (Example: one branch of my family tree had property along a bend in the Ohio River. The river flooded, and a houseboat washed down from upstream. It settled on family property and they decided, “Hey — free house!” adding to the houseboat over the years.) And I could think of no better way to establish right from the start that the station wagon in Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors is more than it seems by showing a father and son buying The Inferno from Satan. (That’s not a spoiler — it’s all very obvious, right from the start.)

So What’s Original?

Plots and themes and even writing techniques are anything but original. With mankind telling stories since the beginning, the same stories have been told so many times.

So why even bother? As writers and readers, why do we keep going back to stories? Because stories are the glue that binds us no matter who we are and where we live.

While the stories we tell are the same all over, it’s how we tell them that’s ours and keep people coming back for more.

Hi, my name is Christopher Gronlund and I have a confession: I am not at my best when it comes to online self promotion.

In person, sure! I’ll get up and speak before a large group, approach any agent or editor, or give my time to people who have read what I’ve written. All with enthusiasm and confidence.

But there’s something about the act of typing promotional things online that makes me feel like I’m a salesman in a cheap suit on a used car lot, standing in the shadow of a giant, blue inflatable gorilla in an effort to cool down before targeting my next mark.

Listening to Others

While I feel awkward promoting what I’m doing, I’m fine when others tell me what they’re up to. I love hearing what kinds of things people paint, the kinds of music they play, and the types of stories they tell. If you do nothing really creative but want to talk about your job, a hobby, or something else — sure, I’ll listen. Hell, I once listened to a fan of my writing at a comic book convention talk [in great detail] about how his cat woke him up by licking his nipples and how he licked the cat back to see how it liked being licked!

Unless you’re one of those people who are always on (the online marketing version of the used car salesman), I will listen to you promote the things in your life that you love.

But for some reason, the moment I type, “Hey, check this out,” on Twitter, I feel like I’m a mouth breather who’s just eaten an onion sandwich and has decided to crowd your personal space.

These Things I Know

I’ve read about all the ways I’m supposed to promote myself online as a writer. I’ve looked at how others outside of writing have promoted themselves online. I’m a member of the Dallas/Ft. Worth WordPress Meetup group, where more than a few members make a comfortable living by promoting themselves online. So I know what I’m supposed to do.

But many of those “supposed to” rules and suggestions run counter to my personality.

What works for some may not work for others.

A Different Way

I’m fine with taking my time with things. Instead of being like the mighty Shawn Kupfer — who is a much better juggling writer than I’ll ever be — I tend to work on one thing at a time. More than that, I’m fine taking my time with that one thing.

I know I’d make more money if I actually did something with a genre series I started, cranking books out and getting them online as quickly as I can. But I grew up looking to writers like John Irving as the ideal; not Jonathan Kellerman. (Please do not take this as a slam against those who work with genre fiction. I am quite fond of genre fiction as a medium. Genre fiction has served more than a few good friends well, and I’m incredibly happy for them all. They are my inspiration for sticking to what I love in the hope I will one day achieve their levels of success.)

This is a blog about writing, work, and life. I look to each facet to improve the other. In the jobs I’ve had, I come in quiet and slow and end up appreciated far more than those who believe the louder they are, the quicker they will climb the ladder. In life, I am shy when meeting new people, but that slow pace in getting to really know people has left me a very happy person, with more than a few friendships going back to first grade.

I don’t mind taking a different way to get there — even if it takes a bit longer than many of those around me.

The One Rule I Know

In all the lists I’ve read about online promotion is a recurring rule I agree with: be yourself.

Shawn Kupfer is Shawn Kupfer, just like Mark Finn is Mark Finn. Read either of their blogs, and you’ll get a damn good feeling for who they are. They are different people than Paul Lamb, who is different than Lisa Eckstein.

You are you; I am who I am.

As long as we’re true to who we are and let that come out in the things we write, we stand a chance at something more — even if it takes a bit longer to get there for some of us.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of memoirs about writing, but when I read this post on Alex George’s blog about Ann Pratchett’s The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life (Kindle Single) (affiliate link), and saw that it’s less than $3, I decided to pick it up.

When I read Pratchett’s Bel Canto (P.S.) (affiliate link) …well, I can’t tell you why I loved it so much — only that I did.

And I loved The Getaway Car, too.

Pratchett’s Early Approach

While many new writers daydream about making it big, Pratchett mentions she went into writing thinking that success came only after death — so she was prepared to just get by doing what she loved. She’d wait tables and not have children or want for more because, as long as she lived a simple life, she could write without stress.

Focus!

All she wanted was to be a happy writer — not a rich writer…and it didn’t take much to make her happy.

From the start, she lived a life where writing came before climbing the corporate ladder or other trappings that often pull people away from the dream of making it writing. She worked a job that allowed her to think about stories, and not about work.

Maybe we can’t all live as lean a life as Pratchett did in the beginning, but as one who’s turned down several offers of becoming a manager because I know it would take even more time from what I’d rather be doing, there really is something to living on enough to get by and keeping at the dream of writing, instead of striving for even more material things.

(I freely admit that all the lawyers-turned-writers and doctors-turned-writers destroys this theory, but Pratchett’s point is really about sacrifice, and in reading interviews with those who did balance a career and writing, they usually sacrificed sleep for writing.)

Pratchett’s Honesty

I admire the honesty in The Getaway Car. Pratchett dislikes parties because it’s where people come up to her and say annoying things like, “Everyone has at least one good novel in them,” and then ask her to write that novel for them. She talks about the struggle to remain kind to those who make it seem like all that’s needed to make it writing is to one day sit down for a month or two and write and BOOM! you’ll make it!

To this point, Pratchett says:

“Why is it that we understand that playing the cello will require work, but we relegate writing to the magic of inspiration?” … “If a person of any age picked up the cello for the first time and said, ‘I’ll be playing in Carnegie Hall next month!’ you would pity her delusion…”

Art Does Not Just Happen

Some may find the first part of The Getaway Car a bit harsh. Some people believe writing’s all about inspiration — that by dabbling in being creative, one day they will write a book. Pratchett isn’t scolding those kinds of people; she’s just telling them that writing is hard work.

What she’s really getting at — what the entire memoir is really getting at — is this:

“Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft.”

Most people who want to write at some point in their lives aren’t willing to put in the time to master the craft. They want the story that’s in their head to magically flow to the pages. (Another thing Pratchett talks about quite a bit, in beautiful detail, in the first part of the memoir — the reason there are butterflies on the cover of the e-book.)

I love this quote because I wanted the third novel I’ve written to be my first, but at the time, I knew I hadn’t mastered the craft of writing. So I wrote my first novel, and then a second that only exists on a hard drive. It took me 20 years to get to the point of feeling confident enough to pull off my last novel, and to tackle what I’m working on, now.

Other Gems from the Memoir

Regarding how what’s often in one’s head is often not what ends up on the page.

“I can’t write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing.”

On writer’s block:

“I did not, however, get writer’s block, because as far as I’m concerned, writer’s block is a myth.”

(She wraps that section up with a quote from a writing student in a group she once addressed; one of the moments in the book that made me laugh out loud.)

On the effort of writing, assuming that everybody does, in fact, have at least one good novel in them (which Pratchett does not believe, but offers to make this point):

“Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.”

On writing daily:

“While I’ve had long periods of time when I’ve written every day, it’s nothing I’m slavish about.” … “I’ve gone for months without writing and never missed it.”

Then there’s this — again dispelling the myth of the magical side of writing:

“No matter what you may have heard, the characters don’t write their own story.”

On rewrites:

“I do a great deal of tinkering, but I never make any structural changes…”

Regarding research:

“I try to conduct my research after I’ve started writing, or sometimes even after I’ve finished.” … “I hate to see a novel in which the author has clearly researched every last detail to death and, to prove it, forces the reader to slog through two pages describing the candlesticks that were made in Salem in 1792.”

Amen!

The Last Three Sentences

The $2.99 e-book is worth it for the last three sentences that sum up writing better than anything I may have ever read. It’s like paying a dollar a sentence for some of the best advice out there. (Or you can go read Alex George’s blog about the memoir — he reveals the last three lines at the end of it.)

If you truly live it and understand the sentiment in those last three lines, you know writing.

Who Should Read This?

The Getaway Car is something I wouldn’t recommend to somebody just starting out…or hell, maybe I would.

The things Pratchett says might be ignored by many new writers, much like the part of the book that made me laugh out loud. At the same time, when I was still very new to writing and I looked to people with experience and heard them say, “It’s not easy, and it’s rare to see the first big thing you write meet with success,” I took it to heart.

I had a blast writing my first novel, and it has some moments I’m proud of in between all the goofiness. But had I written my last novel first — as I originally wanted to do — I’d have made a wreck of a good thing. So if you’re a new writer, and patient, The Getaway Car may be for you.

Pratchett’s memoir seems to work best for people who have written for awhile. While almost blunt, at times, it’s not cruel. Those who have been writing awhile will appreciate her honesty.

It’s a memoir for people who know how hard writing can be, but still choose to do it because they also know writing’s rewards.

In honor of the 300th Juggling Writer post:

Source: http://itsfunnyto.me/post/15624626277

I’ve still never seen the movie, 300, but this makes me laugh every time I see it.

Thanks for sticking around for the first 300; here’s to many more posts!

* * *

Monday, it’s back to a normal update: a review of Ann Pratchett’s The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life (Kindle Single) (affiliate link).

John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (affiliate link) sits on a pile of books on the hutch over my desk.

I try to read one or two YA books a year, and this will be one of them.

The video below is something John made earlier this week. He’s on a book signing tour with his brother, Hank, and his sister-in-law.

E-Books on the Road

I chat about e-books, here, quite a bit. I like e-books a lot. I’ll review a wonderful e-book on Monday: Ann Pratchett’s The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life (Kindle Single) (affiliate link). But there’s one drawback to the e-book: signing tours!

When I received a photo from the mighty Tom Wideman from the back woods of Alaska, showing me that he picked up a copy of Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors (HCWWPD) on the day it was released, I thought it was one of the more wonderful uses for technology. A guy in the middle-o’-nowhere Alaska got a copy of an e-book I released, on the day it was available.

Recently, CM Stewart sent a photo of her on the road with HCWWPD. Since HCWWPD is a road trip story, it’s an ideal book — to me — to have been published as a physical version with me on a signing tour.

When I submitted it years ago — to agents who loved it, but thought it was too quirky for them to know what to do with — I dreamed of getting an agent and making a sale. Not because it would have meant I somehow “made it,” but because I would have had a physical book with which to tour. I dreamed of restoring an old station wagon for a cross country trip, signing books.

Obviously, that never happened.

A Problem with E-Books

I love e-books. I know there are blog tours and other ways to promote e-books, but…it’s not like you can pile into a car with loved ones or good friends and go on tour like you can with a physical book.

Or maybe you can.

Some of the neatest jumps in the way we think about things come along from changes in technology. So while I haven’t figured out a way to do an e-book signing tour, I’m not saying it can’t be done.

Any thoughts on ways of making one work?

It seems like more people got a Nook than a Kindle (Affiliate Link) for the holidays — at least when looking at e-book sales of my novel and short stories. Nook sales have outpaced Kindle sales this month in a BIG way.

Thank you to everyone who’s bought a copy of Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors and my other e-books; I hope you like them. If you do, consider leaving a review at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Sales come and go, but weeks like the last couple — and photos like the one the one below that the awesome CM Stewart sent while on the road over the holidays — make those dry spells worth it.

I really appreciate everybody who’s read what I’ve written and those who spread the word.

Thank you!

Orion, by the Mighty Tom Wideman: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomwideman/

There are moments in life that make you glad to be alive.

I tend to be more…focused with the things I post on The Juggling Writer, but tonight I feel the need to be a bit more personal.

Tonight was one of those moments; one that if I were to close my eyes and not wake up in the morning, I would have no regrets.

My wife went to bed earlier. I tucked her in, kissing her over and over, amazed that I — this one-time geek who thought he would be doomed to a life of loneliness — gets to spend time with somebody so smart, beautiful, and talented.

It’s a chilly night in Texas. According to the weather on my iGoogle page, it’s 38 degrees. People up north, where I grew up (Chicago, and then the northern suburbs), would laugh because they got hammered with the first real snow storm of the season. But in Texas, it’s breezy and clear. I know, because I’ve spent the last hour on the patio, alone, finishing a memoir about writing by Ann Pratchett and smoking one of the handful of cigars I’ll smoke this year.

Sometime over the weekend, I’ll write a more detailed review of Pratchett’s The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life (Kindle Single) (affiliate link). But right now, as my hands warm up and typing becomes easier, I want to share something — what I don’t know. This is how I write the books I write…even the short stories. I start with some ideas and hope that by the time I’m done, I’ve written something that touches people. This entry is like that: I don’t know where I’m going — I only know that I want to write. I hope it works in the end.

It’s been a weird couple weeks. My father in law died on Christmas morning, and in ways, it’s been harder to accept than the death of my own father when I was 22. It was cold when my father died, and it was cold the morning my sister died when I was 33. Come to think of it, it was cold the day my step brother died a year ago this week.

My father and my sister died from lung cancer, and I think about that every time I smoke the handful of cigars I smoke each year. But if the cigar I smoked this evening as I sat in the cold this evening takes several months off my life, it will have been worth it.

It was just me and the cold with a cigar and a memoir about writing on my iPhone. But damn, Ann Pratchett can write! I’ve only read Bel Canto (P.S.) (affiliate link), which…well, I can’t tell you why I loved it so much, only that I did. Sure, there are specific things, but it’s those things I can’t tell you all that touched me that still stick in my head.

I don’t think about other writers when I write, but one of my goals is to write something that affects somebody else like Bel Canto did with me. The best compliment I think I could receive for something I write is, “I don’t know why I loved it so much, but I did.”

Tonight, I love life. It’s after 2:00 a.m. and later today, I’m going to have tea with my wife and some friends. Nothing huge, but yet it is. There was a time that a night like tonight, even if I felt energized by the cold and the constellations above, would have left me feeling down. For most of my life, I struggled with depression. It’s not natural for a six-year-old to think about suicide, but I did. And it was something that stuck around in my head until I was almost 40, two years ago. At times, it was juggling that kept me alive. At times, it was family and friends. Later it was writing and my wife. But even still, in the back of my mind, it was always there…this weird urge to just stop.

I can blame it on the tumor, I suppose. I have a tumor in my head. Sometime in my late 20s or early 30s, in a journal I kept to try making sense of the depression, I wrote something along the lines about how it was like there was something in my head that made me…not me.

In 2004, almost a year to the day after lung cancer spread to my sister’s brain and killed her on one of the rare snowy mornings in Texas, I found out I had a 2.5 centimeter tumor in my head. I knew it was there before I knew it was there, but I really knew it was there because the friggin’ thing was driving me mad. It was pressing against my optic nerve, causing me to begin going blind in my right eye. It was pressing against my carotid artery on that side of my head. It made it hard to write, but I kept at it, even at my worst.

Somewhere along the way, things got better. My writing even got better. Life got better. And tonight, I sat in the cold so glad that the times I thought about things like seeing if I could kill myself by cramming a box of toothpicks down my throat with a wooden spoon are long behind me. (I once read that there’s a higher rate of violent suicide among people with pituitary tumors than that of people with diagnosed clinical depression. Pit tumors kinda suck!) Tonight I sat on the patio, in the dark, finishing Ann Pratchett’s memoir about writing. And as I finished it, this is what happened:

Things just seemed clear. In the distance, the sound of a train. I love the sound of passing trains — always have. As the train passed, a couple coyotes called out. I finished the memoir and put my phone in my pocket. I watched the smoke rise up from the end of the cigar and into the sky. Above me, my favorite constellation: Orion. I realized I had been shivering the entire time I was out there on the balcony. The moment I realized this, the shivering stopped and I looked up at the sky, happy to be alive.

Behind me, a warm apartment, with my wife sound asleep in bed. I thought about all we’ve been through in our almost 20 years together. It can’t be easy to be married to a writer. But she’s an artist, so she understands, and for that — I’m lucky.

We both have our moments when we need to be out on the balcony alone.

Some may believe the little moment I experienced on the patio as I finished reading The Getaway Car was fated, but I don’t believe in fate, and never have. I am an atheist. Always have been, and always will be. I do not believe that things happen for a reason, unless that reason is a reward for hard work. Writing is hard work — that’s why I love it so much. And because I don’t believe things happen for a reason, those moments are even more special to me, because I realize that as life goes on, eventually, cool moments like that are just a part of the odds as long as you have the fortitude to stick with the things that matter.

Writing matters. More than that, my wife matters. Family and friends matter. Life matters.

It would have been a shame to end that.

Looking up at the stars, it hit me: I could never bring myself to stop because that’s it. I don’t believe in anything more after death. So it’s all worth it in a big way. Just like when I’m out hiking, I always want to see what’s around the next bend. When I’ve had the mechanisms with which to stop it all before me — something to finally end the pain I felt for decades — I couldn’t do it because I always wanted to see what was around the next bend. In a weird way, atheism kept me alive because that would be it.

The end.

Finis!

Sometimes what’s around the next bend is a perfect moment like tonight. To some, it might not seem like that — they might think, “Big deal, you read a short memoir on the balcony in the cold while smoking a cigar and you heard a train and coyotes and looked at the stars. But I think everybody reading this knows what kind of moment I’m talking about. Just one of those moments when you’re glad to be alive.

As I write this, I hear another train in the distance. I hear coyotes again. (Apparently, trains drive coyotes crazy.) I look at my iPhone sitting beside me and think about what I’ve just read. I’ll think about it all weekend, I’m sure.

And in a few minutes, I’ll go into the bedroom and look at my wife sleeping and know that right now, I’m the luckiest man alive.