Facebook Status Update: "I want to be J.D. Flipping Salinger"

Yeah, I'm still here :) That twelve-day vacation really threw me for a loop, leading me to update my Facebook status this afternoon to, "I want to be J.D. Flipping Salinger" meaning basically that I want to live in isolation and not have to deal with people. Not really, of course, but I was having a moment.

So in a nutshell, my vacation was highlighted (or lowlighted, as the case may be) with hanging out with my kids, enjoying time with my sister and brother-in-law and especially my nephew, a minor flare-up of my cursed pancreas (but it was only a day at the hospital, not a week like it usually is), a lot of reading, not a bit of writing (not even blogging ... I'll never achieve Salingerian status at this rate), no grading of papers, and great conversations with good people :). Oh, and I'm completely lame and fell asleep when I put Belle to bed on New Year's Eve. I had plans, too ... I'm such a loser ;)

Anyway, back to Salinger ...

Sometimes I think it would be great to make your mark on the literary world at a young age and then become an infamous eccentric. Hiding from humanity is very appealing at times (and yes, I think that's what Salinger has done). Then of course it occurs to me how much I enjoy my family and friends, the pleasure I get from teaching my amazing students, walking through Wal-Mart and laughing at people (don't ask), having great random conversations with complete strangers at odd places. And then I kind of feel bad for Salinger because he probably missed out on a lot while enjoying his peace and quiet.

Wow, I am freaking RAMBLY tonight ...

As a side note, Andy and I were trying to come up with innovative ways to get my novel published. We had an interesting conversation about driving up to Cornish (which is only a couple of hours away from my part of the Granite State) and trying to find old J.D. Granted, he's ninety-one, but it was kind of cool to think about what sort of advice he might give to an aspiring novelist (answer--HE WOULDN'T ... but it was neat to contemplate, and certainly the kind of adventure that I could only have with Andy).

Do you think Salinger squandered his talent? Is there going to be a great outpouring of brilliant pieces released at some point (probably posthumously, if at all)? Have you seen the movie Finding Forrester, starring Sean Connery as a Salinger-esque writer? What do you think Salinger would say to an aspiring novelist, if anything?

(Oh, and just to make it really clear--the thing about going to find Salinger was totally a joke ... sometimes I forget that most of the people reading this do not know me in real life and might think that I'm really strange. Well, I sort of am. But not strange enough to hunt down the century's reclusive literary genius)

Story Published on Fiction 500 Blog : )

Check it out. Leave lots of comments : )

http://fiction500.blogspot.com/2009/12/que-sera-sera.html

And definitely submit your own piece to the Fiction 500 project. It's a very cool opportunity for writers : )

Excerpt from Novel #2

Novel #2 is a work in progress. A most unfinished work in progress. However, I don't talk about my writing a whole lot on here, nor do I share much. I need to get better at that. In that vein, here are the first two chapters of the aforementioned Novel #2. Please feel free (and that means pleasepleaseplease :-)) leave comments. Oh, and I'm well aware of the correct spacing/paragraph techniques (I'm an English teacher :-) ) ... it just for some reason isn't making the voyage from Microsoft to blogger.com very effectively.

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1.
Christian McKenzie was sixteen years old the last time he used a time clock to punch out of work.
His sneakers left green smudges on the cement floor of the main storage building at Peter Neal Landscaping as he walked toward the back office to turn in his timecard. He tapped the buff-colored rectangle measuring out a forty-hour work week against his khaki shorts. Christian was surprised to see Pete Neal himself, owner of the landscaping business that had employed him for two summers now, sitting behind the desk in his tiny office.
“Why you still here?” Pete asked, standing and hitching up his fatigue pants. Although his pants were always falling down, his t-shirts were never without oval sweat stains at the armpits, and his few remaining teeth were gray and rotting, Christian liked him. Pete had always been fair.
“I wanted to finish that stone wall for you, sir. It’s my last day.”
Pete nodded. “Yeah, Pentinicci already reminded me.”
“He still here?”
“Hell, no. He was gone soon’s his eight hours was up.” Pete grumbled a bit more before saying what he’d been leading up to. “I told him job’s here for him next summer, same as I’m saying to you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Neal. I’ll be needing a job next summer between graduation and college, and you’ve been good to me.”
“You’re a good worker, McKenzie.” Pete held out his hand, and Christian shook it gratefully.
“I’ll, uh, see you around, I’m sure.” Christian was uncomfortable. Pete’s company did the extensive landscaping at his parents’ mansion, a fact that both of them were a little embarrassed about and which neither of them mentioned. “And I will be back next year, sir.”
But he wasn’t. The trajectory of his life changed forever that evening when his girlfriend told him she was pregnant.

2.
Christian checked the time as he walked to his red Saab convertible. He wouldn’t be able to go home and shower before soccer practice, and that bothered him a bit. Most of his teammates found it absolutely hysterical that Christian and to a slightly lesser degree his best friend Roy Pentinicci labored in the hot sun for forty hours a week all summer. Although their teasing on the rare days he showed up with green ankles didn’t really bother Christian, the sense of bewilderment in their eyes did.
His father was one of the wealthiest men in the country. There wasn’t a reason in the world for him to slave away mowing lawns, weeding gardens, erecting stone walls and other landscaping paraphernalia, accompanying balding, sweaty men with bad grammar.
But then, Christian had always been something of an enigma to his peers, a fact that bothered him not in the least. They wondered where his drive to excel came from, of course, why he worked his ass off to earn straight As at the prestigious Stephens Academy, what made him attend intensive extra baseball practices when he was already one of the best high school pitchers in the northeast. It seemed unfair, of course, that Brian McKenzie’s son should be brilliant, talented in numerous areas, and model-handsome in addition to being filthy rich, but Christian was just too likable a guy to hold it against him.
So they had asked Roy, who was not quite as likable and not technically a McKenzie, why on earth the two of them worked for a landscaper instead of just pushing paper at one of Mr. McKenzie’s many offices. Roy had been taken in by Brian and Belinda McKenzie when his famously dysfunctional family imploded in the fall of his freshman year. They were his legal guardians, but they were not his parents. He explained that his Porsche was a strings-attached present for his sixteenth birthday, the strings being that he pay for car insurance with money he worked for. As a three-season athlete and an honors student, this was impossible to accomplish during the school year. Hence, a summer job was necessary. That Brian McKenzie had made the same arrangement with his own son (and bought him a far less ostentatious car) when Christian turned sixteen a year later was what confused, almost frustrated people. What could possibly be the point?
Christian toiled without complaint, Roy with characteristic token grumbling. They both knew full well this was a life lesson that Brian McKenzie wanted them to learn young and completely, something akin to the two of them leading Christian’s younger sisters and brother out with shovels whenever it snowed rather than hiring a plow truck to clear their more-of-a-private-road-than-a-driveway. They worshiped Brian McKenzie equally.
Christian was early for practice, so he took a quick locker room shower, watching the greens and browns disappear down the drain with something akin to relief. He got dressed, put on his shin guards, and walked to the field. Although practice didn’t start until four, there were already a number of boys in gym shorts and Stephens Academy Soccer t-shirts running around on the field.
One of them, a good looking dark-haired boy with brown eyes that dominated his face, saw Christian walking down the hill to the field and ran over. “You just leave work?”
“Yeah, took a shower here.”
“Clearly a better man than I am, McKenzie. I got the hell out as soon as I possibly could.”
“Pete told me he offered you next summer in advance.”
Roy nodded. “Yeah, it was strangely nice to hear.”
“You seen Bobby?”
“Nope.”
“Yup!” Both turned and looked up the hill as their longtime friend Bobby Smith started down, his gait unsteady. “Yup, you’ve sure as fuck seen me now.”
The other team members had started moving toward them, drawn by the decibel of Bobby’s voice. A tall African-American boy, Jamie Costello, took in the situation and sprinted suddenly to Bobby’s side. Jamie had been tight with Bobby, Roy, and Christian for years, and he knew that Bobby needed to make it to the net; as long as he was in his element, nobody would notice that he was extremely drunk. Roy followed Jamie, getting on Bobby’s other side, and the two lifted him up and past their teammates to where Christian was busily moving the net into position in anticipation of Bobby’s arrival.
It was an old drill.