I’m a shy Boy. I always have been. Open-house parties—the local parlance for “keggers” where and when I grew up—were an intimidating prospect, but an appealing one just the same. Where else could I expect to expand my social circle, pee in the woods, and kid myself into thinking I might work up the bravery to smooch some girl?

Anyway, aside from peeing the woods, those things never happened. But I did learn a little about what I could expect from myself, anyway. And beer helped a lot.

Sorry, Mom and moms. Yes, I had beers. Beers aplenty, all before I was even eighteen, and that wasn’t even the drinking age anymore anyway. So you can imagine how many beers I had before I was twenty-one! Oh my word.

Where was I? Oh yes. Open-house parties and social lubricants.

I’d better back up a moment and tell you this: The Gap ran a lot of TV ads back in the early 1990s. I imagine they still do, but who the hell sits through commercials on TV anymore? Not this guy. Back then, though—sure. We had five channels. We watched whatever they hell they put in front of us. Anyway, one such ad featured a montage of black-and-white photos of models in Gap clothes, I think. The music, though, I’ll never forget, because it was tune that has become so a part of me that to this day I know every word, every shift in pitch, every breath. I even sang it at my brother’s first wedding in a duet with my aunt.

The commercial didn’t feature the whole song. It merely featured the first thirty seconds—not enough to even reach Blossom Dearie’s vocal part. My father, though, had quite a jazz vinyl collection, and it included no fewer than three versions of this apparently hit jazz tune by King Pleasure and Blossom Dearie. So I listened to the whole thing—constantly. I forced the song and all its lyrics and its melody deep into my gut and my heart. I was one with the song.

So. Open-house party. Kegger. I think I remember whose house it was at. I know this was the night I first heard of “Special K,” aka cat tranquilizer, aka Ketamine. And here, moms and Mom, you may rejoice, because I did not partake of that drug that night, nor ever since. But many people did, as I recall, which meant my social anxiety went absolutely through the freaking roof.

Keg parties where I grew up were generally held in backyards, lest partygoers jostle or break something important inside the house, where parents might notice upon their return from Europe, for example. This time, though, a select few kids were invited inside. After a few beers on the patio, I think I probably grabbed a mutual friend’s coattails and hobbled in as well.

The TV was on in a big, well encouched family room. Everyone in the room, including myself, had by this time relaxed, either through pill or joint or beer, and the faces in the room were nearly expressionless as what had to be Saturday Night Live flashed before our eyes.

Then it happened. The Gap commercial. It happened.

Now listen. I was drunk. I was really about as drunk as I’d ever been in my (I’m guessing) seventeen years. If I hadn’t been, I might have hummed along under my breath, or lip-synced even. But sing out loud? At the top of my lungs? Even after the thirty-second commercial was over, and well into Blossom Dearie’s section—in falsetto, mind you—until the very last line of the song?

I never would have done that.

Not without beer. (This probably sounds like a pro-beer story. It’s not. It’s an anti-fear story. Which, to some degree, is the same thing. I am going to get in big trouble. Don’t drink!)

With beer, though, I sang out loud, and I sang out clear. Or as clear as you might expect a drunk seventeen-year-old to be. And I sang every word, and probably quite well. I’m not too shabby on the vocals, thankyouverymuch. By the time I was done, all eyes were on me, slouched in a chocolate-brown leather sectional with a warm cup of beer in my hand. Saturday Night Live was back from commercial, but all eyes stayed on me.

I grinned and took a sip of that warm beer. I hated beer then. Who didn’t at seventeen, especially that swill we always ended up sipping—Coors Light or MGD or Bud? But I sipped it and smiled.

Now, no one clapped. No one even smiled back at me. One girl said, “Woah.” Then we went back to watching TV. But to me, things had changed. No one would forget I was at that party—as they probably had with every party I’d ever bothered showing up at. And that was something for a shy Boy.

A couple of weeks later, I crashed my car into another kid’s car outside of a kegger—I mean, just the tiniest bit—and then tried to flee the scene right down a dead end. I didn’t get far and took a punch in the face for my trouble. So no one would forget I was at that party either. Not as fun, oddly.

Don’t drink, kids.

I have, at one time or another, acted as though I were an expert on every imaginable subject. However, and this will come as no surprise to anyone—though the admission itself may—I am in fact an expert in exactly one thing: nothing.

Like Monday Boy, I have a tendency to claim outright expertise in every subject in which I’ve held employment for even a few moments: pizza (the delivery and manufacture thereof), copyediting and proofreading (though I failed miserably at both, with the attention span of a wounded gnat), hospital record-keeping (I once found a patient named Frank Norman Stein, no foolin’), and every facet of the music business (though I was the worst publicist in its history, I’ve no doubt).

Unlike Monday Boy, I’ve been known to speak authoritatively—i.e.: bullshit—on any subject I’ve watched a thirty-minute Nova segment on within the last ten years: dinosaurs as a type of bird (a personal favorite), the purpose of dreams (processing and testing information), the history of the domestication of dogs (the thing with the Russian foxes was a revelation), and the likelihood of an historical Jesus (this is not the time or place to discuss it).

Then up comes Wikipedia. I’m now an expert at essentially everything you can name and all the things you can’t. And the fun part? So are you.

Before–ten years, at least–I could tell you the best players in most professional sports leagues. I could rattle off all stars and power rankings like they were on my birth certificate. Go back twenty years and I could recite batting averages ERAs. Want to know how many points Jordan averaged in the ’92 NBA Finals or how many rushing yards Payton had in his career? I was your man.

I was, obviously, out of control and damn popular.

This, of course, is how I survived high school after a childhood that saw me indoctrinated by musicals in a way that–when threatened–I was liable to break into song, or possibly bust out a highly choreographed dance number. So sports had a purpose. It helped plug me into the high school social caste. And, once graduated, it was a way to stay connected to friends who–via college and other life circumstances–were drifting away. Sports became the needed surrogate for feelings that no 18 year old male knows how to properly articulate.

And then, in a blink of an eye, it was gone.

Of course, sports kept on rolling. But my interest went from fanatical to passing–seemingly overnight. Sure I kept up with my favorite teams, making sure they weren’t close to winning a championship or playing awful enough that required some sort of public comment. But, overall, it became a part of my past–like Hypercolor shirts. Or Skidz. And much like these youthful fashion misfortunes, my sports knowledge is equally dated. And when faced with an awkward social situation–Hey, you want to come over and watch the game?–I do what any normal person would do.

I pretend.

That would be awesome. How about them… Bears?

I am like a bad pilot–I know just enough to get us into the air, but if shit gets turbulent, we’re all going to die. I know when to yell about a bad foul. I know the basic premise of the games. But when it comes to the minutiae that classifies real sports fans, my knowledge base was last relevant when Clinton was still in office.

And this should be fine–we change. Few of us are the same people we were in high school. Yet, I can’t do it. If I’m faced with either admitting that I don’t watch sports like a religion, or bullshitting my way through the game like I’m still studying the backs of sports cards?

Well, A-Rod is past his prime, obviously. At this point he’s just playing out a contract that’s nothing more than a lifetime achievement award.

And then we would all hi-five and burp or something.

Listen, it’s not like I suffer from an inflated ego–well, any more than the other Boys. I am fully capable of admitting when I don’t know something or do not have the necessary skills to complete a task. Take any sort of home repair.

Useless. And proudly so. I will call a handyman without blinking an eye.

But sports. Maybe I miss the time when I read Sports Illustrated like some form of Gospel. Maybe I secretly am nostalgic for my late teens, although I cannot fathom why that would be the case. The only thing I can think is that it something we all go through–the constant shedding of skins. The refusal to believe that certain chapters of our lives end, even if we can’t explain why.

So next time we’re in a bar together, do me a solid and flip the channel to the nearest musical. Give a dude a break already.

If I’ve worked somewhere a month, I’ve worked there a year. And if I’ve worked there a year, it might as well be ten. And ten years working anywhere pretty much makes me an expert.

An ex-girlfriend pointed this out around the time when my veneer of adorable eccentricity had chipped away to reveal a series of Irritating and Unchangeable Behaviors, one of which is how I talk to wait staff:

I have a few questions about your menu. Do you have a favorite entree? I mean, is there anything that comes out and makes you say “HOT DAMN! — that’s our best meal, right there!” Now can you make that dish spicy? Can you do it without hurting the flavor profile? Sorry to be such a pain. I get it – I’ve been in The Industry. Front of the house and back of the house. Totally. You seem a little weeded tonight. No time for sidework, I’ll bet. Ha. Well, don’t let me hold you up. I’m sure they need to fire that ticket. I’ve been there. *wink*

“What’s up with that?” she asked.

“What? I just want to make sure we get the best meal they have to offer.”

“No,” she said. “The food shtick doesn’t bother me. I’m used to that. It’s the whole wink-and-a-nod bullshit. The I’ve been there.”

“I have been there.”

“So what? So have I. But I don’t find the need to point out that I’ve been in ‘The Biz’ every time someone takes my order. Weeded. Seriously?”

“There’s camaraderie in the trenches.”

“Right. But you’re not in the trenches. You’re eating dinner.”

“But I’ve been there, baby. I’ve been in the shit.”

“Yeah.”

Post break-up, her criticism stuck with me. I can still see her eyes rolling all the way on the east coast every time I trot out my hard-earned jargon from previous jobs. Which is ALL THE TIME. Mainly because 1) I love to talk and 2) Until 2007, I’d never held a job longer than a year. My resume thus includes:

• Newspaper delivery boy
• Ice cream parlor flunky
• Historical state park interpretive guide
• Dishwasher
• Bank teller
• Server
• Host
• Bartender
• Deputy Director of GOTV (Get Out the Vote)
• Line cook
• Property manager
• Mental Health Residential Treatment Specialist
• Counselor
• Handyman
• Homeless Education Specialist
• Migrant Education Coordinator
• Teacher
• Acting instructor
• Receptionist
• Movie theater flunky (concessions/ticketing)
• Textbook proofreader

As a wise man once said: I have an extensive collection of name tags and hair nets.

My favorite? Framing houses — building two to three-story wooden skeletons on concrete slabs during Illinois’ hottest months. I did the work for two summers. The labor didn’t pay much, but it did buy me the lifelong, inalienable right to talk shop with every builder, contractor, construction worker, carpenter, and real estate agent I meet. It doesn’t so much matter that my Mom got me the job and may or may not have subsidized my salary to convince the builder to hire me. Or that he started having me knock off at 11:00 AM to cook lunch for everyone once he had a better grasp of my skill set.

So what?

I know how to swing a hammer. I can snap a line. I can put up a ridge and nail in rafters. Better yet, I can talk about all of those things ad nauseam. Like with any prior job, using the jargon is the best part. It makes me feel like I’m visiting a county where I no longer live, but still know how to speak the language. And I continue to feel a certain closeness with every position I’ve held: builder, cook, handyman, teacher, counselor, host, bartender. I wore those clothes for a month or six, maybe a year. But my identity never changed.

I’m a writer.

And my attitude toward tens of short-term careers is in full service to my writing  – the willingness to plunge into new worlds with gusto and a desire for fluency. Each realm of the workplace has its own dialect, environment, rules, faux pas, stereotypes, and unexpected heroes and villains. To love these things, and be able to effectively capture their details, makes for great writing.

Believe me, people. This stuff sells books. Have you read KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL? How about DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON? Query an agent or editor with that kind of confidence in setting and character and they’ll request a full, guaranteed. You’ll be on submission in under a month. Just toss in a good hook. Notecard out your three acts, drop in a few a try-fail cycles, and prop the whole thing up with a seven-point plot structure. It’s tough — but that’s The Biz, people.

Trust me. I’ve been there.

For most people–especially writers–teenagers are something of legend. We all were one at one time, but the memories are clouded by what psychologists call psychogenic amnesia. And so, we write books about them–a kind of mental rebuilding that allows us to confront our deepest childhood anxieties. In our books, we get the girl. We win the game. We are not alone in our parent’s basement on prom night, watching Dune with a bunch of similarly pock-faced dudes.

Nobody wants to revisit that shit, so it’s probably easier just to let teens live in their misery without having our own psychology get put into the mix.

But, as you well know, we at Boys Don’t Read are nothing if not courageous. And even though high school was a time of glory for each of the Boys–prom kings, all star quarterbacks, valedictorians–we understand that your experience was most likely different. So we have used our extensive network (i.e. our volunteer hours at a high school writing center) to uncover the teenage mind.

For you, dear readers. All for you.

I sat in a chair, pretending to edit a paper on Atticus Finch. Across the room, Actual Teenagers had just sat down and opened various white Styrofoam containers. They passed around the food, talking. A guy with hair like a lion shook his head and sucked a piece of lo-mein into his mouth.

“You probably can’t even name six of the current Boston Celtics,” he said. The Celtics were up 3-2 over the Miami Heat and Lion Head–a Heat fan, I presume–addressed a mousy girl with a pencil in one hand and an egg roll in the other. She invoked Larry Bird and the boy said, “Current players. Like Rondo. And Pierce. And KG.”

This went on for a few more seconds, before the table was quiet–all of them desperately searching for the one or two missing Celtic players that had not yet been named. I put my pencil down and said, “You forgot Keyon Dooling,” I said, closing my laptop (which had teaching privileges and allowed me to access the internet and the missing Celtic player, unlike their computers.)

They looked at me. One of them nodded his head. “Yeah–that’s right. Thanks, man.”

At this point, I should have simply nodded–that is the convention when you’re 35 and in a room full of 17 year olds. Your job is to be the adult. It’s to blend into the walls and pop out when they inevitably do something stupid or wrong (at least, that’s what the volunteer training manual had taught us.)

However.

For you, dear readers. All for you.

I stood up and walked over to the table, smiling. One of the guys at the table was bobbing his head rhythmically to whatever was coming out of his headphones. I could just barely make out the heavy thumb of bass, so I said, “You guys into the hip-hop?”  

Blank faces. Of course, saying “the hip hop” was a misstep. I had meant to say “the new Kanye West album.” I tried to save face.

“I just bought My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.” I restrained myself from adding a well-placed ‘It’s dope, right?’ to the end of this sentence. The Lion-Haired boy looked up at me, nodding “Yeah, that’s pretty sick” 

I nodded. It was, in fact, very sick. But then the momentum in our conversation died and I was once again a bald 30-something standing in front of a table of teenagers. 

“So…are you like a teacher?” One of the girls asked.

“No. I volunteer in the writing center.”

They did not look impressed, so I said, “I’m a writer. Books. You know.”

One of them smiled. Another twisted noodles onto her fork. The Lion-Haired Boy looked to one of his friends and then back to me. “Oh, that’s cool–can I get your book on my Kindle?” 

I explained about agents and the market and how, sometimes in young adult literature, true genius takes awhile to get noticed. As ‘young adult’ came from my mouth, one of the teens looked up and made eye contact. She smiled, the sort of knowing smile that comes with friendship and familiarity. I had broken through.

She smiled again and said, “Oh! Do you know John Green?”

“No.”

“Sarah Dessen?”

“No.”

“Scott Westerfeld?”

“No, but there are a lot of young adult writers I do know.”

I mentioned a few. They were unimpressed. One of them said something under his breath and the table suppressed laughter. This, of course, was not expected. I was losing them–I needed to do something.

I pointed to my computer.

“Anybody want to check their Facebook page? My computer isn’t blocked.”

This, of course, was against protocol. Facebook in today’s high schools is akin to crack cocaine, or so the manual had taught us. Yet, what was left to do? I had lost any street cred I had momentarily gained with my ability to drop the name Kanye West like he and I had gone to high school together. I couldn’t let this all fall apart. I had my readers to think about.

I opened my laptop and put it in the middle of the table. The Lion Haired Boy offered up a fist to bump, which I accepted.

“You’re really cool, man,” he said.

It has been said before.

Everyone I know is a tremendous liar. My wife, my son, my closest friends, my mother—they all tell lies with such little regard for the most basic values and ideals. They’ll lie right to your face, too, and smile while they do it.

You are a big liar too, whoever you are, and now and then, yes, I tell a fib.

We all know this to be true, because we are all guilty of the same sin. When the truth is difficult to say, or difficult to hear, we often skip it, shine it up, or twist it so far beyond itself that it becomes something else entirely. We praise the work of others. We compliment their dress. We show up to see our friends’ band, and we stay till the end—just till the end—and we tell them how great they were, how charismatic, how bound for glory.

This isn’t news, of course, but it’s endlessly in the back of mind. It’s been there since I was a wee demon, too, sulking and grumping around, constantly being told I was the greatest at everything and the best-looking child and the smartest—this despite clear evidence against these hypotheses. From this I learned that when I’m given a compliment of any kind, I should assume the opposite is true and the speaker/correspondent/reviewer is just trying to make me feel better.

Ah, I put “reviewer” in there, didn’t I? Yeah, these are, for the most part, people who have never met and shall never meet me. They have no reason I could possibly propose to treat me with kid gloves and to flatter me for its own sake. And yet.

And yet I remain a paranoid little weirdo. I remain so thoroughly paranoid, in fact, that the following chain of events might unfold, and often does:

I write something. I like it all right. I read it again, realize I’m leaning on my prosaic tics and echoing words and whole phrases. I make changes, and I like it a little more, and I develop a tiny amount of confidence in the work.

(Before I go on, I will clarify a minor point. Not everything I write is praised by early readers, nor even by myself. The following chain applies only to that which is praised.)

• Someone praises the work. I feel relieved, uplifted, and confident.
• Someone else praises the work. I feel suspicious, but still confident.
• The first person, at some later date, restates his or her praise of the work. I narrow my eyes at said person.
• Another person praises the work. I wonder if this third person has been speaking to the other two, and whether this third person actually even read the work.
• One of the three people restates his or her praise of the work. I call my mother and demand she stop speaking with these people and asking them to pay me compliments. She denies any involvement. Then she praises the work.
• By now, I’m nauseous with paranoia, certain the work is the worst I’ve ever done, and prepared to put in my application to deliver pizza again. (It’s seriously the best job I’ve ever had.)

So how do I deal with this? I don’t. I sleep terribly, get tremendous heartburn, and suffer frequent headaches.

Thank you for reading.

This blog post is unfinished.

Not like Kafka’s THE CASTLE is unfinished. In which K, nearing the end of his journey, crosses a wide, dark room to better make out a woman’s incoherent mumbling and leans closer and closer and she says  __________.

Fin.

Spoiler Alert: The end of THE CASTLE kinda sucks. But here’s the thing: THE CASTLE is finished. Unlike this blog post. Mainly because Kafka is dead, and I’m alive and therefore capable of revision. So when is the draft finished? Answer: When you’re dead.

I once believed Revision Ends with Publication. This comforted me. My belief allowed a third-party arbiter to step in and say: “That’s it. Pencil down. Your story is finished.” You sign a contract, the print dries, and it’s over. Right? Finally, definitively over. Forever.

Then I picked up Tobias Wolff’s short story collection, OUR STORY BEGINS – largely comprised of his previously-published work. In the foreword, he says:

“The truth is that I have never regarded my stories as sacred texts. To the extent that they are still alive to me I take a continuing interest in giving that life its best expression . . . If I see a clumsy or superfluous passage, so will you, and why should I throw you out of the story with an irritation I could have prevented?”

What an asshole.

He’s still editing stories so good they make me cry. Thanks, Tobias. Any other dreams you’d like to shatter in the process of writing your foreword? “Revision Ends with Publication” was my Santa Claus. While you’re at it, why don’t you go ahead and quote a few dollar figures for first-time novel advances, or shed some insight on the revision process with agents and editors. From what I understand, once a book is the best you can possibly make it – when you’ve poured your foundation, framed the story, sanded every surface and polished and buffed your language to a shine – your editor will walk in with a smile and a sledgehammer.

Nice work. But we should probably go ahead and tear out the second love interest. I know that character is load bearing, but we need to expand the plot and we only have so much real estate to work with. And, yeah — lose the third floor. You didn’t even build stairs that GO to the third floor. How the hell do you expect people to get there? 

What’s worse is they’re usually doing the right thing. I’ve learned about these (generally helpful) editor remodels from my more published peers. So that’s the revision process I have to look forward to. At this point, I largely work with me. I have long, drawn out conversations with me. I battle for creative control and word choice with me. And I’m a pain in the ass to work with. I’m unreasonable and prone to melodramatic snits when I approach the dark edge of a realization that the foundation, somewhere along the way, is cracked. And no one is going to care how pretty the banister looks when the entire house is threatening to collapse.

Thankfully, after 15 years of writing I’ve developed two (non death-related) strategies to end the revision process. I know I’m ready to hit send when: 1) I can read my entire book without cursing aloud, and 2) the majority of my edits become changing words and phrases back to earlier versions of themselves.

But sending out a draft still feels like a trust fall in an empty room. Because the person standing behind you is yourself. Are you good enough? Did you work hard enough? Did you spend enough time with the piece?

I spent a year on a revision I sent to a few readers last week, and it still freaks me out.  It’s terrifying to struggle for twelve months on a product that can be digested in a matter of days — something that will inspire opinions and criticisms and affect the way people view my work. It’s much easier to keep editing. And keep editing. And keep editing.

But thanks to Tobias the Dream Killer, I don’t believe in a final product. What you share is always a work in progress. It’s a work in progress you send your friends, and a work in progress you send your editor, and a work in progress you eventually give your READERS. That’s why I feel okay about having already edited this blog post 4 times since I published it.

It’s the journey that’s important. Because the revision process is exactly like the lesson I learned from the woman in the castle that day. When I crossed the room and she held out her trembling hand to me. I sat down beside her, and she spoke with great difficulty, it was difficult to understand her, but what she said  _______.