Yes, it’s true. I have been to five weddings in the last fifteen weeks. Detroit on the banks of the eponymous river, Connecticut on the Long Island Sound, my old stomping grounds of Lake George and an escarpment on the New York shore of Lake Champlain among these five beautiful wedding sites. Nephews, daughters of best friends, great weather, pouring rain, it is amazing just to be there for such rites of passage. Weddings are the very stuff of hope. They are the big dare in most people’s lives, a bet that their union will beat the odds.
I have dared to hope for things in my life. Haven’t we all. To win a thrilling baseball game as the underdog or a wrestling match against an undefeated foe, to get that magical transfer to a job back home that will transform your life, to get a clean bill of health after battling one setback or another. You know, not just hoping for a sunny day or a raise but an actual accomplishment you can live off for the rest of your life. Something you have earned. Something you have been brazen enough to go after. And doesn’t it seem that hope pushes you even harder when the challenge is great? Hope summons your best effort and maybe a little bit of divine intervention. It tells you to go ahead and bite off more than you can chew.
All by way of saying I am hoping for the best for my writing.
At the recommendation of a good friend who has followed my writing from the beginning (may God bless the man), and, yes, he is the dad of one of the brides in this fifteen weeks of weddings, I have submitted two chapters from Raw Footage dream-tipped memoir to The New Yorker. Talk about biting off more than you can chew! I know. You have to be Woody Allen or Salman Rushdie to get your fiction published in The New Yorker, but I have taken heart in the initial acceptance of Raw Footage dream-tipped memoir since its release this past Labor Day weekend. A writer learns to put himself out there in every word of every story, to shed any anxieties of revealing too much about himself. This can, of course, be dangerous. But also thrilling. I mean, isn’t that why you write–to reveal this or that lesson learned in life and to share it cloaked in story? Let it go, then, let the personal out just because we all learn from one another’s stories.
The two chapters my friend recommended for submission to The New Yorker were Concert in the yard and Orange is the way to go. Certainly two of my favorites as well. There could have been others. I would be interested to hear which chapters (dreams) you think might qualify for such a grand literary leap as this. Here I am thinking of Rope, Promontory, Skunk cabbage, Fat banana haikus and a few others that I believe might have some appeal. But what about you?
I will keep you all posted on the outcome of The New Yorker submission. In the meantime, please do me the great favor of writing a review of Raw Footage dream-tipped memoir if you have read it, visit my new web page (www.michaelphilion.com) and keep your fingers crossed for me! Thanks.
