The Future is Here
I'm goin' back down South!
This morning, I had the most invigorating conversation about writing that I have ever had in my life, and let me be clear, that is saying something: blowing my mind when you talk about writing is kind of a prerequisite for rolling with me, and I’ve had my mind blown a lot (many thanks to everyone who’s been responsible for the smithereens: they’re not always writers, so whatever your profession, that’s probably you.)
But this? The state of my mind and body when I hung up from this one was entirely unprecedented. This feels risky-or-something to say, but I think I’ve been waiting most of my conscious life for a mentor like Peter Selgin, one of the luminaries on the Prose Faculty for Georgia State College and University, where I’ve been awarded the Flannery O’Connor Assistantship. I’ve got full funding, a stipend, and a position as an assistant editor for the Flannery O’Connor review, so everyone reading who is a writer should expect me to hound you to submit.
I’m technically still waiting for what I once called my Dream School to tell me if they find me good enough for them (right now they maybe do? But us Waitlisted folks will hear back from them “by the end of the summer,” which is less than strictly helpful for a lease that’s up in less than 2 months when they’re on the clear other side of the country.) I told them about this offer and they more or less begged me not to pass it up. Being approved by the illustrious institution in question is not the same as being fully mind/body/spirit/bank account-supported by Georgia College.
So, cemented by this mind-altering discussion this morning I gave them my official acceptance, and now I can’t stop listening to this:
Thematically, it seems like it might not work if you listen to the lyrics too closely, but on a metaphysical level, this captures what I’ve been feeling for the past year. It’s been the kind of year one could make a two-volume memoir out of, and that appears to be exactly what I’m doing, which is fucking weird. It’s one thing not to hide, but it’s quite another to do this. I was told it would be very easy to shift my focus from Fiction to Creative Nonfiction (and I would still take Advanced Fiction in the Spring semester, so we’re all good.) When a trusted friend told me it sounded like a sensible move because I seem very invested in this current project, I asked myself, “Why wouldn’t I switch to Creative Nonfiction?”
and I answered myself: “Because I’m scared.”
Which, in an instance like this, means that’s exactly what I need to do.
Oh, but prior to our deeply meaningful conversation about humanity, art, and fear, I got to participate in this delightful exchange:
Peter: I’m so sorry, I’ve read so many things lately, remind me which story was yours?
Me: ummm, the shock value short version is the robot sex story?
Peter: OH right!
Then I got to clarify that every project I’ve worked on since is entirely different and so I’m not the Robot Sex Person, I wrote one story about robot sex. (Realistically, it won’t be the last, but still!)
I’m still attached to the novel I’m not forgetting about, the one with characters I’ve grown to quite like who are developing scrap-by-scrap in a notebook, but if I dove into fiction right now it would be for the wrong reasons: hiding. I said I was scared, and that’s true, but even so, I’ve never been more fearless. If I’m going to take meaningful risks, now is the time for that.
I’m not a strong enough writer as of yet for my fiction to be a risk. But we’ll address that!
Oh, here’s the other song I’ve been listening to over and over. My brilliant musician father could never even answer himself about why he wrote a song called “Home to Georgia,” where he’s never lived, but it’s my theme now:
When my dad released the one album he put out in his lifetime, he thanked “titanium” in the liner notes, because, brief as his fifty-year life was, it might have been even shorter if not for a treatment he received out of a heart attack. I’ve got my own “titanium in the liner notes” and that’s Welbutrin, and I’m about to get preachy on that subject because I’ve read a whole lot of bullshit that implicitly or explicitly states that Strong Spirits don’t “need” medication to manage depression. Well, I did, but I was raised to fear meds, so I spent a lot of time not getting out of bed and wanting to die that might have been time writing, working, and meeting people, if I had been treated. That’s not to say it works for everyone, but it’s been fundamental for me.
Oh, anyone who’s curious “how IAN is taking this move?!?!” (as many peripheral acquaintances have clamored in distress) may rest assured that my devoted and extraordinary life partner is at LEAST as done with the Bay Area as I am, and he has more talents and qualifications than is convenient for a single individual. He’s gonna be fine. And he’s very, very excited. We came together because we’re adventurers who grew up moving around. I went to Boston for his MA in History and he’s coming with me to Milledgeville for this.
Milledgeville is an adorable town by all accounts, in addition to our own surmises on Google street view, with the vibrant cultural scene that typically defines all the best characteristics of a college town. I’LL BE BACK IN THE HEAT, which I need in my soul. I am so done being cold at all times, I am done living without hot rain. I’ve also lived too long in lonely resignation that my writing community is scattered all over the country and the world. With my cohort of 7 total that are embarking on this program with me in August, I’ll have a communal bloodflow to my writer-heart that’s actually right there for the first time since college.
Without negating the extraordinary people and experiences my life has been dotted with between college and 2022, it feels, in a lot of ways, like my life spent the intervening years on pause, and re-started when I went back to New Orleans in January of 2023. Unprocessed trauma and untreated depression will do that to one’s existence, dim it, dull it, average-ize it.
Getting help matters because it’s how we fully live. None of us are average. There is no average. Average is a lie.
Yay! Congratulations!