A genius author and I have something in common. I’m not quite the hack that I thought I was.

Tom Perrota, author most recently of The Leftovers (which is about to become an HBO series), is a far better writer than me, but it would seem that he and I have something in common. When it comes to choosing the settings of his novels, Perrota tends to choose the locales that he is most familiar.

From a recent Wall Street Journal interview:

It's just laziness. This is what's right in front of me. I've chosen to live there. I've never been the kind of writer who goes off in search of a book.

I have often said that with all the stuff that I have to make up in order to write a novel, why would I spend time inventing a place when there are perfectly good places all around me?

As a result, all three of my novels are set within just a few miles of my home.

Is this laziness? Absolutely. But it turns out that Tom Perrota does this, too, and for essentially the same reason.

I feel like slightly less of a hack today.

Just imagine how much better books will be when he can actually read them.

The University of London’s Institute of Education Children has released a study showing that reading for pleasure can “significantly” improve a child’s school performance.

As a teacher, I can tell you that those of us in the classroom on a daily basis have known this for years. But nothing wrong with a little scientific validation.

This is why my son’s affinity for books thrills me. Just imagine how much more he will love books when he can actually read the words.

Do all book critics start out this way?

I’d much rather see my son become an author like his Daddy than the book critic that seems to be his natural inclination.

Nothing wrong with book critics, but I don’t think I could stand a scathing review from my own son.

Hopefully this is just a phase.

Neither true nor universally acknowledged

My wife’s favorite first line from literature comes Pride and Prejudice:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

Many people like this first line. While I have always appreciated the line, it has never felt right to me.

It’s sexist. Isn’t it? 

From a female standpoint, isn’t it little more than a subtle suggestion that a single woman should seek a man with money?

And from a male perspective, the implication is clear:

Wealthy bachelorhood is an unfortunate and unacceptable state of being.

Neither of these interpretations sit well with me. It’s a cleverly constructed and memorable sentence, but it’s implications are not good.

Moreover, can you imagine how feminists might have reacted to this book if the sentence been written in the reverse?

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a husband.”

Is this sentence any less true or less false than the first?

I don’t think so.

I think both sentences express a truth universally acknowledged that is neither true nor universally acknowledged.

The key to my heart is through a book.

I stepped out of my son’s room for a moment. He was playing with some train tracks and seemed completely content. When I opened the door the minute later, I found the train tracks abandoned.

He had moved onto his books. 

As a father, a teacher and an author, my son truly knows the key to my heart.

 

Haunted, but the ghost is apparently a reader, so it’s okay.

It would seem that we have a ghost in our house who enjoys books just as much as my son.

Bookish days of yore

I noticed this on my key ring today. It’s like a historical artifact. A reminder of a bygone day.

Throw it away? Leave it as a reminder of a time since passed? Sell it on eBay?

Where do you get your ideas?

I am often asked where I get the inspiration and ideas for my stories, especially considering that I’m fortunate enough to have so many ideas from which to choose.

A few years ago I wrote a post explaining my process. Since I continue to be asked this question almost more than any other, I thought I’d update that post here. I’ve completed two more books and a short story since then, so I have more to share on the subject. 

It’s rally the kind of question that is impossible to answer with a single sentence, because I never know when I might stumble upon an idea that could make a great book. I tend to be the kind of person who asks a lot of “What if?” questions, and through these questions, many of my ideas are born.

But since that is a relatively meaningless answer, I thought I’d give you some specific examples of how some of my stories were born.

SOMETHING MISSING: Over dinner several years ago, a friend bemoaned the loss of one of her earrings. She opened her jewelry box and could only find one of the two earrings that made up the pair.

In an attempt to make her smile, I asked, “What if someone broke into your house and stole your earring but left the other one behind so you wouldn’t suspect theft?” As I gnawed on a dinner roll, I found myself trying to imagine the kind of person who would break into every home in America and steal just one earring from every woman’s jewelry box.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, that was the moment that Martin Railsback and his story were born.

UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO:  For a long time, I wanted to be a film director.  At one point I had the idea for a movie in which three less-than-savory characters steal a video camera from a family on vacation in New York City.  After watching the videotapes in the privacy of their cockroach-infested apartment, the trio realizes that the memories captured on the videotape mean more to the family than they could have ever imagined, and they decide to return the tapes to their owners. They watch the footage in order to glean clues as to the owner’s identity, and in doing so, they become uncommonly attached to the family as a result. This idea served as the basis for UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO.

However, I also dipped into my own life for major pieces of the plot, including:

The separation and divorce from my first wife in 2003.

The two months spent in fourth grade helping a friend plan his escape to an uncle’s house in the Midwest. Chris wanted to run away from home, something he had done before, and though he never made the journey that we planned in the back of the classroom, I often wondered what might’ve happened if Chris had run away from home and had disappeared in the process. How would I have felt knowing that I had a hand in my friend’s disappearance, and how might that have impacted the rest of my life?

This became a major plot point in the story.

CHICKEN SHACK (an unpublished manuscript): There was once a potato chip factory in my hometown of Blackstone, Massachusetts that produced a brand of potato chips called Blackstone Potato Chips. The factory closed years ago, and on a trip back to Blackstone, I noted that the factory was now a funeral home. “Wouldn’t it be great if they still sold potato chips and embalmed dead people at the same time?” I said to my wife as we drove by. A moment later, the idea of a funeral home that also sells fried chicken landed in my mind and CHICKEN SHACK was  born.

Once again, I dipped into my own personal life for other key elements to the story, including:

The disappearance of my brother, Jeremy, who I had not seen for more than five years after my mother died.

A public, and in the words of many attorneys and law enforcement officers, unprecedented attack on my character and reputation by an anonymous source several years ago.

My occasional forays into amusing and ultimately meaningless forms of vigilante justice, mostly as a teenager but occasionally as an adult.

MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND:  This book began with a simple conversation with my student-teacher about an imaginary friend that I had as a child. In the span of about four sentences, the idea for Budo and his story was born.

I also managed to take advantage of my experience with autistic children when writing my book, and on an unconscious level, my constant, persistent existential crisis became a key element in the story as well. 

THE PERFECT COMEBACK OF CAROLINE JACOBS: My next book began with a conversation that my wife and I had in bed one night. We were talking about her childhood home, and she told me about something cruel that a friend had said to her during a sleepover.

“Wouldn’t it be great if you could find that girl today and finally tell her off?” I asked.

Just like that, the book was born. 

My next book is the story of a woman who suffered at the hands of a bully in high school, and much later in life, decides to finally do something about it. I used some of the bullying and hazing that I experienced in high school as inspiration, but most of the story was born from that simple question asked to my wife while lying in bed one night.    

BETTY BOOP:  The idea for this manuscript, which I am still tinkering with on the side, was born after reading about a 2009 law outlawing prostitution in the state of Rhode Island.  Prostitution was actually legal in Rhode Island between 1980 and 2009 because there was no specific statute to define the act and outlaw it, although associated activities, such as street solicitation, running a brothel, and pimping, were still illegal. With the passing of the 2009 law banning prostitution, I found myself wondering what a prostitute in Rhode Island might do now that his or her previously legal means of earning a living were suddenly forbidden. I came up with an solution for my theoretical prostitute, and that is the basis for this book.

Farewell to Arms: I recently wrote a short story that is currently under submission to several literary journals. It is an uncharacteristically dark story of an armless soccer team.

It was written on a dare.

Someone at work commented that soccer is so popular around the world because you don't need anything to play. Even a crumbled-up bit of newspaper can serve as a ball.

"You don't even need arms," I said. "That would be a story. Huh? A soccer team with no arms."

"Even you couldn't write that story," my friend said. 

I took up the challenge and wrote the story in three days.

The friends who have read the story like it a lot. I’m waiting to see if the literary magazines agree. 

“In The Night Kitchen” relies on the penis for its success and notoriety.

This reading of In the Night Kitchen got a lot of attention on the Internet last week with the passing of James Gandolfini.

And Gandolfini delivers a spectacular reading of this Maurice Sendak classic, but let me go on the record as saying that I do not like this book at all.

Perhaps it’s because I first read the book when I was 40 years-old and therefore lacked the childhood nostalgia that can occasionally prop up lesser works of art, but I find the story to be strange, creepy, frightening, unnecessarily graphic and most important lacking a cohesive and compelling narrative.

Frankly, I think that had Sendak not included the little boy’s penis in the illustrations, this book would have disappeared into obscurity.

I think the inclusion of the penis gained the book its initial notoriety and has continued to allow it to stand out as something different and unusual.

But not very good.

Literary perfection

As a father, a teacher and an author, I cannot imagine a better image than this one. If she wasn’t four years-old, I’d accuse my daughter of setting this up in an effort to acquire something else later on.  

 

My advice: Listen to The Diary of Anne Frank on a 1995 Sony Walkman

The first time I read The Diary of Anne Frank, I listened to the audiobook on a Sony Walkman. It was 1995, and the recording was on cassette tape. This was by far the best way to read Anne Frank’s diary for the first time.

I was raking leaves on my front lawn. It was late afternoon. The October shadows were long and thin. The air was cool.

It was a moment that I will never forget.

In fact, it was one of the most profound and moving experiences that I have ever had with a book. I finished listening to a diary entry in which Frank talks about the struggle between her interior self and her public self.

“…when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I'd like to be and what I could be if . . . if only there were no other people in the world.

Then there was no more.

Just silence.

At first I thought the reels had jammed, an all-too-common occurrence in the days of cassette tapes, but when I looked into the tiny window of the Walkman, I saw that the reels were spinning and the tape was coming to an end.

I pressed the stop button and extracted the cassette in order to turn it over. I saw the letter B on the tape.

I had already played both sides of the cassette.

Confused, I walked over to the case of cassette tapes on the front stoop to get the next one and discovered that there were no more. As I had thought, this was the last cassette.

That was it. As swiftly and unexpectedly as Frank and her family had been taken from their annex by the Nazis, The Diary of Anne Frank had come to an end.

I couldn’t believe it.

It’s not as if I was unaware of Anne Frank’s fate. I knew of her tragic death in the concentration camps.

It’s not as if I was expecting her diary to end on a high note. But the suddenness of its end, without a warning of any kind, literally stopped me in my tracks.

Had I been reading the book instead of listening to it, I would’ve had a measure of the remaining pages and been better prepared for the end. Unlike Anne and her family, I would’ve seen the end coming.

Had I been listening to the book on my iPhone, as I listen to audiobooks today, I would’ve been aware of the time remaining on the recording and not been so confused or surprised when it came to an end.

But because the technology did not allow for a warning, the ending was one of the most heart-wrenching moments in all of literature for me. Anne Frank was taken from me with an abruptness commensurate with her arrest. One day she was writing her diary, and the next day she was on a train that would eventually lead her to her death, never to write a single word again.

I do not cry easily. Even when I feel the need to cry, I tend to suppress my emotions Swallow them whole. Standing in my front yard that day on a carpet of orange and red leaves, I did not cry upon realizing that I had reached the end of Anne Frank’s diary, and in a way, the end of Anne Frank’s life.

I wept.

I wept, knowing that Anne Frank had never been given the chance to tell a single story. Tear streamed down my cheeks with the sudden awareness that Anne Frank went to her grave never knowing how many millions of people would ultimately read her diary and cherish every word.

I may have wept for Anne Frank regardless of how I consumed her diary for the first time, but I suspect that the abrupt ending contributed greatly to my emotional response. Anne Frank spent two years hiding with her family in their annex, and in that time, she wrote a diary that will be read for centuries. She had her whole life stretched out in front of her, and whether she believed it or not, it was rich with possibility. Despite her doubts, she was a gifted writer even at the age of fifteen. Then suddenly, without warning, her writing came to the end at the hands of evil men. She was separated from her family, shipped to a concentration camp, and was dead six months later.

Someday I will play the audiobook of The Diary of Anne Frank for my children. My plan is to play it in the car, in the midst of a long, cross-country road trip. With any luck, they won’t see the end coming any more than I did on that fall afternoon.

Some books are better consumed, at least the first time, in audio form, and preferably using technology from the mid-1990s.

Resolution update: May 2013

In an effort to hold myself accountable, I post the progress of my yearly goals at the end of each month on this blog. The following are the results through May. 1. Don’t die.

I remain perfect on my most important goal.

2. Lose ten pounds.

I gained a pound. Three pounds down. Seven pounds to go. This is a clear refection of my lack of focus on this goal. Seriously. Ten pounds should be simple.

3. Do at least 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups five days a day.  Also complete at least two two-minute planks five days per week.

Done.

4. Launch at least one podcast.

The hardware is ready. We designated a location in the house and set up the mixer and the microphones. I am working on understanding the software now. Basically, I understand how to record a podcast and can use the recording software fairly well. I am unsure what to do after I have the recording. How do I get my podcast onto the Internet? Into iTunes? Anywhere else it needs to go? Also, I may need a website to host and promote the podcasts, though this blog may serve this function. Still, a page will need to be created. A logo created. Other details I’m not even aware of yet, I’m sure.

5. Practice the flute for at least an hour a week.

The broken flute remains in the back of my car.

6. Complete my fifth novel before the Ides of March.

Done!

7. Complete my sixth novel.

Work had begun on the sixth novel.

8. Sell one children’s book to a publisher.

Work has begun on all three manuscripts. I’ve decided to revise them all and then choose the one that I think is best to send to my agent.

9. Complete a book proposal for my memoir.

Work on the memoir proposal has begun.

10. Complete at least twelve blog posts on my brother and sister blog.

Seven blog posts published during the month of May. More than halfway to the goal. Two more written by my sister awaiting publication. Kelli finds herself in a position to write consistently for the first time in her life. I’m trying to convince her to write a memoir. The last twenty years of her life have been extraordinarily difficult and would make a great story.

11. Become certified to teach high school English by completing two required classes.

I am now just one class and an inexplicable $50 away from achieving certification. That class will be taken in the summer.

12. Publish at least one Op-Ed in a newspaper.

I’ve have now published three pieces in the Huffington Post and one in Beyond the Margins. I am waiting response on an Op-Ed proposal from a major newspaper as well.

13. Attend at least eight Moth events with the intention of telling a story.

I attended one Moth event in May, bringing my total to seven. For the first time ever, I attended a StorySLAM in Boston at the Oberon Theater. I told a story about the day I lost a bike race to my friend and his new 10-speed bike. I finished in first place. It was my fourth StorySLAM victory.

14. Locate a playhouse to serve as the next venue for The Clowns.

The script, the score and the soundtrack remain in the hands of the necessary people. Talks continue on a new musical as well.

15. Give yoga an honest try.

Though I’m ready to try this whenever possible, the summer might be the most feasible time to attempt this goal.

My daughter, by the day, is taking yoga at her school. She demonstrated several poses to me the other day. This yoga stuff seems strange.

16. Meditate for at least five minutes every day.

I missed three days in May because my son is a pain-in-the-ass and wakes up before 7:00 AM.

17. De-clutter the garage.

Work continues. Nearing completion.

18. De-clutter the basement.

Work has begun. I installed the air conditioners this week, which eliminated three large objects from the basement. I also installed a rolling coat rack for the winter coats and have begun throwing away and donating baby paraphernalia that we will no longer need.

19. De-clutter the shed

Work has begun thanks to the work of a student. I will explain in a subsequent blog post.

20. Reduce the amount of soda I am drinking by 50%.

I failed to record my soda intake in April. I will begin tomorrow.

21. Try at least one new dish per month, even if it contains ingredients that I wouldn’t normally consider palatable.

I tried a new food in May but honestly can’t remember what it was. Also, I liked it.

22. Conduct the ninth No-Longer-Annual A-Mattzing Race in 2013.

No progress.

23. Post my progress in terms of these resolutions on this blog on the first day of every month.

Done.

My biggest fan and my arch nemesis go on a date. It doesn’t turn out well.

This story is too strange to be believed. But it’s true.

It involves two people. I will avoid using their  names in order to protect their identity, though I suspect that the woman in the story wouldn’t mind me using her name (she gave me permission to write about this), and I would take great personal pleasure in naming the man.

But I will refrain.

The woman in the story is one of my biggest fans. She has read all of my books, reads and comments on my blog regularly and has written me some of the kindest and most generous emails about my work that I have ever received. She promotes my work to her friends. Even her mother is a fan of my books. She lives in Wisconsin, so we have never actually met, but she has begun to feel like a friend to me.

I met the man in this story in the green room of a local television studio a few years ago. I was doing a promotional spot for an upcoming literary festival, and he had recently appeared on a game show and was being interviewed about the experience. He is also a writer. He has published a  supernatural detective novel (though I can’t actually find his book online) and writes for various small, online entities.

After chatting in the green room for a while, we exchanged contact information and became friends on Facebook.

Over the course of the next year or so, he began commenting on my blog posts and status updates with great regularity. His comments were almost always negative. He attacked my positions, criticized my writing and challenged me at every opportunity. His comments were often biting and sarcastic.

Truthfully, I didn’t mind much. I like to fight. But it was admittedly disconcerting how consistent he was in his attacks on me. He never let up. My wife came to despise him for his constant rants. Friends asked me who this man was and what he had against me. He had quickly become my online nemesis.

Then one day he went away. Honestly, I never even noticed. I wasn't exactly looking forward to his frequent comments, so when they stopped, I failed to notice.

That was a couple years ago.

This week I received an email from my biggest fan in Wisconsin.

From her email:

I met a guy online a few years ago. He was nerdy and Mensa, and I was single and have never minded boyfriends who are 5'6" compared to my 5'10" frame. We got to know each other on Facebook for a year and a half. Sometimes things we were reading in our spare time would come up.

After more than a year of getting to know each other, he flew out here to Madison for a few days for a date weekend. He flew out here from Connecticut.

He saw one of your books on the table and said, "I know this guy."

I said, “Oh, I am obsessed with this guy's stories. My mother discovered his first book at an ALA convention and I cannot get these stories off my mind. I'm into book three, and it's good, but this author has me spinning because I never know what to expect.”

My friend said, “I know this guy. He is a know-it-all and I hate him and even unfriended him on Facebook,”

I was like, “Oh! I'm sorry to hear it. Please tell me more.”

He said that you thought you knew more than he did. Period.

The weekend did not end well because he spent most of his time playing video games on his phone. I asked him about this and he said there's nothing wrong with this.

His books make no sense to me and are not interesting.

I can't get 40 pages into his books.

He was a rotten date, boring dinner company, and played video games all evening long.

First, what are the odds that these two people, with such divergent connections to me and separated by such great distances, would come together?

Slim seems like a lot. Right?

But best of all is what my wife said when I shared the story with her:

“Your biggest fan and your arch nemesis went on a date!”

She’s right. Even though they live about 2,000 miles apart, my biggest fan and my arch nemesis came together for possible romantic entanglement.

I like to think that it was the presence of my book on that table that saved my biggest fan from years of dating misery, but I suspect that even if my name had not come up, she would’ve jettisoned this guy.

It’s an incredibly small world, especially when you write stories that crisscross the globe.

How To Be A Grownup in 10 Steps

Kelly Williams Brown's book Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps is reportedly “the most helpful guide to becoming a successful adult you'll ever find.”

Publisher’s Weekly recently offered ten steps from her book to get you started.

I decided to create my own list. If you have a suggestion to add my list, I would love to hear it.

How To Be A Grownup in 10 Steps According to Matthew Dicks

1. Never speak poorly of a person’s physical appearance. This includes references to a person’s weight and choice of clothing.

2. Make every effort to arrive on time for all things.

3. Drive safely at all times. Many lives depend upon it. 

4. Never judge a person based upon the quality (or absence) of their gift.

5. Spend more time reading than watching television.

6. Get an annual physical and flu shot.

7. Let go of the expectation that life should be fair and equitable.

8. Freely acknowledge your weaknesses and faults.

9. Exercise with regularity.

10. Regardless of your circumstances, be an outstanding role model whenever you are in the presence of children.

The perfect Mother’s Day gift or the worst Mother’s Day gift of all time? I’m not sure.

I bought my wife a cookbook for Mother’s Day. It was a book that my daughter and son were going to give her as their gift.

I was extremely proud of my choice of book. It was written by a woman whose blog I know she loves. I was also recommended by the bookstore as an excellent Mother’s Day gift.

I couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when she opened her gift.

Yesterday afternoon I saw her using the same book to make a cake.

It turns out she already owns the book.

Not only does she own the book, but it is the only book that she has ever preordered.

She has also seen the author speak.

Her book is even signed by the author.

She could not own this book any more than she already does.

I’m not sure if this news should make me happy because I clearly chose the perfect gift had she not owned it already, or if I should feel like a fool for buying her a book that is apparently in her hands at least a few times every week.

The two best pieces of writing advice that Roger Ebert ever received

I’m listening to Roger Ebert’s memoir and loving every minute of it.

 

The two best pieces of writing advice that he was ever given (forgive me for forgetting the source) is advice that I can get behind wholeheartedly.

1. Don't wait for inspiration. Just start the damn thing. 
2. Once you begin keep on until the end. How are you supposed to know where to begin until you see where the story is going?

Ebert was known for being one of the fastest and more prolific writers in the business, but he contended that he was no faster than anyone else.

“I just spend less time not writing.”

I try to live my life by this principle.

“Come out! Come out! Wherever you are!”

I wonder if my librarian and bookseller friends ever use this strategy when attempting to locate a wayward book on a shelf:

A book about sex that I should’ve written.

The Daily Beast reports on a new book, The Newlywed's Guide to Physical Intimacy, available in stores soon:

A new sex guide to be published in Hebrew aims at teaching orthodox Jews the basics of sex.

How basic?

The book goes as far as outlining the anatomical differences between males and females. The author, Dr. David Ribner, has a doctorate in social work and is an ordained Rabbi. He has spent the last 30 years working with orthodox Jews in Israel, who often know absolutely nothing about male-female interactions.

As a fifth grade teacher, I actually teach some of this basic anatomy as part of our health curriculum. I would’ve been the perfect person to write this book. I have plenty of experience dealing with students who are clueless in this regard. 

Of course, the book also address sex, which is not a part of our fifth grade curriculum. But it does so very carefully. Rather than actually including information about sex in the book, there is a a sealed envelope on the back flap, with a warning to readers that it contains sexual diagrams. If you don't want to look at them, you can rip off the envelope and throw it away.

Inside are three diagrams of basic sexual positions.

Just three?

This could be the first and last word that these people ever receive in terms of sex, and all they are being given are three positions?

These are grown men and women who have no idea what the anatomy of the opposite sex even looks like, and in many cases, they don’t understand how their own anatomy works.

Just three positions?

They need as much help as they can get.

I should’ve written this book.

Children swallowing poisoned beads was not my original plan. I swear.

In 2012 I participated in the Books on the Nightstand Booktopia event in Santa Cruz, California. The culmination of the weekend is an event called the Celebration of Author, wherein each author speaks for about ten minutes.

My talk, as well as that of author Cara Black, was broadcast on the Books on the Nightstand podcast this week. I spoke about the importance of reading Shakespeare by telling some amusing stories from fifteen years of teaching Shakespeare to elementary students.

You can listen to my talk (as well as Cara’s) here.

The Kobo eReader: Better than paper? Probably not. But incredible.

I own a Kindle. I tried to use it. I did not like it.

It turns out that I prefer paper. Paper is my friend.

This, however, could be a game changer.

Okay. Probably not. But still. It looks fantastic.