Transitioning…
Posted on June 29, 2025 Leave a Comment
Things and stuff in the world of literature are chaotic, exhausting, and impossible. I saw a post the other day that if you want to “break into” traditional publishing, you need at least 60K followers on some social media platform.
Fuck that!
Fuck that to hell!
I spent the better part of this past winter listening to the Wish I’d Known Then…For Writers podcast. I probably listened to about 30 episodes. It’s a testament to the two indie authors who started it: Sara Rosett & Jami Albright that they’ve kept it going as long as they have.
Bravo, ladies!
In addition to learning everything about being an indie author, I learned “indie author” <> “failure.” I learned there are indie authors out there absolutely slaying it. And I learned that writing is a practice that must be practiced—it matters naught if you are the second coming of Hemmingway, it only matters that you show up and write, create, period (.)
More than anything else, this podcast made me feel OK about being a not-even-remotely famous writer.
I’ve since read many of the books from many of the authors featured on the podcast. I learned that all manner of non-standard, off-spec, and utterly original approaches are being taken now-a-days. I learned that it’s OK to color outside the lines. And I learned that you have to be as savvy at the business end of the literary industry as you are at the writing end.
To that end…I’ve settled on Substack for now.
I have to be honest with myself. I have to be realistic. Despite the fact that I’ve managed to write three novels, a novella, and a children’s book (since 2015), I have a full-time job. I have a pair of teenagers: one in college + one about to be a senior in high school—how in the hel—
Plus, I currently live in two states: MN & GA—I spend about two weeks in each state each month. I have four aging parents, who are thankfully all still alive against all odds (I’m fifty-fucking-three for fuck’s sake—how in the hel—). The fact that they’re all still around is one of the great blessing of this lifetime. But it’s getting…difficult…on that front. Is there ever an easy time to write?!?!?!
As far as I can tell, being able to release fiction in a serial format is most conducive to my current circumstance. If you hop over to my Blake Donley Author Substack, you will find a gateway to all of my projects. You can subscribe (and even pay) to read the tripe I trowel out.
Until I can get in front of all the marketing bullshit required to get actual at-large readers, I’ll be forced to beg my friends and family to read the junk I manifest. I also know there are folks who refuse to read anything other than a sentient book formed of wood pulp, desperation, and tears. I salute y’all! Maybe someday, I can give you that. When that day comes, I’ll be the guy behind the table signing book with the stupid grin on his face.
Until then, catch my unconventional approach to “fictional author”—literally and figuratively—at Substack.
“Living life as an artist is a practice.
You are either engaging in the practice
or you’re not.
It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it.
It’s like saying, “I’m not good at being a monk.”
You are either living as a monk or you’re not.
We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output.
The real work of the artist
is a way of being in the world.”
― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
In that same book, ol’ Rick also said something to the effect that all the true artists innovated. They refused to imitate any successful template. Instead, they forged a new path and created an entirely new thing—a thing that didn’t exist previously.
I feel all of that.
—
© 2025 – ∞ B. Charles Donley
Emerald Coast Storytellers – Open Mic Night
Posted on September 16, 2024 Leave a Comment
I realize how lucky I am to be able to visit the Emerald Coast of the Florida panhandle whenever I want. Sure, it’s thanks to my in-laws, but luckily they adore me, last time I checked. I married into the Rubinstein clan of Philly, PA. The second time around. Lauren, Chris, Pam, and Ed—they’re fun!
I’ll spare you their origin story (and mine), but they’re sometimes residents of a second-story condo in the heart of old Seagrove off historic Highway 30A—a highway that nearly runs between Panama City and Destin, FL. It came at the loss of an historic home in Harvey Cedars, NJ, on the bay side of the Jersey Shore. In the end, I feel like the trade-off has paid copious dividends.
Zero thanks to me, we’ve been hanging out at Sago Sands 202, on and off, for nearly a decade. In ten annums, we’ve made a dozen lifetime’s worth of memories at this funky joynt. That’s how 30A rolls! I’m beyond blessed to periodically escape to it’s spectacular paradise. One sunny day on the beaches of 30A is worth pretty much a dozen in America’s Siberia (aka the greater western Minnesota suburbs). It took me a spell to figure that out, but I know it now, well. My birthday IS 3/2, for Odin’s sake! #pisces #duh #moron
Coaxing a 50/50 Swedish/Norwegian 100% purebred Viking to become a beach person might be the hot wifey’s greatest accomplishment. And she’s plenty fucking accomplished!
Anyway, we’re a bit envious of the “30A community,” because we’re not down there all the time. It’s hard to become a community fixture when you are on-site less than 30 calendar days every year. Yet, we try. So, when an opportunity presented itself, I threw myself at it.
Emerald Cost Storytellers is…well…why don’t they tell you…
Emerald Coast Storytellers is a creative writers group based in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida that seeks to provide uniquely curated, live storytelling events revolving around the written and spoken word. Their mission is to help locals and visitors alike discover, foster, and reignite their creative passions – both on and off the page.
Anyway, I’ve been stalking them for about a year. Then, like an opportunity dropped from the heavens, they were hosting an open mic night during a beach week with the afore mentioned fam. So, I shot them an inquiry. I got this response…
Hey Blake, we’d love to have you! You’re on the list. Each reader has five minutes up at the mic and we’ll introduce you with a short bio. Is this bio from your website good to pull from?
Dang! I honestly didn’t think it would be that easy. It went like this…
Though Kristi and Ali totally tricked me! They told me I was going 3rd. I was in mid sip of an Aperol Spritz—’cause I fancy—when they called me up as the 2nd reader. Ha!
Though I’m INTJ, and pretty severely—I’ve taken the MBTI twice in two decades, scoring nearly identically on the INTJ scale both times—I daylight as a corporate American. INTJs are known as “The Architect.” Of what, I can’t begin to imagine. But I can blather, and blather, and blather…
I spent the entire summer of 2017 explaining to nearly 500 of my fellow energy industry employees how the transition from Oracle’s Content Server to Microsoft’s SharePoint was gonna go down. As excruciating as that sounds, it’s just the tip of the iceberg of my corporate American speaking resume. I’ve done multiple industry conference presentations, I’ve done webinars for hundreds, and I’m the proverbial go-to emcee each time our department hosts the IT Division Meeting. My atrocious speaking voce aside, I can dazzle a crowd of 10-10,000 as well as any TEDx’er who ever TEDx’ed. Hence, nerves were not at issue on this evening.
Emotions were.
This (bloated) novel is about the fraught relationship between fathers and sons. Specifically, sons desperately trying to sidestep their father’s perceived astray footsteps. Thankfully, my ol’ man is 85 and kicking like the proverbial mule. My novel, Finding Fidelity, is a work of pure fiction. But like any clean, mean, pristine fictional work, there’s a lot of altered realty baked in at every step.
I’m just glad I got to share this tidbit. The kool kidz at Emerald Coast Storytellers were nice enough post my story on their website. You can read it here.
Thanks Kristi and Ali for dreaming up and ultimately creating such a wonderous vehicle for creatives to share their creative output. I think so much of the toil that creatives endure goes underground. Which is an utter bummer (and waste). We need much more art, not less!
I’d be remiss (and dumb) (and dumber) if I didn’t call out my hot wifey Lauren (she did the vid). Though her own artistic prowess dwarfs mine—as does she as she’s 6’1 barefoot and I’m 6’1 in cowboy boots—she’s never boastful and endlessly supportive.
More importantly, her inspiration vaulted me back onto this journey when we resumed our journey that fateful afternoon in the Orlando airport. Without her, I’d have never written this novel, much less the other two, much less all the novels I will eventually write.
You can have plenty of fun in this lifetime, but it’s infinitely more rewarding with a partner in crime (and every fucking other thing). “My wife” is the least interesting of her titles. She’s: “Yes, chef!”, “Chief Design Officer”, “picker of EVERY paint color”, “wine buyer”, “dog mom extraordinaire”, “mixer of metaphors”, and “the only person I sit with naked in any huge bathtub at any Airbnb (literally) anywhere on earth”. Without her, this would all be impossible and pointless; I’d just write dark disgruntled shit that no one would care to read.
She made me love the beach, really love the beach. If for only that, she has my eternal gratitude. She’s perfect (most days 😉
Here’s to more Emerald Coast Storytellers events in the near future—Cheers!
—
© 2024 – ∞ B. Charles Donley
RWA Traditional Author Weekend—A Newbie Reflects
Posted on April 22, 2024 Leave a Comment
On April 6th and 7th, I attended my first literary conference. As an RWA general member, I felt compelled to start participating in events other than the monthly “Power Up” sessions. The conference was instructive, energizing, but mostly daunting.
Back in a previous life, I went to college to become a businessperson. I had zero clue as to what that entailed. Regardless, in the spring of 1990, it sounded like a sensible decision. In the middle of my sophomore year, my roommate badgered me into changing my major to Management Information Systems. I did, because IT grads were paid more than Business Administration grads.
Before I sashayed across the stage to accept my degree, I’d already secured a great job at an agribusiness mega corporation. My starting salary was $34,500, which was an unfathomable amount of money in 1995 for 23-year-old me. I was going to be a bona fide grown-up IT geek. My future was indeed so bright that I had to wear shades.
Until it wasn’t.
FFWD 21 years. I was still a pro geek, but that job had drained all the vibrancy from my soul. I decided to take guitar lessons, because why not? After my lessons, my instructor and I would chat for a spell. I often regaled her with my latest thrift store finds. I thrifted a lot, and this fascinated her. One day she asked a simple question that forever altered my path, “What do you think you’re really looking for at thrift stores?”
The short answer is, “The truth.”
I thought about that question a lot. So much so, that it turned into a novel. My guitar instructor became my writing coach, and during that summer I learned something shocking: I could write novels. I’ve always been told I’m “a good writer,” but I’d never even contemplated a novel. That was crazy talk.
Until it wasn’t.
Things happened, as they do. Things changed, as they do. My initial novel was interrupted by another one, which I completed in the fall of 2019. When I shared this news with friends and acquaintances, they all asked the same question, “When can I buy a copy?”
I had the same question.
After some basic internet searches, I learned that I probably needed an agent. OK, I thought, How hard can that be? I took an online course that purported to help new authors land an agent. It was a week-long with a presentation a day. At the end, I’d learned that writing a book was about 40% of the battle—60% was agents, editors, publishers, word counts, genres, query letters, pitches, websites, discussion groups, social media, newsletters, headshots, and etc.
I was overwhelmed.
I’d always assumed that if I you write it, they will come. The reality is, if you write it, so what? I was completely unprepared for the hustle required simply to get an agent. And that’s just the first step in a daunting journey toward publication. I was frustrated, because I’ve read countless novels from new authors who, like me, just wanted a peek behind the curtain. How did they find an agent to usher them backstage?
I envied them.
That novel that interrupted that initial novel turned out to be a romance novel. While that was sort of my intention, I didn’t feel it was REALLY a romance novel. Regardless, I began pitching it. After at 25 (and counting) polite declines from prospective agents, I decided to join RWA. I mean hell, I wrote a romance novel, why not join an organization of fellow romance writers?
About Traditional Author Weekend…
As a veteran of hundreds of IT conferences, something about multiple sessions during each hour felt right at home. Having to choose which to attend was such a funny familiar feeling. I selected, “Agents and Editors Define the Romance Genre,” right out of the gate. It was an information infusion on par with my double espresso. I was struck by the sincerity and honesty of the panelists.
Hope abounded.
My next session was “Navigating the Submission Process,” by Scott Eagan from Greyhaus Literary Agency. I don’t think I’ve ever endured a presentation that I appreciated more than this one. Paradoxically, I wanted to give up on the whole published author dream afterward. Scott was honest, bracingly so. He tore down all the artifice and romance of the literary industry and presented us with one glaring fact: it’s a business folks! I guess I needed to hear this. It stripped all the romance from writing romance (or much of anything).
I was gutted. Done.
I struggled through the reminder of the presentations. I think I watched 10 of them live and a few more recorded. While I feel considerably more prepared to become a published author, I’ve lost a lot of steam. It feels like one of my recurring dreams. I’m my adult self, but for some inexplicable reason I need to repeat my entire K-12 education. I’m confounded and overwhelmed as I stand outside of Excelsior Elementary with a backpack full of supplies ready for my first day of kindergarten.
The more you know indeed!
As hopeless as I currently feel about publication, I’m grateful to all the agents, editors, authors, and industry experts for sharing their knowledge. I have a lot to ponder, which is a good problem to have. For now, I’ve retreated into the loving arms of Annie Lamont. If you’re not familiar with “Bird by Bird,” get familiar. Annie bears her soul at the alter of writing. And if this doesn’t saddle you with equal measures of grief and hope, I can’t help you.
“Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be?”
― Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird
—
Blake Charles Donley
Here Comes the Pitch…
Posted on January 14, 2024 Leave a Comment
As the story goes, my sophomore history teacher, Mr. Chamberlin, singled out my mother and father on parent’s night to announce that I was, “an exceptional writer,” and “should be encouraged to write more.”
This was news to them. This was breaking news to me. Up to that point in my life, I’d only considered writing a skill employed periodically to complete school assignments. In 1987, writing was no more on my radar than death, taxes, or choosing a career that would result in a bland, even monochromatic, existence. I literally thought nothing of it [writing].
Then I met a girl. Then I had a smoldering summer romance. Then we both departed for colleges separated by three states. Back then, a long-distance call was a quarter per minute. Calling each other was a weekly (at best) prospect. Hence, I embarked on an epistolary campaign to keep her. Ultimately it failed. But it produced some of the most motivated writing of my early lifetime.
Amicably, we chose to set sail in opposite directions after a Valentine’s Day blow up. It was a minor miracle we lasted that long after the previous summer’s fireworks. Eventually, we both graduated, got jobs, bought houses, got married, I had kids (she didn’t), and lived our lives obliviously for nearly two decades on opposite ends of the country.
Today, we’re happily married (to each other). She kept those old desperate letters I mailed her a lifetime ago. I hung on to hers. But that’s a story for a different day. The point is, love made me do it all: writing hard, losing her, finding her again, rediscovering writing, becoming a writer, writing a novel, writing another novel, etc. It’s the cliché of clichés, but I did it all for love.
That’s not what this little rant is all about, however. Writing is a dubious craft and being a writer is an overly romantic notion. It just sounds cool to say, “Yea, I’m a writer.” It carries a certain gravitas for those on the outside. But if you’re on the inside, you know how tenuous the situation can be, you know how unstable the ground can feel, you know how daunting it is to lay bare your soul for others to critique, belittle, and mock. I doubt there is a group of artists as self-aware, self-conscious, and self-defeating as writers.
50% of Americans want to write a novel. 15% actually start it. 6% make it halfway though. No one seems to have stats on fate of those six-percenters, but if 1% cross the finish line I’d be floored. Assuming 1% though, and doing the math, that works out to ~1,500 people who wanted to write a novel and actually finished it. I’m one of those 1,500. And trust me, I was giddy to hack my way into the elite club. But that’s only half the battle.
You see, landing a literary agent to pitch your book is a slog of a different color.
In her seminal guide for would be writers, Bird by Bird, Annie Lamott paints an excruciatingly realistic picture of the publishing world. Her ultimate advice is to write for the sheer joy of it. Don’t worry about the business end. Because even if you ascend to the pantheon of the published, you’re guaranteed neither wine nor roses—headache and heartbreak are more like it. I highly recommend her book if you write or have any aspirations to walk among the published. Her cautionary tales are essential.
Despite her advice, I still crave publication.
I set out to write my first novel in 2015. In 2016, I caught wind of an online writing contest. It was sponsored by a magazine and the best-selling romance writer Lauren Blakley. The thing that struck me more than the contest itself was that a romance writer named Lauren Blakley existed. Obviously my name is Blake. That girl who co-starred in that hot summer romance, that girl who ultimately became my wife, that girl’s name is Lauren. Learning of this contest when I did seemed like some message from the universe.
There were a few problems, however. First, I discovered the contest 10 days before a 20-30K word manuscript was due. Next, it had to be a romance with a happy ending. Finally, the main character had to be a strong heroine. The book I was writing at the time was literary fiction about the struggles between fathers and sons. I was writing on the opposite end of the literary spectrum. But I figured I had to enter this contest. If for no other reason than to prove I could write from a feminine perspective.
The good news was that after ten days of relentless writing, I had amassed 22K words. The bad news was that my story was just getting started. I’d shifted myself into the lead female character. I explored my feminine side for her sake, for the readers’ sake. I’d crafted a cast of compelling characters doing interesting things. And every night when I sat down to further explore the alternate universe I’d created, I discovered more and more of it. Over the course of the subsequent two years I wrote 130K words. I had a fully formed novel that stood on its own but begged for a sequel.
The test readers, including my wife, confirmed what I’d believed all along: I’d written an actual novel that others might actually enjoy reading. I figured I’d arrived. I figured it would just be a matter of time until I’d have an editor and publisher. That was 2019. It’s now 2024. It’s not published. In the interim, I even finished that other novel—the one about fathers and sons.
When I began to research finding a publisher, I quickly learned that is not how it was done. You first need to get a literary agent to represent you. Most publishers no longer accept at-large manuscripts. Instead, they get all of their submissions directly from agents.
So, I needed an agent. I began to research that process. Needless to say, it’s not straightforward. After a lot of fumbling through Google search results, firing off what I thought were book pitches, and getting no response whatsoever, I decided I needed to learn more. I enrolled in one of the numerous online courses that promises, “You too can get a book deal!” This particular one was Kathy Ver Eecke’s Get a Book Deal 101 course.
The class was a week long with a 2-3 hour webinar each day on a different topic. She covered topics like: how to write a bio, how to format a query letter, and how to find agents to pitch. I did feel much more knowledgeable about the world of literary agents and publishers after completing her course. I felt equipped to make much better pitches to agents. I remember sending off my first pitch a week after her course. I had the highest of hopes.
That pitch was declined, as were the subsequent 25. Yesterday, I received declines #27, #28, and #29. The last was particularly enjoyable, as I had only submitted the pitch via QueryTracker just two hours prior. I guess getting shot down in a couple hours is better than no response at all. You see, just like all the other arts, writing (for publication) is ultimately a business. And if the music industry is any indication, it rarely goes the artist’s way.
As I researched more about the current state of literature and publishing, I began to see the roadblocks more clearly. You can research on your own to get the full picture, but let me boil it down—today would be a perfect time to be a twentysomething minority female in her 20s who specializes in writing YA fantasy novels with strong LGBTQ+ characters. Having an unnaturally bright hair color, or at least highlights, is a plus. Don’t believe me? Swing out to a few literary agency sites and read through the “What I’m Looking For…” sections of the various agent pages.
I don’t want to sound like a disgruntled boomer—I’m actually a disgruntled GenXer—but I don’t think there is any room at the literary table for middle-aged white guys. The irony is not lost on me. The irony of me pointing out the irony is also not lost on me.
Then in the meantime, the whole AI debacle was unleashed…
So I’m back at the beginning of my writing odyssey. I’ve technically finished three books. I have to finish editing the most recent. And I still have no agent. The next novel I want to tackle is the story of how my wife and I found each other 17 years after a shattering summer fling. That one will literally be a labor of love. And I’ll likely be writing it only for the love of storytelling. Even if the only one to ever read the story is me.
“You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won’t really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we’ll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won’t wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
I’ve stopped worrying about landing a literary agent. It’s not likely to happen in this social climate, considering the stories I want to tell, with the decades I’m carrying, on this go-round. But I’m lucky enough to be that kind of person who revels in building sand castles with words. And I guess if I’m lucky enough to be that kind of person, I’m lucky enough.
—
Blake Charles Donley
Hey Dave!
Posted on March 26, 2023 Leave a Comment
If you’ve ever ridden the roller coaster of nostalgia that is channeling your past in current endeavors, you know how quickly it can become disorienting.
At first, it seems like a fun thing to try. And so you strap yourself into a non-threatening and colorful car that will take you along the ups and downs of your checkered past—don’t worry, everyone’s is: checkered, that is.
That initial ascent is exactly that: an exhilarating by way of excruciating ride upward toward the known unknown. Prior to the summit, all of the anticipation is positive. All of the vibe is giddy, Even though extreme trepidation builds in the pit of your stomach’s pit, you casually wave it off in lieu of impending “fun” times ahead while you plan to explore everything in your rearview mirror.
It’s only when you summit and stare down that first daunting plunge into madness that you begin to begin to realize what you’ve done. And at that point…well…there ain’t shit you can do about it other than hang on for dear life.
When I drink, I write,
When I write, I drink.
Or, something like that.
Or, all of that.
I have the most outlandish ideas during these flights of G&Ts…err…I mean…fancy.
One such flight…err…I mean…night, it dawned on me to write a love letter to my pastor. Not my current pastor, mind you, the pastor of my teenage epoch. As a Buddhist—Buddha being an everyday human dude and all—I have no pastor at the moment.
Inconsequentially, he [Pastor Dave] also married me and my initial wife. But that was a mistake. Not his mistake, mine, ours, and so on. My parents were each the first of their families to get divorced. I was the first grandkid to get divorced.
Footsteps…
For the purposes of this rapidly devolving debacle, let’s not include that chapter. The only chapter that matters is the one I wrote in my latest novel. There was a scene that took place in the church of my youth. It was a poignant scene not only in the book but in my actual non-fictional life.
A half-dozen G&Ts into the evening, I decided to write him a letter, an email actually. I emailed my old church and they gave me his personal email. Thank God he’s retired! He has most assuredly earned at least that.
Anyway, after the church forwarded my initial query to him, he did reply. It was a generic pastoral reply: polite and caring. He even admitted to remembering 15 y/o me, which warmed my heart at the time. My reply, which has gone unanswered to this moment follows.
Maybe I crossed some line?
Maybe I was too honest?
Maybe he just couldn’t care less at this point (I couldn’t blame him less)?
I did put a fair amount of effort into the epistolary exchange. I tend to want to preserve these anomalies. So, that is the purpose of this pointless post.
From: Pastor Dave
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 3:18 PM
To: Blake Donley
Subject: Greetings!
Hi Blake! [some person] from [some church] forwarded me your email and request. Sounds like you have had some challenges of late. I remember you and have had occasional contact with your dad and step mother in recent years. I checked out your site briefly and see that you are quite the gifted writer. I suspect you have a very loyal following! Feel free to contact me at this email. It’s nice to connect after all these years!
Blessings,
PDave
From: Blake Donley
Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2023 9:46 AM
To: Pastor Dave Olson
Subject: Re: Greetings!
Hey Dave!
First and foremost, how are you? The last time I saw you, I was getting married for the first time. It’s been a while, literally. I truly hope all is well with you and yours.
Next, thanks for commenting on my writing (or even reading it). I started writing in earnest again after my divorce in 2010. But it was not until 2017 when I decided to write a novel. That first attempt got interrupted with what turned into a pair of novels. I’ve since returned to that initial foray, and I’m nearly finished with that initial novel. As you may have guessed, it’s loosely based on my relationship with my father. More broadly, it’s a story of fathers and sons and trying not to retrace your parents’ footsteps but falling in lockstep despite oneself.
Anyway, in writing it, I’ve done a lot of exploration of the past. It’s been nostalgic, and bewildering, and downright trippy at times. Much of it harkens back to the decade of the ’80s and rambling around the big empty rambler on Christmas Lake. There is a key moment in the novel that occurs in a fictitious [some church], which I not cleverly named [some church]. I was going off the premise that there have to be at least a hundred “[some church‘s]” in the U.S. alone.
Writing is a whole body/mind/soul exercise for me. Writing that church scene shook loose a gazillion memories. Most were from, what was for me anyway, the mystifying and terrifying confirmation years. But in contrast to the unpredictable and near criminal behavior of my fellow confirmees, you were quite literally the Rock of Gibraltar.
Likely, I was slightly ahead of my peers from a developmental—heavy on the mental—perspective. Plus, I was a shy introvert whose intuition vastly outstretched my perceived toughness and endurance. But even then I could see how completely preposterous your job truly could be at times. For example, a weekend retreat at [some local stupidly expensive private college] when you were tasked with wrangling a slew of teenage ne’er-do-wells to get some sleep when most had plans to the contrary.
My mother was (and still is) a master of biblical quotes. She’d often describe people with “The patience of Job.” Whatever is more than that, that’s what you had back in those tumultuous and confusing (for me) days.
Anyway, there was one weekend retreat to a camp that I want to say was in Wisconsin. As you can well imagine in ’87 (or ’88), taking 60 almost high school co-ed’s to a camp in the autumn was gonna be a slog for the poor chaperones. An while the weekend was disastrous on many fronts: bras up the flagpole, kids out smoking in the woods, animal skulls in the toilets, no one ever wanting to sleep ever, etc. You somehow managed to remain sane, and calm, and unimaginably patient. I guess that’s the job. You did blow up at the usual suspects causing commotion one too many times in the wee hours in the boys’ cabin, but I’d have gone much further than you did when stretched to the extreme limits you were.
That particular weekend, you and the staff did an exercise where we all wore paper bags on our heads that indicated our “role” in the exercise. We all were then tasked with walking around and acting toward each other in such a way that the person wearing the bag could guess our assigned role.
The genius aspect of this exercise, which by the way could never be done today, was that the roles given were the opposite of how the kid in the bag behaved in real life. My bag, if I remember correctly read “Bully”. Predictably, the other “bagged” kids in the room acted scared toward me. And quite obviously, this is the opposite of how I felt that entire weekend.
This is one of those moments in life that stays with you forever. In fact, I can recall the room and the setting, and the reactions of my fellow confirmees. But, it was also transformational for me. You see, the power of that exercise is that it leveled (so to speak) the bolder of the bunch, and it lifted (so to speak) the meeker. And in that, it was perfectly biblical. Maybe that was the point, but I promise you it was lost of most. On me, however, it was not.
There are snippets of time, in his lifetime, that are pivotal. That was one such snippet. Not only did I feel understood in that I was given an opposite role that perfectly fit, but I felt seen. That was rare in those days. Like really rare.
As I was writing my little novel that likely no one will ever read, I decided I needed to reach out to you and let you know that you made a massive impact on teenage me. And there weren’t many who did. You exhibited a “gentle strength” that I rarely saw. Maybe it was the times, but strength in the ’80s was a literal notion. Wisdom and grace were not yet recognized as the superpowers they are today. And yet you were an OG, at least for me.
I never saw myself being a pastor. But I promise you I am a better father to both my (high school) daughter Karli and my son Nate, because you were my pastor. Your example was impactful in ways you could’ve never imagined 40 years ago. For that, you have my eternal gratitude.
Writing this book has taught me to call out the excellent humans who have helped me along the way. You are one, for sure. I’ll be forever in your debt for the gentle guidance you provided and for the grace you displayed. Few look at a pastor and sees a superhero, I do. Thank you for making the road a bit less rocky. It meant a lot. It’s not forgotten, and it’s always bouncing around in my writer’s mind.
Cheers!
To-date, there has been no reply. This could be as the result of my blathering being correctly categorized as spam/junk. Or, there could be a more purposeful reason. I guess I’ll never know. And sometimes, that how IRL goes…
—
Some of this will be in Finding Fidelity, the forthcoming novel from Blake Charles Donley
Article: The 39 best books of the year so far 2022
Posted on October 13, 2022 Leave a Comment
Summary…
From the terrifying new Stephen King horror to a millennial anti-romcom set in New York, here are BBC Culture’s books to read.
h/t BBC
Blather…
And to think, I never got through BBC Culture’s 2021 books to read…
Finding Fidelity – Take This Job and Shove it
Posted on September 26, 2022 Leave a Comment
Rather than thrifting, napping, or just blowing off lunch, Leo and I had begun a weekly ritual of sharing lunch on his newly reconditioned redwood picnic. This always occurred on Tuesdays. Under the circumstances of my life at the moment, this seemed apropos.
As is the natural evolution of things, I was tasked with ordering, fetching, and paying for lunch. This was totally OK, however. At his age and value, the cost was a pittance for the wisdom these sessions yielded. I was beginning to realize how much he’d given me despite myself.
I’d managed to navigate his harrowing drive with a pair of subs from Erbert & Gerbert’s, which had fortuitously opened a smattering of locations in MSP. Their expansion was both welcomed and evocative of too much collegiate nostalgia.
As I walked around the corner of his strangely geometric home, I found him perched atop one of the reconditioned benches. When I spotted him, I paused. He was sitting just over the X-shaped strut that held up the end of the bench. He was gazing into space like there was something there. From my vantage point, there was nothing. Capturing him there like that was akin to spotting a wild turkey in its natural habitat—you just linger and observe.
“Hey,” I announced.
Leo swung around, “Hey!” he echoed.
“What’s out there,” I pointed.
”Not sure,” he offered, “Maybe turkeys, but I can’t tell yet.”
“You are surrounded by wildlife out here for sure,” I made the sort of master-of-the-obvious observation I loathed.
“Yea,” Leo waived me over as he resumed staring into space.
I took a moment to assess him as he was. His feet were still swollen, at least up to his ankles. He was wearing some odd slide-on slippers that I swear he’d stolen from the hospital. But under the circumstances, I wasn’t about to critique his choice in footwear.
While his feet appeared to have expanded, the rest of him seemed withdrawn. Every time I’d seen him, he looked somehow diminished. He was not the robust Leo that played my father in so many memories, which were feverishly jockeying for position in my consciousness at that moment.
“So, what’s REALLY out there?,” I asked in an effort to snap myself out of my own head.
“Everything,” he answered.
I ventured a rejoinder, “The past and futire and the whole nine yards?”
“Maybe…” was all I got in response.
“Well, if you spot it, point me in the right direction.”
“I will,” he assured, more upbeat as he maintained his thousand-yard stare.
I proceeded to gingerly unload the paper bag containing our meal. I was careful not to make too much noise so as to scare off whatever snipe Leo was stalking in his mind’s eye. I nearly silently placed his wrapped sub and bag of chips near his resting elbow.
This was reminiscent of so many moments from my childhood where Brandon and I were just too terrified to bother the old man. He was so obtuse that we generally didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. But we knew not to bother him when he was in one of his various fugue states.
As a kid, I once woke him from a nap because someone was knocking on the door. Leo didn’t dispense much verbal advice. Most of his conveyances were non-verbal in the manner of monkey see, monkey do. But when his eyes blinked open, he scared the shit out of young me when he barked, “Never wake someone up by shaking them. You’ll give them a heart attack.”
This advice stuck with me. It was one of those seminal moments where fresh knowledge hits you so hard, it never forgets you.
I repeated the almost silent outlay of food on my half of the table.
Rather than crinkling up the bag, I placed it at the end of the table. As Leo was still staring into the mystic, I whispered, “I’m going to grab some water.”
He nodded and added, “There are Diet Coke’s in the fridge.”
“Thanks,” I acknowledged.
Nothing had changed inside. The place was floor-to-ceiling stuff. At some point after his split from Mercedes, Leo had decided that he was no longer going to be beholden to convention or neatness. The clutter accumulated at an alarming pace. Either this was always his dream, or he was doing it out of spite and protest. Regardless, he was undeniably a hoarder.
Despite his contention that everything was worth something, most of it looked like vintage dime-store junk. Gazing at it all, it seemed like the sort of stuff that would be scattered all over Wollworth’s in the ‘80s—the shiny trinkets that would draw Brandon and I like magpies. Unfortunately, Brandon and I would have to deal with all of it at some point in the near future. And it had long since lost its luster.
I grabbed the handle of Leo’s ancient fridge and flung it open. I expected to see the usual contents. What I actually saw staggered me. There was nothing in the fridge but cardboard containers of leftovers in various states of decay and enough Diet Cokes to give Nessie a brain tumor.
“Fucking hell!” I exclaimed to no one, as I shook my head.
It’s not like I expected the guy who once regularly procured nearly-expired discount ham to fry up for dinner to shop at Whole Foods. But clearly he’d abandoned any notion of grocery shopping, much less nutrition. I grabbed a pair of Diet Cokes, took another long look at the fridge, and I flung the door shut.
I tucked the cans behind my left arm as I glided the door open.
For his part, Leo remained a fucking statue. He’d yet to move a millimeter. At least the weather was perfect: 72 degrees with a dew point in the 40s. Many wonder, rightfully so, why anyone would live in Minnesota. Days like this were the answer.
I deposited Leo’s Diet Coke close enough to him, yet gently enough, to slowly jar him from his reverie. He gingerly turned toward me and swung his leg over the bench so that he was facing forward. He looked ashen and his face had sunken a bit. I hadn’t seen him in a week, but the change was somewhat unexpected. It was like his face was draining into his feet.
I tried to lighten my own mood, “What’s new here at the zoo?” I called it the zoo because any and all manner of wildlife could appear out of nowhere at any given moment.
He chuckled a bit, “Ah, you know, pretty much the same.”
Even though I didn’t want to, I contemplated asking the fucking stupidest question anyone could ask someone who was clearly dying slowly. Mainly because no one ever answers the question truthfully, I spat out the words, “How are ya doin’?”
He began to unwrap his food with some difficulty.
“Let me,” I said as I unwrapped his sandwich and tor open his bag of chips.
“Oh, you know, I’m fine most days. Just the usual issues. I have trouble sleeping, because I have to piss about every other hour, and these damn swollen feet.”
“But otherwise, you’re doing OK?”
“Yea.”
As we both bit into our sandwiches and chewed, there were a million things going through my head. Paramount among them, I wanted to ask what the fuck was going on in his fridge. I also wanted to how the hell he was getting along alone in his condition. I really wanted to know if he was lonely or scared. But most of all, I wanted to know what thoughts were rattling around in his head.
I knew all too well what a fucking terrifying place one’s own mind was. And I couldn’t imagine his current situation was doing anything to ameliorate that spectacular hell. But way too long ago, we’d carved our rules of engagement in stone. I never confronted my old man, and he gave up absolutely nothing. If I got anything authentic from him, it was a complete happenstance.
Logically, under the circumstances, none of this made any sense. He was old and becoming increasingly childlike. I was obviously the adult at the table. And yet I could not seem to find any clear path out of the jungle that captured me and separated us from having any meaningful conversation. It was as ridiculous as it was frustrating. All I had to do was speak the words—I knew how to speak at least.
Although I couldn’t pinpoint the moment it happened, by every possible measure, I had surpassed my old man. This was a strange and unnerving realization. I was now physically bigger and stronger. I was intellectually equal if not superior to him. At the very least, I was more adept at operating in modern times. I had accumulated some hard-won wisdom through my own divorce and midlife struggles. As a parent, I felt like I was much more loving and tender than he ever was. I’d long since bested my old man to stand atop the mountain.
And yet there I sat, silently chewing on thoughts I could not articulate.
I felt like I was under some spell cast way back in time that should’ve long since faded. Everything seemed to stem from that seminal moment when we listened to “American Pie”. I was sitting in his lap, and he was so clearly the father lion with his little cub. But it wasn’t just the music, it was the circumstance. We could sit there and enjoy Peter’s record collection, but we could never talk about what happened to Peter.
By any measure, the current version of me that was sitting across from my old man was a father lion in his own right. But in my head, in his presence, I was forever a cub.
It was ironic that Brandon, the younger cub, seemed to have found a way out of the jungle that had forever sequestered me. As the alpha cub, I was supposed to be the one to take the helm. I was the heir apparent. And yet I desperately wanted my little bro sitting next to me at this moment. He bolstered my spirit. He doubled my confidence by simply being in my orbit. He had an uncanny ability to clear me straight out of my head. I could be the king of the jungle when he was around. But now, I found myself just staring into space.
Leo snapped me out of it, “How’s work?” he asked as he reached for his soda.
This was one area where we were uniquely coupled. Leo and I had somehow managed to have parallel professional lives—something that Brandon could not claim. I was over 20 years into my corporate American dream. Leo was cut loose a month shy of 30 years, a casualty of a pension cost savings initiative. But we’d both spent considerable time in the corpora trenches.
“Oh, you know, just a bunch of self-appointed management types rearranging the chess board to their advantage. Us pawns just occupy our little squares waiting on their next pointless move.”
Leo guffawed at this analogy, “Well, at least nothing’s changed. I used to say, new manager, new desk.”
It was my turn to guffaw, “Why do managers love to rearrange desks in your day and cubicles in mine?” I asked.
Leo wasted no time in responding with a mouth full of sandwich, “It’s in their nature! It’s all they know how to do—rearrange the chess board,” he set down his sandwich and circled both hands around the table top as though he was rearranging chess pieces. It was the most animated I’d seen him in a couple weeks.
With a mouth full of sandwich, I pointed back at him and nodded vigorously, “Hell yes! It’s like the manager’s handbook reads, #1: rearrange staff, #2: just look generally but not specifically busy.”
Leo laughed righteously at the truth of this observation.
“It’s like management by rearrangement,” Leo yelled through a mouthful of sandwich, launching a small piece of bread that hit me in the cheek.
I brushed it off the table and replied, “It’s rearrangement management at its finest, godammit!”
We both took a moment to absorb the absurdity of our respective professional lives. Like nearly everything else, the parallelism remained unspoken. Still lost in the jungle and without Brandon to assist, I choked on the words to express it. I took another bite of my sandwich instead.
—
Excerpt from Finding Fidelity, the forthcoming novel from Blake Charles Donley
Finding Fidelity – Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Posted on August 24, 2022 Leave a Comment
I hiked the parking lot, climbed the stairwell, and traversed the nondescript grayish industrial carpet squares leading to my cubicle. As I snuggled into my perfectly ergonomic chair, I glanced at the vintage analog clock frittering away time just below my dual monitor cleavage. It was a miniature brass Dunhaven mantle clock with a ticking second hand. The narrow brass sliver rhythmically lapped the roman numerals second by second, minute after minute, hour through excruciating hour.
In its previous life, the clock was perched atop Leo’s desk at the Valentine Lake home. I recalled staring at it—eyeballs fixated on the second hand—as I did homework. When the hand perpetually stepped clockwise, it emitted a satisfying clunking noise which instantly soothed me into a near meditative state.
The bright white Dunhaven face was registering almost 2:00 PM. I had a few more hours to kill with no weaponry in sight. I leaned back as far as my chair allowed and just marveled at the spectacular inefficiency and gammon that were the cause of corporate American bloat.
In an office where all 600 employees ostensibly worked 40 hours a week, only 25% of them were present on Friday afternoons during fleeting Minnesota summers. And only about 10% of the MIA were actually using PTO. The balance were just shaving a little silver for themselves off the edge of the mighty corporate American coin. The ironic flipside of the heavily nicked coin was that even when all 600 employees were in the office, the average efficiency level of the typical employee waivered around 25%.
There were plenty of reasons for this: coffee + smoke + bathroom breaks, pre-meeting technical difficulties, mid-meeting technical difficulties, post meeting malaise, co-workers showing up late to meetings, sports + weather + traffic hallway + “pantry” + “watercooler” discussions, extra-long lunches eating, extra-long lunches exercising, extra-long lunches napping, extra-long lunches thrifting, “brown bag” lunches featuring guest speakers on a myriad of superfluous topics, detours for early-morning caffeine, extra-long trips for mid-morning caffeine, extra-long trips for mid-afternoon caffeine, “private” appointments of all varieties + flavors + colors, company-wide meetings that were nothing more than glorified pep rallies, division-wide meetings that were nothing more than glorified pep rallies, department-wide meetings that were nothing more than glorified budget updates, workgroup meetings that were nothing more than glorified coffee klatchs, on-site conferences, in-town conferences, out-of-state conferences, mandatory safety training, mandatory security training, mandatory first-aid training, mandatory fire + tornado + active shooter drills, wellness initiative annual check-up days, wellness walks, AM group stretching (for wellness), on-site seated chair massage events, on-site flu shot clinics, bloodmobile donation opportunities, software vendor sponsored outings (mostly to sporting events), consulting vendor sponsored outings (mostly to sporting events), company sponsored outings (mostly to golf courses), sponsored 10K fun runs, sponsored 5K fun walks, sponsored 26.2 mile rollerblading races, all manner of company picnic events during work hours, all manner of extra-long celebration lunches, all manner of extra-long quota-achieving pizza parties, costume contests (Halloween), pumpkin carving contests (Halloween), pot lucks (Christmas), teambuilding days that generally involved some sort of pseudo sporting activity like laser tag or whirlyball or bowling, volunteer days that generally involved feeding some manner of starving child, sick days that generally involved faking illness after a disappointing Vikings loss and accompanying fierce hangover, washing coffee mugs in the “pantry”, making coffee in the in the “pantry”, just hanging out and/or chatting in the “pantry” while fetching more coffee, answering unsolicited (spam) phone calls, responding to unsolicited (spam) emails, opening a slew of unsolicited (spam) snail mail. and engaging in a whole slew of unnecessary and irrelevant co-worker interactions that chewed up at least 10% of any given day.
By my assessment, as long as the majority of aforementioned pork could be trimmed from office work, 75% of the employees could be safely cleaved, and the company would still operate swimmingly.
As I stared at the metal lattice that kept the drop celling panels from crashing down on me, a new thought struck me. Ironically, pondering corporate American unproductivity was itself unproductive. Also, I would need to add “literally staring at the ceiling” to my exhaustive list of unproductive work activities.
I stood up to groundhog a bit—also unproductive. There was someone at the corner of the farthest away row from Deadpan Alley talking on the phone. Besides him, pretty much no one else occupied the vast expanse of space where our group was temporarily incarcerated.
I sat back down and looked at my trusty clock. It was 2:12 PM. I’d managed to kill off a whole twelve minutes pondering inefficiency, staring at the ceiling, and groundhogging.
—
Excerpt from Finding Fidelity, a forthcoming novel from Blake Charles Donley
The Busiest Empty Space
Posted on July 31, 2022 1 Comment
It was sheer sensual blight. Up to this point, it was something literally unimaginable for Sam.
There were blinking, spinning, and undulating lights, there were screens showing all manner of everything, there was music pouring from everywhere and everything. It was lousy with a frenetic vibe that would overdose even the most Zen humanoid. It definitely warranted a warning label about flashing lights and seizures.
Without proper guidance, the space alone could scrambled the brains of the uninitiated. One did not just dive into the world’s most meticulously cluttered basement, one dipped a toe, then a shin, then a kneecap, and so on until full immersion was advisable. One didn’t just march down the stairs. Like frogs in pots of boiling water, one had to condition oneself to the intensity.
There was nary a spot or nook or cranny that didn’t illicit some sensual reaction. “Taking in all in” was out of the question. The 900 (or so) square feet took months to properly absorb.
As she stood at the landing of the raw wooden staircase adorned with rainbow landing pads obviously purchased from the local big box hardware emporium, she marveled at what hinted from the periphery. But, she was transfixed by that stared back at her from dead ahead—a neon guitar clock in the shape of Fender Stratocaster with a functionl second hand that was ticking away the seconds of her life.
And this was just the hors devours. She dared not peek around either corner for fear of being overwhelmed by the visual buffet. From her vantage point, Jaye’s basement was a psychedelic, schizophrenic, bonkers Smithsonian rock ‘n’ roll salon the likes of which she’d never imagined.
—
Excerpt from All or Nothing Girl (part 3), the forthcoming novel from Blake Charles Donley
Blake Charles Donley 