New Work Out

This story, Big Thompson, was something I had on my mind for awhile--in a couple different pieces. Listening to Rebecca Makkai at OCWW talk about how she composed a few of the stories in her collection Music for Wartime I went home and tried to do the same thing. She wrote down two of her strongest ideas and then tried to tie them together into one plot. For example, the collection ends with “The Museum of the Dearly Departed,” a story that focuses on an apartment house that had a gas leak which killed almost all of its inhabitants, save one couple—who also survived the Holocaust. Relatives move into the apartments, and one of the new residents is an artist who is creating a project—a dollhouse structure using found and donated objects from each apartment. Record albums serve as a focal point for each miniature room: Glenn Gould, Maria Callas, Joe Cocker. Whew! This could all seem like such a jumble--but under a deft hand it can all come together.

So I combines images of water and death. A town near where I grew up that was submerged by the Army Corp of Engineers for a reservoir and a deadly flood in a canyon in the Rockies in the late 70s. Not sure what the emotional impact this all had on my psyche but the stories and discordant images stayed with me for decades. After that class with Makkai I went home and wrote Big Thompson, working through memories.

Then I lost the story. That's right somehow, with various versions on my desktop I must have deleted the good one. In my Big Thompson folder was notes and drafts. I called a friend who in the past has been able to resurrect work tossed into the dustbin of cyber space. He wasn't able to retrieve this piece.

Depressed for ages, I finally got around to re-writing it. I choked on every word, hating myself for being so reckless. I felt the grief and the pain--perfect for the story, in fact. I vetted the piece with different critique groups. Submitted. Rejections. Then THINK Journal accepted it this summer.

Yesterday I got a physical journal in the mail. All this to say: Don't give up.