Storytellersunplugged

By Richard Steinberg

This month’s column is dedicated to the sacrifices of Capt. Benjamin D. Tiffner, 31, of West Virginia; 5th Special Forces Group and Staff Sgt. Patrick F. Kutschbach, 25, of Pennsylvania; 10th Special Forces Group.

Thank you guys, stand easy.

“I’ve been struggling with this toast for several weeks. Should I strike a melancholy, time passes sort of tone? A humorous, light hearted thing? Maybe stentorian wisdom seasoned with a soupcon of slightly controlled emotion? But instead of such frippery, I decided on a taste of truth. After all these years, thank you for not killing me in my sleep,” William Dean Howells

Two years.

Thirty-one columns.

Around 75,000 words on words.

Amazing.

Together, we’ve explored plotting and characterization, evoking reactions from our readers, what it means to be a writer (as opposed to a creative typist) politically imprisoned writers, and the roots of Godzilla. Wherever possible I’ve tried to share with you what I know of the alchemy of literary creation, and certainly I have received from you both insight and inspiration.

Year One, we spent exploring the soul of the writer.

This past year, the writer’s heart.

Next month, we’ll begin a year long journey through a writer’s intestinal tract. Not a pretty picture, but hey, someone has to do it. But for right now, I want to share with you – in keeping with the day – a few of the things I’m thankful for, as a writer, as a man, as a human being.

I’m thankful . . .

. . . that I’m still alive.  It’s been a struggle the last few years.

. . . that God – or whoever’s in charge – has made it abundantly clear that they’re not quite through with me yet.

. . . that I’ve come to realize that last thing is a blessing and not a curse.

. . . that Bob & Dick, John & Katherine, Loren & Michelle, Janet & Bob2 remain close, remain stalwarts, remain rocks that I can lean on, count on, believe in, when leaning, counting, and believing become nigh on impossible.

. . . that my gift of writing is still there, still a part of me as much as my intestinal tract, still compelling me forward whether I want to go or not.

. . . that John & Susan, Miss Anne, Shirley & Jim, Sue & Joe, Cabaret Sue, Sigi & Vic, Patti & P.J., and always Stan the Man have such generosity of spirit, such well intentioned belief that it keeps me warm on the colder, dark nights of the soul.

. . . that in a time of loss and dissolution and depression I saw a child coloring, a teen helping a senior, a senior lending their wisdom to a grownup, and that I have still – rather successfully – avoided growing up myself.

. . . that I can experience Harley’s strength and power blossom, Mike’s first tentative steps into the writing pool that he will one day swim deep in, Detta & Rolf’s commitment to life, Amanda & George’s unbelievable life force and heart, Harrigan’s courage playing out every day, Sarah’s dreams coming true much to her (and only her) surprise.

. . . that America is still a place where it is the quality of your work and life, the content of your heart and the product of your actions that matters far more than anything else.

And yes, I am thankful that I still believe.

. . . that Eileen and Mike, Laura and Liz and Michelle and all of my spectacularly brilliant friends of Brilliance remain good friends and not just publishers.

. . . that critics haven’t caught on to me yet.

. . . that Sister Clare, my sister the Sister, is in the world.

. . . that I’m still alive to experience gifts from God (or whoever’s in charge) curses of talent, the greatness of possibilities, the actual sparseness of evil (however loud it may be) in the world; that I’m free to loathe some writers, worship others, to take a stand or not as my choice rather than someone else’s command.

. . . that Dave Wilson, Frank Wydra, John Rosenman, Thomas Sullivan, Justine Musk, Brian Knight, Stan Ridgley, Janet Berliner, and Richard Dansky are among my fellow collaborators here in the land of Storytellers, with so many others I don’t yet know so well, but admire so well.  Their generosity of spirit takes my breath away.

. . . that Storytellers Unplugged is read by the dissidents who risk arrest (and sometimes their lives) of the Golden Media movement around the world.  These young people risk their freedom and lives to read and circulate banned books and publications in their countries; simply so that they can make up their own minds about the relative worth of the words.

I am thankful that there is light to counter the dark.  I’m thankful that with my gifts, with the gifts of my co-Storytellers, with the gifts and aspirations of so many of you, my dear gentle readers, the light might never go out.

I am particularly thankful for Carly Simon album covers; but hey, that’s me!

There are too many more people and things for me to list here.  A failing memory and a pernicious post-project exhaustion just won’t permit me to pull everyone and everything out for the public acclaim and distinction they so deserve. And so, let me simply thank the world around me for getting me through the world around me another year.

Thank you, for making that year consistently interesting, never dull, always curious, too often painful with too many losses, even more frequently stunningly refreshing, ennobling, in its way . . . healing.

“For people who are artists, the work is the life. It defines and justifies your very existence. If you’re not actively doing a project you’re nothing in your own mind. You can’t retire from it. There is no way out. You are your work. You’re life is defined by it,” Gene Lees

I am a writer.

I am a fictioneer; sailing the seas of apostasy, torment, pain and injustice.

I am a fictioneer; reminding you to hope, to love, to care, to see, to taste, to take a stand for those things that are intrinsically right and against those things which are immutably wrong.

I am a fictioneer, a more worn than new, more sad than happy, more lost than found writer.

But then, I am a writer.

And that makes up for it all somehow.

Happy Holiday, and always in all ways . . .

Believe!