Let's start with some numbers.

KING CAL was published six months ago today. Nine months before that I handed it in to the publisher, and three years before that, on July 15, 2021, I saved the first file in a project I called "FAST FOOD NOVEL."¹ I have learned that time does not have as much meaning with novels as some other art forms. Send someone the MP3 of a song you just finished, and they can listen and respond in a few minutes, but we novelists are asking for a much bigger commitment. I have my own, literal stack of “To Be Read” books next to my bed, so any time anyone actually makes it through one of my books, I’m thrilled. In the last week I have heard from people who just finished CAL, and even SONGS BY HONEYBIRD, which is more than three years old, and it's just as satisfying as hearing from readers as it was those first few weeks after publication.

This delayed gratification, combined with sales numbers best not looked at, leads to a question I have thought about a lot: why do it? And while I concede it’s certainly not a new question, I never get tired of looking around to see the ways different creative types answer. I was listening to a great Brian Eno interview this week, and he said that “Children learn through play, but adults play through art.” That led me down an Eno rabbit hole, which is never a bad place to head. I listened to those amazing solo albums from the seventies, and then found a lecture where he’d said the same thing ten years earlier.² Turns out even Eno repeats himself sometimes, so I should show myself some grace when I do it.

Then I turned to George Saunders, one of the writers most skilled at talking about writing. There are many, many examples of Saunders writing about writing, so if you’re interested, just poke around and hit play on any interview he’s done. This time I found an essay he wrote for NewYorker ten years ago, and while the whole thing is worth reading, I was hit hardest by a quote he remembered from a Q&A with Tobias Wolff, his mentor at Syracuse. Someone asked Wolff what he would do if he couldn’t be a writer. After a long pause, Wolff said he “would be very sad.”³

I suppose those two answers are as good as any to explain why I write: I like to play, and I am less sad when I write.

I am sometimes asked if I think about characters in my books even after the book has been published, and if I ever think about what happened to them next. I do. I know what happens to Spider, and Nina, and Ben, even if I think about them less as the years go by. I have thought about Calvin a lot recently, because of this six month marker, and because I am prepping to appear at The Southern Festival of Books in Nashville. I have been especially thinking about Calvin's "why," his reason sacrificing so many other things in order to write and record music.

In Calvin's case, I can trace his answer to a particular moment: sophomore year of high school, hanging out with friends, stoned, listening to Stevie Wonder and Elliott Smith. When he heard those albums, both made in large part by one songwriter playing most of the instruments, he felt a little less lonely. He had already started writing songs, but that was the day he realized why he did it, and the day he determined to someday make music that would last as long as Stevie's and Elliott's.

And now he is out in the world. I won't tell you everything that happens to him after the one day covered in KING CAL, but whenever someone asks if I think he kept making music, I say, "Of course he is."

Let's end with some music. Here's one of the songs Calvin heard that day, covered some years ago with some good friends. I hope we look like we're enjoying playing.

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1 Working titles are fun, yes? My first two books had the working titles of “MONKEYHOLE” and “BARKING BUDDHA,” and the new one is currently labeled “SKI NOVEL” in Scrivener. And no, I don't like skiing, at all. Because chairlift.

2 The recent quote was from one of the interviews he has done for his new book, and the older lecture I enjoyed reading is here: https://speakola.com/arts/brian-eno-john-peel-lecture-2015

3 Full article here: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/my-writing-education-a-timeline

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