Rob Wheeler Writes

I had no intention of starting a blog but then, fourteen months ago, I had no intention of making a serious go at writing. I’ve been writing off and on (mostly off with occasional burst of on) for most of my life. I wrote a terrible fantasy novel way back in 1998 and earned twenty rejection letters for my efforts. Fast forward almost thirty years and I find myself being brave enough to have another go at it. ‘Beyond Saint Arden’s Wood’ has absolutely no resemblance to that first, immature attempt. I’d like to think it’s better, but I know that it is entirely more honest. A reader asked me how I keep myself from creeping into the characters. After asking for her to clarify the question, twice, I said that I don’t. In fact, I do just the opposite, and I think most good writers would say the same thing. I’ve dabbled at writing memoir in the past and I came to two conclusions decades ago: every memoir is fiction and every good fiction is memoir. I am the characters I write, even the not-so-nice-ones. I may not be as villainous as some or as charming as others, but their hopes and fears, charitable and uncharitable thoughts, dreams and nightmares are all mine, at least a little. I thought about that question a lot, and obviously still am. Is there any other way to write? Even at my most inventive, the places in my stories are places I have been and the events are things I have experienced, at least thematically. No, I have never attended a Wizard’s Conclave, but I have delivered a presentation on Benjamin Franklin’s use of Rhetorical Drag to the Women’s Studies department of my alma mater, which makes me something of an expert on being in places both wondrous and strange. I like to say that my characters reveal themselves as I write, but the truth is that it’s really just me peeking out from behind the layer of masks that every one of us wears. I don’t keep myself from showing up in my stories because I know if I ever did, I’d just be writing a bunch of made-up bull pucky, and who want to read that?