Wednesday, May 6, 2020

James Wade’s ALL THINGS LEFT IN THE WILD is #155 in the never-ending series called INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION


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****James Wade’s ALL THINGS LEFT IN THE WILD is #155 in the never-ending series called INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION where the Chris Rice Cooper Blog (CRC) focuses on one specific excerpt from a fiction genre and how that fiction writer wrote that specific excerpt.  All INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION links are at the end of this piece

What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction?
March 3, 2018 to July 12, 2018

Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work?  And please describe in detail.  And can you please include a photo? I wrote the full manuscript from the dinette of our little travel trailer, while my wife and I were on an indefinite road trip across the country. I wrote the first paragraph in the desert outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico, and the last few lines in the Badlands of South Dakota. Parts of the novel were written in Arizona, California, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nevada, Arkansas, and Iowa—all from the comfort of the 144-square-foot trailer, or from a plastic table I’d set up outside when the weather was nice or when I had a fire going.
  
What were your writing habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? We lived off-grid (boondocking, free-camping, whatever you want to call it) for most of our trip, so each morning I’d boil water over a propane burner, then pour the hot water directly into the basin of a coffee maker and let it filter down into the pot. We called it the “boondock drip.”
         
       I’d walk around our campsite with our dogs, read a few pages of solid prose or poetry, then dive into the writing. I write better in the mornings, before the day has a chance to get a hold of me. I like it quiet, no music; and I mostly use a laptop, but I always carry a fieldnote pocketbook when I go hiking—I’ve done some decent work in the middle of the woods.

Please include just one excerpt and include page numbers as reference.  This one excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer.
This excerpt is from the novel’s prologue. Our young narrator, Caleb, has just buried his mother…

I stood and watched as the gravediggers lowered her down and filled in the dirt, and when they were finished I stood some more. I didn’t want to go back to the house yet, not even to change clothes.
I walked out from the graveyard and followed a well-trod deer path to Red Creek and sat in the grass. The morning sky glowed golden behind a bank of blue-gray clouds, a quiet caution to the world’s awakening.
The sun was distancing itself from the horizon line, but the clouds had yet to burn off, leaving the eastern half of the world to be filtered through an orange tint. The creek moved slowly, matching the pace of the morning, the water shining pale pink, and on its surface, a bleeding reflection of the world.
A cat-squirrel duo on the far side of the creek were hard at play with some game I could not follow. They barked at one another or at me or at nothing, then in fits and starts they hopped from one tree to the next, clinging to the bark with their arms and legs splayed in an almost sacrificial manner.
A siege of herons passed overhead. The long-legged shorebirds flew beneath the lowest clouds and I saw them and they me and it would be months before they returned north, passing again along the same sky.
I watched them glide across the morning, unencumbered by the changing of the times, following the flight of their fathers and their fathers’ fathers, all the while unburdened by such things as doubt and desire. Participating by blood. Born into decisions made long ago and born knowing, but not knowing why. I envied the certitude of their existence. I longed for the conviction of those like my mother who, despite all to the contrary, could maintain a faith in the way of things, holding tight to a structured and resolute reading of every breath until her last.
Instead, at a moment I couldn’t recall, or perhaps in a series of built-upon moments, I accepted ambivalence and unease, and there inside of me they did remain in some dogged cellar of the soul, determined that I should never know peace or certainty again.




Why is this excerpt so emotional for you as a writer to write?  And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this specific excerpt? Caleb is mourning his mother’s passing, but he’s also somewhat jealous of her ability to hold onto her faith even when facing what he deems to be an unjust death (dying of cancer).
He is envious of her faith regarding the afterlife, but also her faith as it relates to the purpose of existence. He is observing nature-- the sunrise, the creek, the squirrels and birds— and he realizes these things are simply surviving. A bird isn’t concerned with what its purpose is—it just “is.” I think he’s wishing he either A) knew what his purpose was, or B) was okay with not having one.
     This is an emotional sequence for Caleb, and for me as well. Writing a scene like that can’t help but stir my own doubts and my own memories of the makeshift reconciliation between knowing I exist and knowing one day I won’t.
     Writing about some of our fears, or our questions about life—even when (or especially when) we don’t have the answers—is therapeutic. It’s working out your shit right there on the page. Life’s tough on everybody. But I get to take my struggles to the keyboard and wrestle with them and make my characters wrestle with them, and when I’m fortunate enough to get something printed, by god now the readers are wrestling, too. And sometimes it hurts, and sometimes it helps, but as long as it moves us, or makes us think, or changes us in that moment, then I’m alright with letting the emotions lead.
     Unlike Caleb, I have outlets (like writing) and the support and love from my family that I can lean on in tough times. The absence of these things in Caleb’s life is what drives him to commit the act that jumpstarts the novel, which is full of dramatic landscapes, thrilling adventure, and a host of clashes between what’s good and what’s right.

     James Wade is an award-winning fiction author with twenty short stories published in various literary journals and magazines. His debut novel, All Things Left Wild, will be released June 16, 2020 from Blackstone Publishing. 
James spent five years as a journalist, before serving as a legislative director at the Texas State Capitol during the 83rd Legislative Session. He also worked as a lobbyist on behalf of water conservation in Texas. 
James lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Jordan. He is an active member of the Writers' League of Texas.
 
Awards and Honors:
A winner of the 2016 Writers' League of Texas Manuscript Contest (Historical Fiction)
A finalist of the 2016 Writers' League of Texas Manuscript Contest (Thriller)
A finalist of the 2016 Tethered By Letters Short Story Contest
Honorable mention in the 2015 Texas Observer Short Story Contest

Work by James can be found in the following Publications and Anthologies:
The Bitter Oleander | Skylark Review (Little Lantern Press) | Tall...ish (Pure Slush Books) | Intrinsick Magazine | Dime Show Review | Bartleby Snopes | Jersey Devil Press | Typehouse Magazine | After the Pause Journal | J.J. Outre Review | Potluck Magazine | Yellow Chair Review | Through the Gaps | Eunoia Review 

https://www.jameswadewriter.com/

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#155 05 06 2020
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All Things Left In The Wild
by James Wade

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