The Beginning of My New Book

I thought writing a book was the answer. I thought it was a big fat finish line. I thought, for years and years and years and years, “One day I will write a book.” 

I also thought writing a book was a problem, since I couldn’t do it. I hesitate to write couldn’t do it because I could—I mean, I had hands and a computer and pen and paper and a brain and so, logistically, I had to have could have. I mean, a book is a bunch of words with a title and your name on the cover all bound together with staples or glue or string. What’s so hard about that? 

Well.  

I started reading Joseph Campbell’s work when I was a freshman in college and excruciatingly aware that something was wrong—apparently with me. I needed to journey somewhere to find the answer.  

What exactly is a journey, anyway? From what I understood after reading The Hero’s Journey, it’s when you leave home, fight a dragon, get lost, struggle mightily, think you’re going to fail or die (as possible examples), then find some sort of answer, some new idea, some elixir, a boon, then bring said boon (book?) back home and contribute positively to your community or world in some small or large way. 

When I used to teach essay writing at San Jose State, early in the semester I would drop my first f-bomb to establish this classroom was not entirely a safe space in the I’m going to class so I can pretend I’m watching TV  kind of way. As a teacher, I am a fire starter, not a television. I would draw a stick figure on the board and say, This is you. Then I would draw a stick tree and I would say, This is you, saying goodbye to all that you know, and I would make a kissing sound, Goodbye, tree. Then I would draw a jagged mountain. This is your journey, your essay, I would say. 

I would start getting really excited, practically yelling, The origins of the word essay meant to ascertain, weigh, to try, to attempt! An essay is not a dead form! It’s not an empty hole to fill with a properly arranged corpse guaranteed to get you an A! An essay is one of the wildest things you can write! It’s a form where you can find out who you are and what the world means to you! 

I would trace my finger up the perilous climb. Here’s where you think you can’t do it, I would say. Here’s where you think you’re going to die, I would say, and then I would draw a stick figure on top of the mountain, And here you are, I would say. You did it! You can see the world in a whole new way from this place. 

Then I would draw a replica of the stick tree I had drawn down below. And here’s the same fucking tree, I would say. You just risked your life to see exactly the same tree you saw when you first left home. At this point I would scribble all over the climber, the tree, the mountain and throw my pen to the side in disgust (later this pen throwing habit would get me in trouble, but that’s another story). That’s what it’s like when I read your essay and the conclusion restates the introduction. 

The students generally have no idea how to write conclusions. If you don’t restate the introduction at the end of your essay, then what do you do? 

You leap.