Meat and potatoes

(Listening to: The Beatles, With the Beatles)

My mother told me a story once, about my father. When the incident took place I can't recall, but I'm pretty certain it was prior to my birth.

Mom made dinner -- a roast. She marinated this hunk of meat for days in various spices and such. It cooked for hours while she watched over it, adding more spices and flavorings as they occurred to her. (While she had plenty of cookbooks, she shunned them for this exercise -- she was flying solely on intuition.) For most of the day she did this, lovingly turning a lopsided hunk of cow flesh into a fine meal, fit for a king. As she described to me, in such glowing terms, it must have been the greatest roast ever seen on this planet, if not the Milky Way galaxy.

Ten minutes before it finished cooking, Mom tossed some chunks of potatoes into the pan with the roast, giving them enough time to soak up the flavor but not enough to turn them into mush. She tossed some salt on them, I think.

Proud of her accomplishment, she served the meal: her gorgeous roast, sliced into single-serving pieces, covering most of the plate she placed before my father. Appropriately, the afterthought potatoes were clumped on the side.

My parents-to-be began eating. A few minutes into the meal, my mother -- anxious for feedback, like any artist -- asked, "How's the roast?"

My father looked up from his plate and, his face the picture of innocence, said, "Oh, it's fine -- but are there any more potatoes?"

Writing is like that.

When I write something, there's always one part in particular that's special to me. The place where the personal things are hidden. Where the soul is, if that doesn't sound too cheesy. And after I let the story simmer in itself, slowly building in flavor until it's ready, I place it before my audience (whoever will read the damn thing) with expectant eyes. And though I'm looking for any response at all, I'm always hoping that it's the personal stuff they'll comment on. That the hard work -- and that stuff is almost always the hardest part -- will be rewarded. When I ask them, "What did you like best about it?" I'm always hoping the special part will be the answer.

It almost never is.

I wrote "Jack Renfield Opens His Eyes" about three years ago. Now, for those who've read that story, don't panic -- there's not a lot of really personal stuff in there. (No need to call the police.) I wrote it for the writer's group I was part of at College of the Mainland, and I did it largely for shock value -- I was always the quiet guy who sat in class and kept to himself, his nose in a book, and (after being given the assignment of writing something supernatural) I dumped this on them in an attempt to be memorable. But there were still little touches that meant a lot to me: the events in the story are certainly horrifying, but was my depiction of them horrifying? If you read the story, you'll notice (hopefully) the detached, unsympathetic way in which it's told -- this was highly intentional. I was hoping a flat, dry, almost clinical discussion of such disturbing actions, people, and situations would add to the horror. I was eager to know if I'd succeeded.

The writer's group liked the story. But all their comments -- aside from one person noting that it was "chilling" -- seemed focused on the story's structure. See, I started in present tense, then flipped to past tense for a flashback, then came back to present tense for the conclusion. This was the only way I could think of to tell the story, really -- it was plainly obvious and not at all impressive to me. So I was praised for the part that required zero thought, and the rest of it -- the personal stuff -- was left to starve with, "Oh, yeah, I liked that, too."

Is this a bad thing? I really don't know. After all, the writer's group liked my story, just as my not-yet-father certainly enjoyed the dinner my mother prepared. But it's a confusing mix of disappointment and elation that arises when I get these responses.

You're probably wondering what brought this on. This afternoon I started editing and revising "The Outlet," a short story I wrote last year but was never entirely satisfied with. And when I passed it around to friends and acquaintances, I certainly got "I liked it!" in return from most people...but nobody said anything about what it was I really want them to like. (And no, I won't tell you what it is.)

Perhaps I'm just whining. I recall another anecdote, this one from Stephen King. He was driving with his wife -- he behind the wheel, she in the passenger seat looking over a fresh-from-the-printer copy of his novella Hearts in Atlantis. He thought the story was hilarious, and waited for her gales of laughter...but they never came. He kept glancing at her during the drive, hoping for her smile to crack and the giggling to start, until she turned to him and said, "Will you keep your eyes on the road before you get us all killed! Stop being so damn needy!"

'Cause after all, as my mom told me -- he really loved those potatoes.