I’ve been walking down The Road for a while now. I think it’s
time to sit down, rest my feet for a spell and reflect on the journey so far
and The Road in general. This way station might also provide some insight
into why this project started. The intent was never about writing for and directly to an audience, but since it is public there will inevitably be a few travelling
companions here and there.We expect that and hope this conversation can be enjoyed from an outsider's perspective. That's the reason we made this a public discussion. However, it might be helpful to have a little back
story.
E T A Nemo and I have been friends for several years. (Our
road together has been a bit meandering itself.) I’ve been interested in shared creative
projects and collaborative writing for a long time, and he was also intrigued by the idea. We discussed doing something,
buit as is often the case with creative endeavors, we never sat down and actually started anything.
Two years ago, we embarked on a cross-country road trip. The
reason for the adventure was that E T A Nemo was moving to the opposite coast. I took a couple weeks off work to accompany him and to realize my dream of driving across the country, something I never thought I'd have a chance to do. A week into the trip found the two of us
staying at a hostel in Minneapolis. Each of the hostel’s rooms was named for
historical monarchs. We were given the King David Room.
Both of us are fans of
the zombie fiction genre and often joke about the coming zombie apocalypse. While
resting up from the drive from Chicago to Minneapolis that first evening in our hostel room, I made a joke about what we’d do once the zombies took
over the world. I said that once the plague began, we wouldn’t be able to fight
off the ravenous hordes together because of the distance between us. We wouldn’t
be able to hole up in a mall and play out our very own “consumerism gone awry”
analogistic nightmare. So I said that when it began, we should start heading
toward each other and meet at a pre-determined spot around half-way. “When
the world ends," I said, "let’s go to Minneapolis. Let’s meet in the King David Room."
The trip continued. We arrived at E T A Nemo’s new abode,
and I returned to my life on the opposite coast, thoughts of zombie hordes and
moral-less survivors pursuing me across the country all but forgotten. Some time later, and I’m not sure what it was that sparked it, something made me
think about that statement. I was trying to think of a vehicle to use in a
writing piece to explore some otherwise esoteric concepts. I wanted the piece
to be fiction. Its underlying theme would be an existential look at
relationships. Damn! Of course! A zombie love story! After a conversation with E
T A Nemo over a weeklong visit, we mapped out the details. The story
would be a post-apocalyptic yarn involving zombies. The twist was that both of
us would be writing one half of the story from our protagonist’s point of view.
Each character would be trying to get to Minneapolis to meet the other one.
The two of us would not know the details of what the other was writing, what direction their
stories might take, or even if the other’s character made it to the final destination. This would free us to explore themes and writing styles separately. We
would have a solid framework to work within but not be beholden to the other half of the story. After more discussion, we decided to set up an online system of
gathering and sharing all the things that both of us would need to know. These included
important things such as the dates that certain things happen in both stories and the cause and nature of the zombie-ism, but also allowed us to
put in things like rumors that one character finds out about that may or may
not be true. By getting little snippets of the other’s world, both of these
worlds could more seamlessly merge into a believable place without knowing the
specifics of what the other was writing. One final piece needs to be worked
out, but we have some time for that. It how we will reveal our
intentions for the ending to both stories to each other, as it is the only thing that each writes that directly impacts how the other tells the story.
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This project initially started out as a way to communicate while living thousands of miles apart with the focus being on this shared writing project. We wouldn’t actually share details of the actual writing itself, but for it to be the collaboration we both envisioned,
there would need to be a little more involvement with each other’s life than
the occasional phone call, text message, or Skype date.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationships we have in
our lives and the nature of the interactions we have within those relationships. Take a close
friend for instance. If this friend lives nearby and you see them often,
what form does your conversations take? Most likely, there isn’t a cache of
information you build up between each time you see and talk to them. This frees up time and helps to construct intimate space for something else to occur. The
conversations now allow the sharing of a portion of your inner monologue, often without you even knowing it. That’s how you really become close to someone and
know who they are.
When people are separated by distance, their conversations
often take the form of “information dump.” This is understandable and
important. To keep the relationship going and remain close, you need to feel
that you know what is going on in the other’s life. It’s easy and almost
unavoidable that the little bits and pieces of the other person’s world get swept aside and not shared. You only have this one phone call to tell them
about the week’s events. You don’t have time nor the created close space to
properly convey this other, seemingly unimportant information. This minutiae,
however, is the glue that helps bind close relationships together.These things are not told to the other person for the purpose of sharing what’s gone on during the other's absense. It
just sort of gets absorbed, and it’s exactly this osmosis that creates a
feeling of being in and a part of the other person’s life.
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In the end, this project was my attempt at mimicking the
little things, of perhaps substituting that glue. We will talk about the writing project, of course, but we’ll
also post odd thoughts and observations. We will talk about music and politics.
We will talk about annoyances and dreams. A lot of the time, like in real conversations, we won't even reply or comment on the other one's previous statement. We'll just read it, sit quietly as we absorb it, and move on. We are separated by a continent, but
here we will walk down The Road side by side, chatting as if we were driving a 12- hour stretch across the Dakotas in a Honda Civic named Nigel.
