When I envisioned this website, I had a lot of the ideas that you’ve seen throughout the past week. There would be the talk of movies, TV, music, sports, and so much more. This would be a place where I would give in to my impulses and explore the wonders of this world. Nothing would be off-limits and so far it has been one of the most freeing experiences I have had as a writer. Whereas my previous website Optigrab felt limiting, this site’s ability to allow me to write about everything from dumb college mascots to reviewing The Weeknd’s new album makes the future sound exciting, especially since the post-quarantine age will bring with it an interesting new world.
There was another thing that I especially found problematic about Optigrab. It wasn’t just that I had no way of personalizing my style. It was the fact that since starting it in 2009, I had changed my career entirely. During that time I was in my second year of college as a journalism major. I saw myself one day writing news beats for something like /Film or Cinemablend. I saw myself reporting on film because I loved it as an art form. I still do. It’s just that in that time a lot has changed about my goals.
For starters, I had a personal crisis around 25 that was in part due to the fact that I didn’t feel like I could make it as a journalist. I didn’t have the passion necessary. I still admire those willing to chase the story and will always be grateful for the ethics my teachers bestowed upon me. I’m still hoping to write about film, but it feels facetious to call me a journalist. My mentality may come from the obsession with doing the research, but I realized around 2015 that my life was more driven by what you’d call an English major. I am in love with the written word. It just took other people pointing it out for me to move forward.
Basically, the original intent of Optigrab never could match my shift into who I was today. As a result, one of my goals with The Memory Tourist was to be more proud of my experience as a writer. I am personally trying to make this a pro-literacy website because I think there is value in sharing our love of reading with each other. In fact, I have been a voracious reader in recent years and want to continue exploring new voices. This is why I launched my book review website Willett Reads, though I’m trying to expand upon that. Every Wednesday I am planning to highlight authors I admire in Writer’s Corner, if just to take a more personal look at how their writing has impacted my life. I also want to find new voices because I am a bit lousy when it comes to newer literature and could use some good advice.
The goal of this website goes beyond other people’s writing. I found that one of my greatest problems was that I wasn’t expressing myself. Since 2015 I had been publishing short stories on Amazon and Smashwords, but most of you wouldn’t have known unless you followed my Twitter or Facebook account. I rarely did cross-promotion unless it was something in the vein of film. That’s in large part because I had no sense of how to tie it all together. This time things will be different. I’m going to be make it clear that I am a writer and have been since I was a child.
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| Coming April 1, 2020 |
With my upcoming release of “Esoteric Shapes: Short Stories About Life’s Meaning & Other Nonsense,” I feel the need to just come forward. Hi, my name is Thomas M. Willett and I am a self-published writer from Long Beach, CA. My goal with this Friday column is to espouse advice from personal experience. I have navigated the landscape of both fiction and journalism in the process collecting moments that have made me into the writer that I am today. I believe that by being open I not only seek to have a better representation of myself, but hopefully inspire readers to feel less alone. If you need motivation, please write me. I may need some good advice as well. This isn’t just going to be a place where I hock my books, though that goes without saying. I hope to form a community that improves both of our appreciation of the craft.
I want to start this advice column with a story about an experience in high school where I practically turned on literature. For years I absolutely detested it because of one class that was meant to make me see the beauty inside, but actually just made me feel dumb. I didn’t have any friends in it. I would just show up and feel like I had entered Spanish class, barely capable of keeping up. In some ways, it explains why I became a bit uncomfortable diving headfirst into the upper echelon of academia because I know how it feels isolating on a granular scale. Still, I think it’s important to understand that sometimes writing can be worrisome or make you want to quit. I have never been dyslexic, but I imagine my struggle with feeling inferior and having to spend twice as long on the material to barely understand it is not all that different.
I am talking about an advanced placement English class that I took in my Junior year of high school. The trajectory actually made sense all things considered. In my first two years at the school, I had decent grades in my English classes and had developed strong reputations with both the creative arts and journalism departments. I was one of those kids who became ubiquitous with both groups, and I guess my counselor thought that this meant I was ready for A.P. classes. He didn’t really know that I had spent half of last semester’s journalism class sitting in a corner listening to Zebrahead’s “Broadcast to the World” and barely putting in enough work to get a passing grade. I was there for the experience, and my Junior and Senior years were vast improvements as far as my involvement.
It helped that the journalism teacher also taught A.P. English. Not only did this mean I got to see her every day, but I think it sent the message that I would gel better with her. In a lot of ways that was true. She was one of my favorite teachers. However, I came to realize quickly that I got stuck in a bad deal and I didn’t think to remove myself. I was going to ride this out and hope for the best.
In some respects, it started the summer before. As a student in A.P. English, we had to do reading before the semester even started. That sounded fair enough and I had been curious to read John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” I also think I read Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” around this time solely because of that ska-punk band of the same name. However, I remember coming to the end of the book and feeling an immediate dread.
Here’s where I get very personal about something that is embarrassing. My reading comprehension was terrible up until 2016. It could be a side effect of being autistic, but I don’t think I was ever motivated to approach reading on a more complex level. Sure I read J.K. Rowling's “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” and understood every word. I knew how to see plot beats, but I found that if I didn’t like a story I blanked out. I read it, but my recall skills were terrible. Add in that I didn’t understand nuance or symbolism as well as I should’ve, and you’ll understand why I got to the end of “The Grapes of Wrath” and immediately felt like I was about to waste my time. The book was probably great, but I came into class a few weeks later remembering next to nothing about Tom Joad.
It’s strange to recall because in some respects I’ve grown to admire Steinbeck. To show how I’ve grown in reading comprehension, I read “Of Mice and Men” about five or six years ago. Whereas I couldn’t tell you about “The Grapes of Wrath,” I remember feeling moved by that ending. I understood the deeper symbolism of animals. Everything was clearer. It could also be that I’ve seen film and stage adaptations of this novel, but the story resonated much clearer for me. I haven’t even revisited The Grapes of Wrath MOVIE. I know it’s about The Great Depression and that Steinbeck is great (I believe so now), but there is something about that experience that set me down a bad path.
Similarly, I missed the satire entirely with “Catch-22.” I heard it was funny, but I couldn’t tell you why. Was it because his name was Major Major Major Major? I won’t go into more, specifically because I don’t even remember it either. All I know is that I would show up to class and people settled into my corner of the room and mention how funny the book was. It’s one of those moments that I felt weak. These were intellects talking about structure and here I could barely recall character names.
There was no point where this was worse than when I was assigned to read Henry James’ “Turn of the Screw” and had to write a paper. As you can guess, my comprehension skills were terrible and despite reading every page, I came out blank once again. In desperation to write a “good” paper, I consulted Cliffnotes to guide me through the paper. I guess I picked the wrong summary because I remember vividly getting a fat ZERO on the paper with the comment “Did you actually read the book?”
In a lot of ways, it made me resent the class because the best I could do was show up and observe everyone else doing better than me. It was fascinating because I didn’t resent the teacher at all, but I just wanted it to be over. I felt removed from every conversation we had. I was wrong for the class. Everyone would tell you that. Even the ‘D’ that I ended the school year with would suggest that. On the one hand, it lead to a great friendship I made during summer school, but the damage was done.
I still worked in the creative arts and journalism departments, but my love of literature was stunted for several years. While I passed the majority of my English classes going forward, it was more because it came from a place of writing essays. I could handle that. Still, I looked at titles like “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Catch-22” with this deeper resentment, that I was somehow dumb because I didn’t understand them.
In what ended up being one of my greatest cons in my high school tenure, I got confused and ended up joining the A.P. English class for A.P. Testing. I didn’t sign up or anything. I just showed up that day and convinced the staff to let me do it. I would have to pay for it later. In reality, I never did. They sent me a letter pointing out how much I got wrong, and it was there that I had a clear vision of how out of place I was in this class. I had no talent being in that class, and this failed A.P. test would agree with me. The issue from there is that it makes one ask “does this make me dumb?” It’s a vicious cycle even when it’s not meant to be.
It’s a miracle that I ever got back into literature after a blow like that. I think it’s because I had these affirming forces in my life that showed me the value in the written word. It just took me time to understand their value because I wasn’t focused in life. I had my interests, but even in college, I skid by until I experienced total burnout. It wasn’t until 2016 when I took the Current English class seriously that I saw writing as something richer. It only grew from there.
I start here because I do honestly believe that some people need support to see writing as a valuable career. I know that those academic classes are hard because I would go through them and feel stupid for not getting what everyone else did. Nobody doubted that I was a good writer, just that I needed more time and a better outlet to present my work. I needed to rebuild confidence after that moment, and I’m mostly relieved that even in my worst moments I had a teacher that I knew had my best interest. It’s why I feel the need to be supportive of anyone wanting to put a pen to a pad. I know how lonely it is to feel like you’re lesser and hopefully, together we’ll make it an easier and more reassuring experience.
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