The Sam Weller Facebook Experience (Or how I spent my summer vacation)

It’s been a while since I posted. And a long while since I posted regularly. The readers I had have gone the way of the tumbleweeds, tired of waiting for me to get it in gear. Those of you who’ve paid attention understand the reasons. For those who don’t, it doesn’t really matter; time for a new leaf, a fresh start as they say. Turn the page and get on with it.

We’ve all heard the old adage – When the student is ready the teacher will appear. Usually that’s accepted as metaphorical, but in this case it’s literally true. Sam Weller is a friend of mine, a faculty member of the fiction department at Columbia College, Chicago. He’s a good guy, a good instructor and a prolific writer, so when he issued a Facebook Challenge – and I get the idea he did it simply as a kind of self imposed statement of intent, way to hold himself to task – I had to pick up the gauntlet.

In the literary world, Sam’s best known for his book, The Bradbury Chronicles, a rambling account of his years spent interviewing the iconic American novelist Ray Bradbury and the relationship that flowered between the two. When I was a kid, I worshipped Bradbury as a mystic seer, a poetic muse who held the keys to the universal truths. And maybe he did, or does; who knows? All I can say for sure is that, to a adventure-starved, Michigan farm boy, laying abed and listening to the wind howl past the eaves, Bradbury brought alive a lush tapestry of worlds and imagination that changed my life. When you’re starting out, as a writer, you usually mimic someone whose writing you love. I seem to recall that a good number of my early efforts bore the distinct imprimatur of Bradbury’s verdant prose.

Sam’s working on another book now, a non-fiction historical narrative as I recall, and with the Columbia academic year winding to a close, he wanted to be sure he’d stick to deadlines that were self-imposed rather than professorial. So he threw a line out, a bold Facebook declaration that states he’s going to write 500 words a day, from May 17 to the end of August. Write, every day, like Writers are supposed to. And he asked if anyone was interested in joining him.

That’s a fifty-three thousand word summer. Since the average new novel weighs in at around eighty-five thousand words, give or take, that’s a pretty significant accomplishment. And now, after checking in with his post to see how many people had joined up (I count about 17 hearty scribes) I noticed that Sam had suggested we all meet at Sheffield’s, half-way through the process, to check on progress. There are a lot of threads intertwining here. Okay, I’m in.

Who cares about the fallow season behind me? What’s past is past and on to the future. A summer of writing beckons, the anticipation of good work and long dormant projects dusted off and examined in the light of a new day. Ray Bradbury, who dazzled us with men whose tattoos writhed under silvery moonlight; who awed us with glimpses of distant, fanciful civilizations, lost among the stars; who took a healthy dose of Illinois summers long forgotten, fusing them with an exotic elixir comprised of moon dust and the macabre, was a hero to me once upon a time. He still is, of course, although I don’t read him as often as I once did. So it’s fitting that his biographer is the one to kick start a summer of work and renewal. Thanks, Mr. Bradbury for all you’ve given, and thanks, Sam, for a grand and inspired idea. We’ll get together on a mid-summer’s eve and hoist a glass of dandelion wine. A vintage that will taste even sweeter with a sled of good pages beneath my belt.

— Ric Hess, Apr 23, 03:46 PM

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