Last week I released my first single of the year, a song called “Mapmaker,” and it happened to coincide with the release of my short story, “The Inbetween,” in Electric Spec. Two pieces with very little in common—or so I thought.
Today’s post is a personal account of the mysteries of inspiration and process, how sometimes a creative project, its meaning, or place in a collection of work, may not click till years later, and an opportunity to share two works I’m rather proud of.
“Mapmaker” begins:
I was born to be a mapmaker
raised in the valley
upon the hillside the people watched me
ramble in the weeds
but even they got nothing on the birdsThe speaker—or I should say, singer—of this poem/song goes on to say that he too was “born to be a sailor / wading in the reefs,” and that those same people watching from their ships “got nothing on the deep.”
To me, the song is about seeking purpose, not just in your vocation but in connection to the earth, and being misunderstood for it. Maybe even misunderstanding the thing yourself, but trusting in it nevertheless.
(Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, or right here ↓)
“Mapmaker” is what I call a “lost and found song”—from deep in my notes app—originally written sometime (I don’t recall) during the early pandemic with no chords or melody. I came upon it earlier this year, sat down with my Weissenborn slide guitar and completed it (recording and all) in two takes. This is very unusual for me. In fact, composing music often involves much more wading and rambling, but after five years, I intuitively understood the song and how to bring it to fruition.
“The Inbetween” was a different kind of lost and found thing. I also wrote it years ago, before my MFA, and drawered it because it didn’t work the way stories I’d encountered typically did.
Last week, for a piece in the Electric Spec blog, I wrote about its unusual form:
“‘The Inbetween’ is a peculiar story, unlike any other I’ve written. For one, it begins with the climax: reality as we know it briefly bursts apart on a subway platform in lower Manhattan. A woman running late to pick up her son from school witnesses the event, but unlike the others on the platform that day, she remembers. The experience reverberates throughout her life, healing relationships and old wounds in mysterious ways. What emerges is a shadow narrative that gestures to science, mysticism, and a fictional mythology of beings who, through conscious observation, hold our material reality together.”
There’s plenty that makes this story odd. First and foremost the plot. As a beginner writer, I learned that most of the time, plots (especially those I was drawn to) worked like this:
(Freytag’s pyramid, more or less ↑)
And though I’d encountered and studied variations in my MFA, I’d yet to read—let alone write—anything like this:
(Let’s call this one the “shadow valley” ↑)
I also came upon “The Inbetween” earlier this year and was amazed: it defied so much of what I’d internalized about writing fiction—of what I teach my writing students about structure and causality—and yet, it worked. And so, the first thing I did was send it to a trusted reader (thanks Abby!) to make sure I wasn’t crazy. Luckily, she agreed. It was then accepted on my first round of pitching, and I’m so glad it’s found a home at Electric Spec!
(A quick note on expectations: it’s often the songs and stories that my first instinct is to hide away in a drawer that become the most successful.)
(Cover art for Electric Spec Vol. 20, Issue #2 by Adrian Amiro-Wilson ↑)
Only now that I’m writing this does it occur to me that the first drafts of “Mapmaker” and “The Inbetween” must have been written around the same time during lockdown.
When I think back, a kind of breakdown in reality was occurring. I was going through a loss of vocation as a performing musician, meanwhile discovering a new creative outlet (“The Inbetween” was the ninth story I’d yet drafted). And though I didn’t understand where it was taking me, I trusted it nevertheless.
But it isn’t just timing and circumstance that connect these two pieces. Now I finally see it:
In the story, the Inbetween aren’t just people who through conscious observation hold our material reality together, they are trees and animals—birds—perhaps even the ocean deep. Perhaps even these pages and screens we read and write upon.
The final verse of the song goes:
I was born to be a writer
raised in the valley by the sea
I know because those written words
looked back and read me
but even they got nothing
on a story as it is lived
even they got nothing on me