What I Want To Do With the Rest of My Life…And the Great Stuff That’s Happened So Far

Editor mode engaged! (Photo credit: Stephanie Schaefer)

“Did you just discover the meaning of your life?”

This question was poised to me by a Writer’s Bone contributor on Friday. This was in response to me saying, “I think I'm here to find cool writers and give them confidence so they can find their voices.”

I majored in modesty at St. John’s University.

But I wasn’t kidding. There’s nothing I love more than editing and working with young writers to get the best out of them. It took me a long time to find my voice and I feel like I have some worthwhile advice to offer the next generation of up-and-comers. I just didn’t have a venue to do it in before recently.

I’ve spent the last couple months building a sound foundation for a podcast with my fantastic partner Sean Tuohy. We got into it to talk about the things we had in common and discuss our approaches to the writing craft—to be huge writer nerds essentially. We thought it would be smart to start a blog along with it to drive traffic to the podcast and give us a place to write about anything we found interesting.

Our earlier posts included our best moments as writers, calling well-known writers assholes in a complimentary way, favorite moments from "The West Wing," and reminiscing about how Nelson DeMille popped our cherries by having Dirk Pitt shoot a guy’s dick off. Sean and I could have kept on that track—and our posts in large part have stayed true to those themes—but our shtick on the blog might have grown to be overkill when combined with our podcast.

Plus, I’ve had this desire to build a website that featured all the creative types I’ve come in contact with over the years. Some of them were still in the writing game, but I know more than a few that were hesitant or scared to write more than just a weekly grocery list. I was also lucky enough to meet a bunch of young writers when I moved to Boston that inspired me to send Sean this email:

“You said something great last night that's been in my head for a little bit. You said something like, "I hate hearing the word no as a writer." I emailed a writer friend earlier that day telling him we want to make Writer's Bone a place where writers don't have to hear the word no. They can let their freak flag fly so to speak. That should be our mission statement. Writers tired of restrictions, limits, and censorship will always have a home with us.”

We both worked full-time, so really it was no brainer to look for content that we didn’t have to think about creating. But it meant more than that to us. I think both of us have struggled at times to accept being a writer and here was a chance for us to ease the suffering of others. Author Rebecca Cantrell, one of our favorite early interviews, also inspired us:

“Writers must suffer for their art. Every time I hear that it drives me crazy. If writing isn’t fun, why do it? I have lots of fun writing and so do most other writers I know. It doesn’t have to be about suffering.” 

The future Mrs. Hardball Heart and Sean’s girlfriend started contributing in the beginning and we started collecting thoughts and essays from a wide range of young writers. My girlfriend made a good point early on that we shouldn’t say they were working for us. Every writer essentially has to write for himself or herself, so she made me realize we were writing with each other. We’ve had that mentality ever since.

When we published an essay by a guy I work with ay my day job, I put a $1 bill on his desk and said, “Thanks!” He picked up the dollar, looked at it, and pinned it to his bulletin board. “That’s the first time I’ve ever been published anywhere!” He said. “Thank you!” It was one of the proudest moments of my professional career.

Someone asked me once what I would do if I was handed the keys to an established website and social media following. My answer remains the same. I would blow my brains out from boredom. I’m meant to build things and experiment, not toe the line and not screw up someone else’s brainchild. I’m meant to do what I’m doing with Writer’s Bone.

Now, the best part of my day—other than those moments when I’m in the presence of my spectacular future wife—has become when one of our contributors emails or texts me and says, “Hey, I have this idea…”

I’m bringing all this up because one of those young writers wrote a post (which you can read here) about how she moved on after her laptop and jump drive were stolen—two things that held all of her digital archives. That got me thinking about my own archives and how I’ve made an effort the last couple of years to document mine on this blog.

Below are a few things I found at my parent’s house in Connecticut a couple weeks ago that I want to live in perpetuity in some form or another. After you’re done here, I encourage you to head over to www.writersbone.com and check out our writers who are absolutely killing it right now.

I’m awfully proud of all of them.

Friday Night Archives

The rough draft of my seventh grade autobiography. My handwriting has not improved (click to enlarge). 

I had an illustrator at one point. This is my favorite cover he produced. It also happens to be the only one I still have. 

This might have been the first time I was ever published. The poem that Teen Ink ran was one I wrote for one of my high school band director’s who was semi-retiring. 

 

Speaking of poetry, check out the above article that was published in my local newspaper that includes a quote from yours truly. Hey, if you're going to be quoted about your weepy high school poetry, you better make sure it's a good one. 

A short story I started in high school. I'll be revisiting this in a future post.

Teen Ink also sponsored one of the awards I received in high school! That should say “badass writer” by the way. They sadly never got around to fixing that typo.  

More proof I actually played baseball. That’s not me sliding into home plate or the catcher about to make the tag. I’m mentioned at the very end of the article for winning the league’s most improved player award. 

 

My only other acting gig following my performance in The Wizard of Oz was as a cab driver in a play called “Funny Money.” I got to fire a fake gun (which didn’t work the second night)! 

What the local paper had to say about me. 

My friend Paul’s top hat was the best thing that ever happened to a lot of lives. The locals only caught a fraction of its majesty. My mom and I are photobombing in the middle.  

Some local ink about my high school graduation speech. I wasn’t a dramatic quote at all…(click to enlarge)

The beginning of my internship with the Sanford Mainers. 

 

See, I have other skills! 

I wrote out the last chapter of my novel Sid Sanford LIVES! One of the best writing decisions I ever made.

From the Archives: Northeast Middle School Presents ‘The Wizard of Oz’

I was an extremely shy kid. 

People who know or work with me now will have a hard time believing that. However, before March 13, 1998, I was so shy and timid that I didn’t play Little League, had to be coaxed and coached into making friends, and was generally afraid of my own shadow.

When my 8th grade teacher Mrs. Carroll—who had assigned my autobiography project the year before—announced that the school was putting on a production of The Wizard of Oz, there was not one fiber of my soul that wanted to audition for a role. However, in a rare display of ambition and guts, I asked if I could be the backstage journalist that documented everything leading up to and including the performance. Mrs. Carroll agreed, and I was unaware that she did so just to get me into the audition room.

“You’re trying out for the Cowardly Lion,” she said when I walked into the band room on the day of tryouts. “Go.”

She caught me at just the right time and in just the right way. I didn’t have time to be scared, and I certainly didn’t have time to back out. I was in a scene and I did what I had excelled at my entire childhood. I pretended to be someone else so convincingly that Daniel Ford ceased to exist. For however many minutes that scene went on for, I was the Cowardly Lion.

Mrs. Carroll had me audition for the Tin Man too, but my destiny was already determined. No one was going to be the Lion but me. 

The cast list. I pretty much had a nervous breakdown after seeing this the first time. I got chills looking at it all these years later. This is the piece of paper that changed my life.

I was shaking right before my first scene of the first performance. I don’t know how my costume didn’t fall right off my body. Maybe it was the pillow tied around my midsection that kept everything together. I listened for the line from Dorothy that signaled I had to leap out and roar. I wished for that moment never to come.

A funny thing happened when it did. A switch went off inside me and I instantly got into a zone. All my lines, all the music, all the dance moves came to my mind one after the other and I don’t remember taking a breath until it was all over.

Me as the Cowardly Lion

I remember I walked out for the curtain call and the whole auditorium went bonkers. This isn’t me over exaggerating for effect. If I had heard a crowd that loud up to that point, I would have run in the other direction. But Daniel Ford the Ham was born that night and played up to the standing ovation by flexing my Cowardly Lion muscles and strutting across the stage.

We're singing "We're Off to See the Wizard" in this picture. I nearly tripped over my tail every time we ran this scene, but never went down.

 I’ve had people recently come up to me in Bristol and say they remember when I brought the house down during The Wizard of Oz. No matter how old I get, it’s going to define me in my hometown and I couldn’t be prouder of that. My 8th grade math teacher called me “The Best Kept Secret in Bristol,” and that gave me the drive, incentive, and more importantly, the confidence to leave home and conquer in New York City. I actually did produce a piece of journalism—or what I considered journalism to be at that age—after all of us lost the immediate glow of being talks of the town. It brought back a lot of memories for me and I hope it brings back similar fond memories for my co-stars.

I signed everyone’s program with my mother’s well-worn inspirational phrase, “Reach for the Stars.” Here’s hoping the former inhabitants of Oz have them firmly in their grasps.

The full cast and crew.

The 'Wizard of Oz' Retrospective

The story of how Dorothy finds Oz and learns there is no place like home has been entertaining people of all ages since the movie’s release in 1939. Fifty-nine years later, the student’s of Northeast Middle School presented The Wizard of Oz for the public at Bristol Eastern High School.

The performing of The Wizard of Oz was a labor of love and persistence to succeed. To steal a line from Tom Hanks in Apollo 13, “Even the guy sweeping the floor was proud to be apart of it.” The actors and actresses should be congratulated for their hard work to bring The Wizard of Oz on stage for the people of Bristol, Conn. As for our talented director Mrs. Carroll, words cannot express what a great job she did transforming the students of Northeast into the characters we’ve all grown to love. Let us not forget Ms. Luke, Mr. Carlson, and the tech crew, who we could not have put on the show without.

As for me, going from a backstage reporter to one of the leads was something I could not do without any of the people I have just mentioned. Although the yellow brick road that the Northeast students have been following for four months has come to an end, we wish the future students who might travel on it the best of luck.

Other ‘Wizard of Oz’ Memorabilia

A letter from the Bristol Board of Education thanking the cast individually for a preview performance. I need more people need to address me as “master.” 

Ticket stubs. The green one would have gotten you into the March 13 performance and the yellow is for the March 14 show. $4 for a night of homegrown entertainment? That’s a steal. 

 

 

Front and inside covers of the program for The Wizard of Oz. Here is my actor profile in said program: “Daniel is in 8th grade and is an honor student. He is in a number of music groups including the Express Singers and the NEMS band. Daniel plans to write and act in his own musicals and plays. Dan would like to thank Mrs. Carroll for her support and guidance.” 

 

 

A card from my favorite social studies teacher Mr. Simpson. He’s a big reason why I became a history nerd. I came back to visit him during my sophomore year and he had just given his annual quiz on the Constitution. He fired four or five questions my way and I nailed them all. #nerdtriumph 

 

A letter from Mrs. Carroll that I will always carry with me as a reminder that risks are worth taking and that hard work and having a positive attitude pays off.

14 Family Photos I Couldn’t Live Without

For as long as I can remember, the walls in the study of my parent’s house in Connecticut have been covered with family photos.

Pictures of my nephew Jack and my nieces Katie and Madeline have deservedly taken over half the room, but one can still find me in eighth grade as the Cowardly Lion, my younger brother in his high school baseball uniform, and my older brother’s tragic high school yearbook photos.

Aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins of all sorts are on display as well. Even more can be found in the living room, but more than likely in what my mother describes as her “dead people section.”

However, thanks to all these images, it feels like no one ever quite leaves us completely. They are always there watching us, protecting us, rooting for us, picking on us, and experiencing the next generation of the family along with us.

The last few holidays, my mother and I have diligently rummaged through old photo albums and picture frames in an effort to scan as many faces of the family tree as humanly possible so that all future branches have something to hang in their homes on the moon.

Trying to choose the favorites out of our extensive collection is next to impossible, but I couldn’t resist highlighting some that I think capture everything that’s special about my family.

Here are 15 photos I know I couldn’t live without:

It’s not often you get to feature your family into a professional blog post. However, thanks to a pocket watch my mother gave me that was owned by her father Arthur, I was able to do just that. I hope that the watch I now carry around is on his person in this undated photo.

As I mentioned in my best man speech at my younger brother’s wedding, Grandpa Ford went AWOL to marry my grandmother Marie. This photo of her holding a picture of him in uniform captures everything about that moment. My younger brother and his wife recreated it as part of their wedding pictures.

New York City is in my blood. My father’s parents were born in the city, fell in love in the city, and started a family in the city. Here’s my grandmother outside their house in Long Island with my Uncle Stephen (on the left) and Aunt Kathy (on the right). My father is on the bicycle. 

Both sides of my family like to eat and drink, so it’s no surprise there are quite a few images of us sitting around some kind of table doing both in equal measure. I love this one because it includes a sizable chuck of the older Blanchette crew and my Pépère wearing an awesome shirt.

(left to right): Maria Hebert, Oneil Hebert, Theresa Martin, Rolande, Sophie Blanchette, Eddie

    Blanchette, Valdor Martin, Arthur, Cecile, Phoebe Albert, Emma Blanchette, Fred Blanchette

Speaking of drinking, one of my favorites of the Blanchette men drinking beers at a wedding.

Roland, Arthur, Bobby (in front), Jimmy, and Clifford

My mother’s sister Artheline died in a car accident when she was 16 years old. My mother resembles Artheline the most. Thanks to iPhoto, this somewhat faded photo came alive again in haunting beauty.

I wrote about why my Uncle Stephen is so special in one of my earliest blog posts. I think about him the most at the start and end of every baseball season, and every time the Red Sox beat the Yankees (yes, I have family members who stray from the pack). My father adores this picture of him and so do I.

I consider myself an amalgam of several of my mother’s brothers. I have Clifford’s temperament, Jimmy’s dark hair and build, Roland’s charm, and Bobby’s skill with tools (Ha! Just kidding). However, I have never, and will never, look as cool as Jimmy does in this picture.

I can’t tell you how much my younger brother looks like my Uncle Clifford in this picture. It is eerie. It’s also pretty badass.

This picture mesmerizes me for some reason. I don’t know if it’s because it features my Uncle Pit (far left), Pépère and Mémère, and my Uncle Bobby (baby in the foreground), the scenery of upstate Maine, or its light and dark contrasts. It’s such a simple image that says so much. We found it yesterday and I’ve been looking at it ever since. I imagine I will be for some time.

My Uncle Pit passed away recently. This photo from his honeymoon is how I imagine him wherever he is. Before he starts causing trouble with my uncles that is.

I’m going to get in so much trouble for including this one, but I don’t care. We’re missing my brother Patrick at this point, but I make up for it by being adorable.

We organized a Yankees-themed 90^th birthday for my grandmother. Someone gave her a pink Mets hat to wear. #Facepalm.

This was the year Santa smelled like Guinness. These little lights prove our family has a bright future.