Not in Harness

My 60th birthday is coming up next week, on the 15th September... and yes, I know, for months now I've been calling myself 60 years old, but that's only because I've been closer to 60 instead of 59, and somewhere along the time I was 12, I decided it was perfectly reasonable to round my age up, when it wasn't for school or some other legal purpose (or when talking to my parents, who were completely unreasonable about such obvious things).

It also happened on my 12th birthday, which I remember I didn't enjoy very much, that I had an epiphany that what I wanted to be was a writer.  Now, some here may recall that this is 3 years before I'd ever heard of D&D, the 45th anniversary of which was yesterday, for the record.  At the time, I thought this obviously meant my becoming a novelist, as I had read many novelists and thought how cool it would be to have that job.  In fact, that very night, I took out a sheet of paper and began writing my first novel, which I wrote all through grades 7, 8 and 9, until growing up before entering grade 10 and reconising that it was a garbage idea for a novel. 

[yes, I remember the intended plot and I won't recount it]

With the arrival of D&D, I did try to write fiction associated with the game, but the substance of such fiction was so terrible and my ability to write could not possibly lift it from that muck, so I turned my mind towards writing more esoteric, albeit, failed projects, though I did manage to write a performance scene that got me into a city-wide competition (I lost), I was published in three years of high school student-literature booklets (in-house end-of-year things) and I did enjoy the experience of having more than one teacher sit me down for a heart-to-heart in order to explain, for my own good, that I'd never be a writer, that I was wasting my time, and that if I would just realise where my real talents were, I'd be a much more successful person in life.

They meant well.  For all I know, what they said might have been true; one nice thing about being this age is recognising that the really awful things that were said to us as children, however misdirected, were also probably true.  Still, I don't think I'd have been happy as anything but a writer.

Writing, which I've done for 48 years, represents a long string of failures for me, punctuated by just enough successes to make me fruitfully stubborn.  It so happens that I've been able to apply the skills and interest I have in the practice to D&D these last 16 years, since finding this blog, but I hurry to explain to the gentle reader, this blog and my internet presence are in fact a thin wedge of the life I lead away from this keyboard.  Just as what I say here hardly represents all that I have done with my life, all that I have been interested in, and all that I wish to achieve.

What it says on the back of my book, Pete's Garage, is 100% true.  I did participate in mosh pits, I did listen to industrial music, I did watch musicians of every kind play.  I did watch them argue, sitting in their little apartments and drinking their beer as they shouted at each other.  I followed them around to their gigs and schlepped their shit, often for no pay but for a seat in the van on its way to another city.  I did buy them dinners and let them sleep on my couch, and I did marry one.  She was the mother of my daughter, the daughter of a musician, and right now I have her piano with her music books and her notes in those music books in my apartment right now.

But how much time have I spent, here, talking about music?  How often have I debated the merits of arranging and preparing for a gig, of getting an album or a CD made, of selling them, of getting on spotify, of all the various aspects that it would take to put a band together and make them practice and find them a space to play?  How often have I spoken about the many hours that I have stood in front of a live audience at talent nights and sang, back when the writing wasn't going so well and thinking maybe the path for me might be a different one?

I know that it probably feels that I can't be talking about me, because I'm the D&D guy, I'm the one that makes all the maps and the game rules and ran all those thousands of hours of campaign-time.  There's just no way that I could have done all that and had any interest in being a musician.  After all, I didn't start singing in the church choir until I was 13 years old, and around campfires when I was a camp counsellor at 15, with a bunch of 8-year-old brats to look after.  I used to sing to myself nearly every time I had a chance to walk alone; I had a repertoire of a hundred songs I knew by heart, though I admit a lot of those are gone now.

But I'm the D&D guy.  I've found my niche, right?  My place.

But then, I was also an actor, wasn't I?  Wrote, produced and directed my own plays, performed at the Edmonton fringe festival.  I could go, right now, since I have the money in my bank account, and get my head shots and pay my fees and join ACTRA, start going out for auditions.  I still have some connections with people in the theatre scene, some of whom owe me a favour or two; I've got the energy to play a father or an old man.  I have a deep, rich voice and I can still hit the back tiers of a big auditorium... which would only get better if I applied the practice.  Might be a fun, social sort of activity.  When I was just 25, those performance companies were always rounded out by 60+ men and women, outgoing, friendly, none of whom expected to win an award but they were there for every rehearsal, doing it for the sheer pleasure of the activity.

Sounds all right to me.  I'm not going to get on Stephen Colbert with my next D&D-based book.  All the 5e players in the world aren't going to change their playing style because I turn out a group of essays on starting a trading town, tackling a dungeon like a military campaign or inventing a guide that tells all the things players can buy.  I've had my run at fame, and it ain't comin'... not for D&D, not for all the fiction novels I write, not for the music I've sung or the boards I've trod.

The only thing that's left, the only thing that really matters, is if I'm having fun or not.

Now, if the people supporting me on Patreon aren't happy because I'm not staying in my lane, I send my deepest apologies.  You know, there's a tale I tell about two hyper-rich businessfolk I saw at the symposium once, about ten years ago.

The first says, "I have to tell you, my business depends on creative people.  Without creative people, I don't have a business.  They are the heart, the soul, the substance of everything that I am able to produce and sell and make money from, which is why I treasure them.  I really respect them, and what they can do, because I know that I'm not like that and I can't do it myself."

And the second one says, "Exactly.  That's exactly right.  And that's why I say to entrepreneurs when they ask how to get started, get yourself some creative people.  The way to make a business work is to gather these people together, harness them to the cart of the business and let them take us where we want to go."

Whereupon the first adds, "Yes, I so agree.  The future begins with harnessing the talent that exists in the world, in order to ensure that our companies perform the best they can."

And so it goes.