Guest Rob Slater: What I Want to be When I Grow Up

Hi there folks! I’m still here–I survived a December beset with indoor flooding, slow sales, and a crazy but welcome last minute rush. I am excited to get back to writing, but first I have to take some serious down-time and put the piece of myself back together.

Meanwhile, the illustrious Robert L. Slater has graciously agreed to guest post so that my poor neglected blog gets some love.

Rob’s debut novel ALL IS SILENCE just came out in eBook format at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Kobo. Everyone living in Bellingham should read “All is Silence” for the sheer fun of watching a pandemic grip our little city. Everyone who lives in the Northwest should read it for the same reason. And everyone everywhere should read it, period, because it’s brilliant, and funny, and you will come to adore his protagonist.

Without further ado, Robert L. Slater.

On books and writing… And what I want to be when I grow up…

“When I was your age, television was called books. And this is a special book. It was the book my father used to read to me when I was sick.”

~ The Grandfather, The Princess Bride by William S. Goldman.

This winter break I discovered something about me, my inner child and my place in the universe. The path to this discovery was long and winding. It included time-traveling, dreaming, living and writing.

When I was a child, I was lucky enough to have parents who bought me books. Our family read. Books. All the time. And I was a sickly child, missing 60 out of 180 days in second grade, so reading was exercise for me.

We didn’t have television. Well, we had a television. It sat in the closet. If my father had been willing to top a tree, which he could have done very handily, and purchased an expensive antenna, we would have been able to get 1-3 channels from time to time when weather permitted. Cable came to our rural route about the time I turned 12 and the insertion of television in my life had significant effects. But that’s a topic for another post.

By that time I had become a prolific reader, at 500 words per minute, even long books sped by. I had started with the Little House Books, graduated to Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown. And then yearned for new worlds. One of my father’s favorite stories, that never fails to elicit a loud, proud chuckle from him, was how the elementary school librarian didn’t want to let me read the books for the upper grades. My reading teacher, Mrs. Shrauger, heard about this and marched right down there. She told them that Robbie Slater would be allowed to read any book in the library.

I soon outgrew that library and moved on to the Timberland Public Library in Hoquiam, a lovely old Carnegie Library complete with drafts, lots of polished wood and cats. In this library, whether due to my own exploring or the guidance of some lovely librarian, I discovered the books with rocket ships on the spine. Rocket Ship Galileo, by Robert A. Heinlein was one of the first. This sheer volume of books temporarily sated me, as I devoured the Golden Age of Science Fiction at the golden age of twelve. Then I moved on to the science fiction and fantasy books in the adult section.

My mother used to have to insert something in between my eyes and the page in order to get my attention. Disconnecting my brain from the words pulled me from those worlds of wonder. But only for short periods. I drew spaceship designs in class, scripted sequels to Star Wars and wrote a few short stories here and there.

Then I started having kids. And rediscovered a book from my childhood. Every time I read it, I finished it with tears in my eyes. It is an indictment of our humanity—the good and the bad. It defines the human condition, with understanding, humor, pathos, bathos, and an appropriate ending. This winter I bought the same book for my daughter and her new baby. So, now, I am the Grandfather, informally know as Poppy, and will be reading this amazing book to my grandchildren. The book is The Boy Who Could Sing Pictures, written and illustrated by Seymour Leichman in 1958. My copy is inscribed to me by my mother on my birthday.

Over the last 20-some years I have been trying to find my voice, pushing out my million words of crap, writing my own stories, and selling them so that others might read them and find some of the same sense of inspiration I found. As 2014 begins, I am publishing my first novel, ALL IS SILENCE. And while rereading of The Boy Who Could Sing Pictures, I discovered that in that book are the seeds of all that I wish to become. I want to sing pictures, through my books and my songs. I want to touch people—make them laugh, make them cry—until they are a different person than they were when they picked up the book. I hope to help people understand each other, forgive each other, love each other by connecting them to the frail, faulted folks in my tales. I want to be that boy that sang stories, with all the pain that it brought him, but also with all the hope and all the truth that he brought the people he met.

It’s a tall order. And may not be achievable, but the journey, the effort, and the dream are enough to make it worthwhile. If you have never read the The Boy Who Could Sing Pictures, I challenge you to find a copy and read it. Yes, it’s currently out of print, but there are many used bookstores and libraries out there. If I sell enough books, maybe someday I can help get it back in print. For the next generations…

Robert L. Slater is a teacher/writer living in Bellingham, Washington. He teaches at Windward High School in nearby Ferndale. His stories and poetry have appeared in many small press publications and his debut novel, All Is Silence, is recently released. He has a should’ve-been-a doctorate B.A. in Theatre/Education, Spanish and History minors and a M.A. in Educational Technology. He sings, plays guitar, acts/directs in regional theatres, cooks, reads, practices Taekwon Do, and writes plays, songs, and stories. He has six children, and one grandchild. His motto is Robert Heinlein’s “Specialization is for Insects.”

You can order All Is Silence on Rob’s website,  www.desertedlands.com,  and follow his musings on writing, reading and life at www.robslater.com