Two years ago today …
Two years ago today, I woke up on a Sunday morning, the day after an important conversation with someone close, and wrote the following letter:
Hello,
I’m writing to offer you a complimentary copy of my book, Iron Man Family Outing. I believe this book may be of interest to you. I would be very happy to provide you with a copy at no cost to you, shipping and handling included.There’s no catch here and no hidden agenda. The simple fact is that I printed more copies than I’ve been able to sell, and I don’t want the remaining copies to go to waste.
Over the years, I’ve received many positive, enthusiastic responses from folks who’ve read and enjoyed this book. I’ve also discovered just how difficult it is to promote and distribute work of this nature. My primary interest now is to get the remaining copies of my book to people who would find it personally meaningful.
I’m enclosing some introductory information about the book, including a brief excerpt. Please contact me if you would like to receive a copy or if you need any additional information.
Regards,
Rick Belden
Author, Iron Man Family Outing
With that, Iron Man Family Outing, published in the fall of 1990 and then forgotten and presumed dead for the next seventeen years, was reborn.
I didn’t have a website two years ago today. I didn’t have a blog. I didn’t have even one reader review for Iron Man Family Outing at Amazon, or anywhere else on the web for that matter. All I had was a closetful of unsold books and a renewed conviction that it was important that I get them out to people who could make use of them.
In the two years since that day, I’ve contacted over 1800 individuals and organizations around the world, and sent out nearly 900 copies of Iron Man Family Outing to recipients in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It’s now being used worldwide by therapists, counselors, men’s groups, and organizations that work with men as an aid in the exploration of masculine psychology and men’s issues, and as a resource for men who grew up in dysfunctional, abusive, or neglectful family systems. It’s been ranked in the top 20 poetry books and the top 35 books on father-son relationships at Amazon.com, based on reader reviews. I’ve made new friends and allies all around the world who are working to help men grow and heal. And I have the most unexpected result of all, the completed manuscript for a brand-new book: Scapegoat’s Cross, my first new work in nearly twenty years.
It’s clear to me now, in retrospect, that events in my life had been leading me back to my unfinished business with the Iron Man Family Outing project since 2004, but I didn’t know that two years ago today. All I knew was that I woke up on a Sunday morning with a letter in my mind and an undeniable imperative to finish what I’d started all those years ago, to see my original vision for the book through to its completion, even if I had to give away every copy I had to do it.
I don’t know where this process will lead me in the future. Two years ago, I never expected to be where I am with this work today. I hadn’t written a line of poetry in over fifteen years. I was haunted by my failure to find an audience for Iron Man Family Outing and considered myself dead as a writer. Fortunately, things have changed.
Well, not everything has changed. I’m still fighting the battle of “soul versus survival” daily. Some days are harder than others. As I wrote almost a year ago in a blog entry entitled “go crazy or starve”:
Every morning when I wake up and don’t have time to write because some meaningless job is demanding its daily pound of flesh in exchange for a little more survival time, I feel like I’m terminating a pregnancy. It’s absolutely wrenching. I start the day sad, furious, and hopeless.
It’s still happening. It happened yesterday. I could feel something coming and I made some notes, but there was no time to allow it to develop or complete. It may come back to me. It may not.
But I’m fighting to keep the channel open, even if it means suffering the pain of losing all those things I never get to finish, because the last two years have shown me that it matters that I keep trying and do what I can, and because two years ago today I began to remember, for the first time in over fifteen years, who I am and what my life is about.
A meaningless job is going to eat my morning again today, but I woke up about two hours ago at 4 AM, after a couple of hours of restless semi-sleep, and realized I couldn’t let this anniversary go by without observing it in some way. This is my life now. The work drives me, it nags at me, it makes me miserable and keeps me awake until I tend to it.
It’s hard, it’s demanding, it’s draining, it doesn’t leave me much time for anything else, and sometimes it feels like it’s just too much for me. It also keeps me alive. And I’m okay with that.
The Two years ago today … by Rick Belden, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
6 Comments Add your own
1. Kellen | September 9th, 2009 at 7:32 am
Hi Rick,
Congratulations. I can totally identify with your sentiments about your “real job” getting in the way of your writing. I have to keep a notepad in my backpack so I can jot down ideas when they come to me or, like yours, they are lost forever. I thought I was the only one. Other people seem to be able to recover them at a later time. For me, once they are gone, they do not come back. Glad to know I’m not the only one.
As one of those therapists benefitting from your work I selfishly hope you will plow on and continue to write. Your voice inspires many.
2. Neil | September 9th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Rick, First and foremost thankyou for being my friend for close to forty years. Thanks for allowing me to enjoy your writings, even long before “Ironman”. Congratulations this 9-9-9 day on your two year writing rejuvination. It hasbeen inspiring to read your work as it has become more focused, sometimes disturbing, always entertaining, and increasing polished. I am happy that your work is finally reaching people who need andcan benefit from the readings. I am one of those people. Do not dwell too much on the “meaningless job” and press forward with your “real work”. Many of us get up and drag a comb across our heads. I look forward to spending more time with “Scapegoat” and revisit “Ironman” often. Love and hats off from your friend and “fellow furious” reader. Neil.
3. Wayne Levine | September 9th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Hi Rick,
Guilty, guilty, guilty of not honoring the progress I’ve made. Thanks so much for this posting. Critical reminder. Congratulations on touching so many lives. May your pain subside and the joy increase.
Wayne
4. Rick | September 9th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Kellen: Thank you for your comments. I appreciate your support of my work. You continue to amaze me with the amount of quality information you’re posting regularly at Kellevision. It’s a great resource.
Neil: It has been close to forty years, hasn’t it? I think we packed close to forty years of adventures into the first twenty. I heard an old Joe Ely tune on the radio the other night and was immediately taken back to all the great shows we saw. “Have you ever seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night …” We had all the fun we could stand, and then some. Glad we’re both still here, and glad you’re enjoying the writing, my friend.
Wayne: It’s easy to get lost in the work, isn’t it? There’s always so much to do, more than time allows, and easy to lose sight of how far we’ve come. Thanks for stopping by to comment today, and for the work you’re doing at BetterMen.
5. Eivind F S | August 1st, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Ah, yes – we must honor the inner voice. It’s a fascinating story you tell here. It also strikes me that it need not be such a struggle for you. With your dedication and talent, there’s bound to be ample opportunity for capitalizing on your life’s passion. I took to heart something I heard in some type of success literature recently – that we will not move one to the next stage in life until we have fulfilled our work on the current.
I took that to mean that although I find myself wasting my time in my current job, I have soul work left to do there. I told myself that on a deep level, I don’t feel ready to move on and at the time that I do, I will know and things will happen quickly and surprisingly.
I wonder if I’m entering that time now. I wonder if you are too.
I wonder if the grand collective unconscious of the entire human race is as well.
I believe this is our time. We’re doing important work and as the unconscious is made conscious, what we have to offer will be the gold of tomorrow’s economy.
E
6. Rick | August 2nd, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Some excellent points, Eivind. I’m reminded of a conversation I had several years ago with a friend. I’d been suffering for over a year with a couple of horrible managers at work and it was really wearing me down. I was talking about the situation with my friend and he said, “When you’re done with them, they’ll go away.” I thought that was quite brilliant at the time, and I still do.
Like you, I know and believe in the value of the work that we and so many others are doing, and I continue to lean forward, anchored in that knowledge and that belief, toward the time of which you speak, when the true worth of what we have to offer is seen and appreciated in all its depth and fullness.
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