[Listen]
[Intro music plays]
Woman’s Voice:
This is Behind the Cut with Christopher Gronlund. The companion show to Not About Lumberjacks.
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Christopher Gronlund:
Behind the Cut is an inside look at episodes of Not About Lumberjacks and contains spoilers. If you’ve not listened to the latest episode and that’s a concern, go listen and check this out when you’re done.
And now: onward!
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In the second year of Not About Lumberjacks, I had an idea: take all those bits of stories I had tucked away—the kinds of tales that don’t merit a full episode—and release a handful of micro-fiction for the holidays.
I called that first episode “Stocking Stuffers,” because it was seven short stories instead of the usual bigger one. Anchoring that first effort was a story that begins: “It wasn’t Christmas Eve until Dad and Grandpa got into a fistfight.”
It was very loosely based on a true story about one of the few Christmases I spent with my dad after my parents divorced and went their separate ways.
The second episode of Not About Lumberjacks, “Pride of the Red Card,” was another blurring of the lines of truth and fiction where my father was concerned…that time, a tale centered around soccer.
The latest batch of Christmas stories is anchored by another narrative about my dad…this time, about one of the only Christmases I spent visiting him in Kansas after he and my stepmother moved from Chicago to the Sunflower State.
Of course, every one of these stories based on truth is full of lies. In the latest tale, I didn’t cut my finger on the trip back to Chicagoland. In “Pride of the Red Card,” there was no alcohol given to me as a reward for taking out a player on the soccer pitch. And the morning in that first Christmas story saw no family reconciliation…it was just awkward as hell…as it always was around my dad’s family. (And my grandmother was even still alive.)
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The majority of stories on Not About Lumberjacks are completely made up…that is, they are not based on any actual realities. But fiction has a way of being quite true, even when it’s entirely fabricated.
If you listen to enough stories from the show, themes become apparent. As ridiculous as “Alone in HQ” is, the topic of overworked office drones living for a job they cling to comes up in my writing more than a couple times. Many people, like me, struggle with the job that pays the bills and the things they yearn to do full time. It’s a theme I deliberately throttle back, lest it becomes the driving storyline of every tale on the site.
So, what about the stories I’ve based on reality? A story like Bobo—the most factual Not About Lumberjacks story—could almost be considered an essay.
But I still see something like that as fiction. Here’s why…
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When James Frey made news by admitting that much of his book A Million Little Pieces was fabricated, so many essay collections released in its wake contained disclaimers that things may not be as true as authors remembered. In other words, writers have a way of embellishing things. (If you can imagine?!)
Beyond that, people rarely talk like they do in stories. When talking with my wife of almost 29 years, conversations often begin with previous knowledge that, if I dropped it into a story, would be bad writing. A reader would have no context of what we were talking about much of the time, so you try providing that known information without sounding stilted. But no matter how hard you try, you usually do…at least a little bit. Add to that not remembering conversations from the past verbatim, and fiction always seems to seep in.
Let’s return to the story Bobo. The collection of facts it presents wouldn’t be as interesting without some flair in its telling. Everything in that story happened to me, except having a cheeseburger thrown at me while pumping gasoline by the same people who really did throw an apple at me while telling me to fuck off for being a clown.
But I still speculated that the poor kid I traumatized that day on her birthday would need therapy, and in the most recent tale about my father, the actual splinter removal mentioned wasn’t quite as terrible as I sell it. I mean, it sucked and there was blood, but there wasn’t as much blood as I made it sound.
I’ve always maintained those who say truth is stranger than fiction aren’t reading the right fiction. But even where I understand the point of the statement—with no ill intent on a writer’s behalf—even truth is usually exaggerated in its telling.
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I used to be against letting any actual event I experienced find its way into the stories I write. While I still lean mostly toward pulling from my imagination with most tales, once I realized even the most ridiculous things I’ve written contain truths, I gave up pretending reality didn’t shape the fiction I write.
That’s not to say every character is a reflection of me in some way—a lot of people always think that. I can write a completely terrible character who has nothing at all in common with me, but I’d not include someone like that in a story if there wasn’t some truth important to me I’d hope a listener or reader would take away by the end.
When writers are advised to write what they know, it’s not about creating autobiographical works, but rather, presenting emotional truths based on experiences the writer knows well…in the hope of connecting with readers.
And by doing so, whether a story’s set in a past the writer never lived through or deep in the future on imagined planets, the truth shines through…even in the midst of the greatest lies ever told.
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Hey, this is where I’d normally have the outro music fade in and wrap things up, but it’s the last episode of 2020…and I’d like to talk about plans for 2021.
I average six episodes of Not About Lumberjacks a year, but I’m shooting for eight in the November 2020 to 2021 season. That could, of course, change based on what happens with other writing, but in this crappy year that’s almost behind us, this show has been a bright spot for me and people who let me know they appreciate the effort I put into it.
Twenty-twenty-one will be a bit of a challenge because that six-episodes-a-year average is bolstered by a first season where I actually released thirteen episodes. Most years, five episodes has been the norm…and I think one year saw only four.
So why am I shooting for eight?
Because, when I look back at all I create in a year—even in the years I finish a new novel—few things mean as much to me as the stories on Not About Lumberjacks.
I’d love to say I can put out a story a month, and I definitely have enough ideas for that, but with a fulltime job that’s likely to end in March when my contract is over, other life things—and other writing—eight episodes might even be pushing it.
Still, it’s my goal for this year of the show. I hope you’ve already enjoyed “Geocached,” and this year’s Christmas episode—I’ll do all I can to keep you in stories in the year ahead…
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[Quirky music fades in…]
Thank you for listening to Not About Lumberjacks and Behind the Cut. Theme music for Behind the Cut is a tune called “Reaper” by Razen. Visit nolumberjacks.com for information about the music, the episodes, and voice talent.
In January, I kick off a new year with a story about Death! Don’t worry…it’s mostly light-hearted…
Until next time: be mighty, and keep your axes sharp!
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