If you've read this blog before, you know that I wrote a story for Significant Objects. Created by my friend Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn, the project seeks to find out exactly how we construct value. Writers, such as the one whose words you are reading now, are asked if they're interested in participating. If they agree, they are given a series of objects from which to choose. Then, they are asked to write an in-the-neighborhood-of-500-words story about the object they have chosen. A made up story. The stories and photos of each object are uploaded to the Significant Objects site and posted to eBay, where people can bid on the objects and the stories. Potential bidders are informed the object's story is made up, so no one will be confused about what is going on here, and instead everyone can sit around and consider: What does it all mean?
Now that my Significant Objects process is done--the pin I chose, which reads, "All American Official Necking Team," and a copy of the story that I wrote about it sold to the delightful Molly Peck for a whopping $36.88--I thought that I would write a little bit about my experience, the writer's experience, or, at least, this writer's experience of the project.
I loved the idea the minute I read Rob's email. I thought it sounded delightful, fanciful, and a bit ridiculous. And all of those are wonderful things. I agreed not long after, as I recall. Maybe a week or two later, I got another note from Rob, saying that there were some hidden-behind-a-password items up on the site from which I could choose my object. Honestly, I don't remember what the other items were. I think the Fred Flinstone Pez dispenser that Zulkey chose was among them, but I knew what I wanted instantly. The All-American Official Necking Team Pin. At first glance, I think I took it as real, subconsciously. I didn't stop to think: Oh, a necking team! How silly! I took it at face value, so to speak. I wondered if it was a "plant"--well, of course the woman with a habit of writing about, well, certain things would choose the Necking Team Pin--but I think that was me projecting a story about my relationship to the object--that we were meant to be--onto the object itself.
Rob said I had a week or two, I think, to write the story. I think it was "due" on a Monday, and I believe I wrote it on a Saturday afternoon. I think I was either bored and looking for something to do, or I was stressed and looking for a way to distract myself. (Those are two of my three main gears: bored and stressed. The third is overwhelmed. Generally, "calm" is not an option in the universe inside my head.) I think it took me an hour to write the story. I'm pretty sure that is correct. In fact, I think it took me about 25 minutes to write the story, and then I spent another 20 minutes fiddling with it, editing it, and then I was done. I think I sent it off to Rob after that, but I may have waited a day or two.
What was different about this writing process was that I was keenly aware that while I was writing it, if I made it "good," perhaps it would be "worth more," ie it would get more money at auction. While as a freelance journalist and fiction writer, I write for money all the time, this was different. Maybe it is a bit hard to describe? It brought my competitive nature to the fore. Much of the time, I do not like being a writer because it is so passive. At least, that's how I experience it. The part of the writing process that I prefer is the being in the world part, the jumping off the diving board head-first part, the running into the burning building because you just have to know what's going on in there part. That's the fun part. And, it's the dangerous part, too. But, for me, that part is more the writing part than the act of writing itself.
Coincidentally, I happened to be guestblogging on the wonderful Boing Boing when the piece went up and the auction went live. Perhaps that explains why something with an original value of 50 cents, I believe it was bought at a garage sale, ended up being bought for $36.88. Perhaps it was the story, so compelling!, the writer would like to imagine. Perhaps it was the link from Boing Boing. One thing is for sure. Mr. Walker and I and Miss Peck can theorize all we want, but we will never truly know.
I like the pin and the story, together, like a marriage. Not long after I spotted the pin, I began to gestate what I wanted to write about it. For some reason that I can no longer recall, I had pulled my father's class ring from Brooklyn Preparatory out of a drawer, and it was sitting on my desk. So, my father, who died in 1996, at the dark hands of a surprise heart attack, was very much on my mind, as he always is. And a piece of his history was there, on my desk. Like a piece of my memory. Or a piece of him. Like a fractal.
My favorite part of the story is the end. Because it's about life, and it's about death, and how we cling with both hands to the former, yet we cannot help but crane our necks in a vain attempt to make out the latter somewhere looming on the horizon that lies before us.
In any case, thank you to Molly, Rob, Joshua, and everyone else who bid on the object. And its significance. The project continues here.
