(Re)Writing A Love Story
Newsletter + On This Day
It’s been over a decade since I last sat down to write a story. After a series of dead ends and false starts, I stopped writing anything beyond the occasional email.
So, it’s a bit of a surprise to find myself wanting—no, needing—to write again, especially my first love story. But here we are…thanks to Substack.
Funny how life circles back, how we can rediscover the things we used to love.
The story? It’s a simple one: A high school jock and a nerd, finding chemistry…while doing their chemistry homework. It’s intentionally sappy and sweet.
Too sweet? Maybe. I’ll let you decide.
For me, the sweetness is part of its charm.
Josh is based on the first guy I ever kissed.
Our romance wasn’t as easy, breezy, or nearly as beautiful as the one I wrote. But the real-life Josh was almost as much of a Coverboy as the video’s “vintage fauxtos.”
For those who care, I want to be very clear: The video’s images are AI-generated, inspired by found vintage photos of a man who reminds me of the real-life Josh.
I think the “fauxtos” capture my nostalgic, romantic memories of my first kiss…which took place while I was a college student in 1993, not a high school student in 1972.
I’m still processing what it means to be writing again. It feels strange—like riding a bike after a long break and remembering how much the seat can hurt.
All I know is that after walking away from writing for so long, I’m finally reconnecting with something I used to love. Whether this story is the beginning of something new or just a one-off, I’m glad I wrote it.
As for sharing it? Well, I’m not so sure, but it’s all part of the creative process, right? Putting the story and video out there makes me feel more than a little vulnerable. So, thanks in advance for being kind in the comments.
As always, thank you for reading and watching my work too!
Clint
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Why WordPress’s CEO Is Spooking The Internet (Morning Brew)
‘Blade Runner 2049’ Producers Sue Elon Musk Over ‘Robotaxi’ AI Art (Daily Beast)
ON THIS DAY = OCTOBER 22
BIRTHDAYS
1882 = N.C. Wyeth = American painter and illustrator
1903 = Curly Howard = American comedian and vaudevillian
1913 = Robert Capa = Hungarian-American photographer and journalist
1925 = Robert Rauschenberg = American artist
1938 = Christopher Lloyd = American actor, comedian and producer
1939 = Tony Roberts = American actor and singer
1942 = Annette Funicello = American actor and singer
1952 = Jeff Goldblum = American actor and producer
1952 = Julie Dash = American director, producer, and screenwriter
1962 = Bob Odenkirk = American actor and comedian
1963 = Brian Boitano = American figure skater
1968 = Shelby Lynne = American singer-songwriter
1968 = Shaggy = Jamaican singer-songwriter and DJ
1969 = Spike Jonze = American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1975 = Jesse Tyler Ferguson = American actor
1981 = Michael Fishman = American actor and producer
1990 = Jonathan Lipnicki = American actor
CELEBRATIONS
EVENTS
1746 = The College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) receives its charter.
1836 = Sam Houston is inaugurated as first President of the Republic of Texas.
1879 = Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric incandescent light bulb.
1883 = The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City opens with a performance of Gounod's Faust.
1962 = Cuban Missile Crisis: President Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval "quarantine" of the Communist nation.
1976 = Red Dye No. 4 is banned by the US Food and Drug Administration after it is discovered that it causes tumors in the bladders of dogs.
1986 = Surgeon General of the United States C. Everett Koop releases the first government publications for the public on gay safer sex practices.
1987 =– John Adams' opera Nixon in China premieres.
2008 = Imagine Dragons forms when Dan Renyolds and Andrew Tolman meet at Brigham Young University and recruit others to record their first demo.
2019 = Same-sex marriage is legalised, and abortion is decriminalised in Northern Ireland as a result of the Northern Ireland Assembly not being restored.
PHOTO + QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I don't think any one person, whether artist or not, has been given permission by anyone to put the responsibility of the way things are on anyone else.”
Robert Rauschenberg
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I was in the AF. I was remolding our first house. Our second child was on the way. My closest friend stopped by one night when I was working alone. He was going to be married. He'd finished his degree and had been hired as a coach for a rural high school. I confess a physical aspect to our friendship from, nearly, the beginning, in our sophomore summer. And he asked me to kiss him. As he stood against the wall, with his eyes closed, he looked so apprehensive, that I hesitated. It doesn't seem a big deal in these times, but in those, it was a life changer. I knew if I did, everything would change in that instant. And I wanted too. But I didn't. In the writing, he comes to me between the lines. And time is suspended in a kiss. To write it is to connect with the collective consciousness of every man. Do it for as long as you can. You'll never regret it.
I do remember Carpenter. The Story of Eros and Psyche. But I didn’t read him. He was read to me by a friend in high school. We’d spend hours in his room listening to music, or him reading aloud as I drew. I was the working-class sod and he was the academic. I wrote free verse poetry then, and in flow of consciousness. It’d bring his mother to tears, overlooking I couldn’t spell. His home was my refuge. I don’t think I hid that I loved him very well from her. I was the one to eventually come out. I couldn’t help implicating him. He was my muse. And I was his weakness. It ended our fifteen-year friendship. They were scary times. Careers, marriages, and families in the balance. Carpenter had an influence. But not how you might think. I promise to stop coming to you in the night.