There's a million things I haven't done....

I’m pretty convinced that when it comes to Hamilton, the Broadway play, there are two types of people: Fans who are obsessed with the show, and people who haven’t listened to it yet.

I feel I should teach a Hamilton appreciation class - “Intro to the Ten Dollar Founding Father without a Father..” I am not a fan of rap, I’m ignorant of Hip-Hop — and yet I love this musical.

The first time I heard the first song, I had to pause it every few seconds, as I couldn’t believe its intricate lines. It was like seeing the first colour movie, after watching a lifetime of films in black and white. It wasn’t so much, “How did he write that?”, as much as, “How is it possible that something so perfectly written wasn’t written before?” As a wanna-be author, aspiring wordsmith, and not-yet-successful writer, I instantly understood Hamilton the man from that first song, from the verses that talked about his writing:

The Ten dollar, founding father without a father

got a lot farther by working a lot harder

by being a lot smarter by being a self-starter

by fourteen, they placed him in charge of a trading charter….

Inside he was longing for something to be a part of

the brother was ready to beg steal borrow or barter

Then a hurricane came and devastation rained

our man saw his future drip-dripping down the drain

put a pencil to his temple connected it to his brain

and he wrote his first refrain a testament to his pain

Well the word got around they said this kid is insane man

took up a collection just to send him to the mainland

Get your education don't forget from whence you came. And the world is gonna know your name.

What's ya name, man?

Say it with me… Alexander Hamilton… My name is Alexander Hamilton. And there's a million things I haven't done. But just you wait, just you, wait.

I was exhausted just listening to that opening. One minute twenty seconds, and you already know everything about the man’s drive, ambition, passion. In just 80 seconds, the storytelling on display, the sheer force of rhymes and brevity of language… these words will be sung a hundred years now, five hundred. They’re timeless. Why did they resonate with me?

A voice saying Alex, you gotta fend for yourself

He started retreatin' and readin' every treatise on the shelf

I wrote my first story when I was four, dictated to my grandmother on her blue typewriter. It was a diversionary tactic on her part: I would play with the typewriter keys, tapping on them like a piano until they all stuck together in a tangled mess. She, a former teacher, didn’t scold me or put it out of reach: she reasoned I was wanting to create something on the page. “Tell me a story, and I’ll type it,” she said. I dictacted a short story, of friends from school coming to my house for a playdate. Kurt Vonnegut it wasn’t.

But that magic trick of envisioning words, saying them aloud and having them transcribed and solidified onto paper, never left me. In grades five and six, I wrote stories in little notebooks my father brought home from work; in grade seven, I graduated to looseleaf paper in red duotangs; in grade nine, I used a computer. Story after story came; some finished, some not. I did not lack for ambition.

University came, and writing for fun was replaced by essays and research. Sometimes, schoolwork could still be fun: I enjoyed writing essays for Film Studies, and Psych. Didn’t often enjoy the essays in English Literature. After my University degree, I knew I wanted to make TV shows, so off I went to study TV Broadcasting in college. Scripts, outlines, news stories: writing was suddenly fun again. After college, I went from a reearcher on a two week assignment to the Associate Producer, Director, and Writer of a show for Discovery Channel. I finally saw the magic words, broadcast to 82,000 people on premiere night: Written by John Holt.

And now, where I am? Six blog entries in 5 years.

Why do you write like you're running out of time?

Write day and night like you're running out of time?

Every day you fight, like you're running out of time

- Non-Stop, Hamilton

To be fair, I am technically still writing at work: scripts, proposals. Videos I’ve written and voiced and produced have been retweeted by the Prime Minister, and seen by hundreds of thousands. I’m playing a role, if a minor one, in protecting people during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. But I gotta say, I miss those little notebooks and red duotangs, where it was just me and my imagination.

Why do you write like it's going out of style?

Write day and night like it's going out of style?

Every day you fight like it's going out of style

Hamilton, the man, was a prolific writer: He wrote 51 of the 85 essays of The Federalist Papers, which are still consulted today. But it’s the writer/composer/star of the musical, Lin Manuel Miranda, who makes me ask: what should I be doing, non-stop? He paints Hamilton not just a man who writes, but as a man who must write: he’s compelled to do it. It saves him from an earlier inglorious death; it will later drive him to his own self-destruction.

There would've been nothin' left to do

For someone less astute

He would've been dead and destitute

Without a cent of restitution

Started workin', clerkin' for his late mother's landlord

Tradin' sugar cane and rum and other things he can't afford

Scannin' for every book he can get his hands on

Plannin' for the future, see him now as he stands on

The bow of a ship headed for a new land…

I have a friend, a colleague off on sick leave, and they are writing a blog post every day. I admire that discipline, and I’m inspired by it.. With 4 kids, a busy job, and certain other impediments, I can’t commit to something as ambitous as that. But I can commit to doing better than before.

There is no perfect time to write. There’s only now.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Perseverance

“Eleven months ago a 1200 pound spacecraft blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Eighteen hours ago... it landed on the planet Mars. You, me, and 60,000 of your fellow students across the country along with astroscientists and engineers from the Jet Propulsion Lab in Southern California, NASA in Houston, and right here at the White House, are going to be the first to see what it sees, and to chronicle the extraordinary voyage of an unmanned ship called Galileo V.”

- Sam Seaborn, The West Wing (“Galileo”, Season 2, Episode 9)

NASA's Perseverance Rover landed on Mars just 24 hours ago, but you’d be hard pressed to notice it on the news. But it reminds me of the great Sam Seaborn quote above, which in turn reminds me of where I was in my life when that episode first aired. 

I started in government in the fall of 2000. I had a one-year contract (which seemed to be an eternally long time; I assumed I would be eager to leave by its end). I had a steep learning curve in transitioning to “Public Servant”. Turns out that my previous jobs -- TV writer and director and producer; database programmer; and freelance web designer -- didn’t adequately prepare me to work in a 10,000 person government department. I felt lost in a sea of acronyms, hidden rules, and Byzantine org charts. 

I’ll share the stories of my first few months there another time. But let’s just say, by the time Christmas rolled around, I was seriously looking for other options. I just didn’t understand how I was fitting into this huge puzzle around me. I was missing the challenge of being the associate producer of a TV show, making hundreds of decisions a week on our program, and writing and directing episodes that would be seen by tens of thousands of people. 

On this particular snowy day, our extended team was about to have our holiday party at a steak house in Gatineau. Head over for two o’clock, and enjoy a late lunch before heading home. I had volunteered to drive one of my colleagues to the restaurant. She, like me, was new to government; she, like me, enjoyed watching The West Wing, then in its second season. 

There was an excitement in the office as the crew started to file out. The first third of people headed over; then the next batch. I checked in on my boss, to make sure she was on her way over. 

She had her winter boots on, but she was slumped in her chair, staring at her Blackberry, looking defeated. The Deputy Minister had sent out a holiday message to the department, about an hour before; now, our Assistant Deputy Minister also wanted a holiday message to send to the 900 people in his Branch. My boss was realizing that she would miss the party with her staff, as she would have to write the message. “Tell everyone I wish I was there,” she said to me. 

My colleague appeared then, eager to hitch a ride to the restaurant. “(Manager) has to write a holiday message right now for the ADM,” I explained. My colleague nodded. “That’s too bad. Well, let’s go!” 

I looked at my watch. T minus 30 minutes to the party, which was 20 minutes away. “How long will it take us to write the message?” I asked my manager. She shrugged. I think under other circumstances, this wouldn’t be a daunting task for her, but coming as she was literally packing up her stuff to go, it was a disappointing buzzkill that seemed insurmountable. 

She sighed. “I’ll have to ask him what he wants in the message; then write the outline and have him approve it; then write the message, and have him approve that, then translate it...I’ll be here all afternoon.” 

Now, this was one instance where my ignorance at processes, approvals, and timelines was going to be helpful. I couldn’t believe she would miss the big holiday party over an email. I shrugged all that off. 

“I can have a draft for you in…. twelve minutes,” I told her. I was pretty sure I could have it ready in ten, but I had already turned off my computer. 

My manager laughed. “That’s not how things work, John.” She sighed again. “You guys go ahead; I’ll do this.” 

My mind was already racing, reaching for the words.  “ ‘As we reach the end of this long year, it’s a time to rest and relax with our family and friends,’ ” I intoned. “ ‘But it’s also a time to reflect on the many successes we’ve shared, and to take pride in our achievements.’ ” 

My manager’s eyes brightened. “That could work…” 

My feet started heading towards my cubicle, the next words of the message already forming themselves in my mind. “Let me give it a shot. Just let me give a try.” 

My colleague, who was expecting a drive from me, was less than impressed, “Who do you think you are, Sam Seaborn?” 

That made everything click for me. “Yes! Right now, I am Sam Seaborn!” 

At that time, every communications person I knew was at least a casual fan of The West Wing. Any show that could make heroes out of writers was a natural draw. And Rob Lowe’s Sam Seaborne was helplessly idealistic, a wordsmith without parallel, who could elevate the dreariest of messages with his soaring prose. 

The classic Sam scene I quote above had aired just a month earlier. In the episode “Galileo,” he politely rips to shreds the speech for the President prepared by a NASA PR guy. On the spur of the moment, Sam dictates a message that is stirring, historic, and Presidential - on his first take. The President approves, and the mundane script is cast aside. That day, it was time for me to channel my inner Sam, and try to do the same. 

At my desk, I called up the earlier holiday message from the Deputy Minister, to make sure this message would be different than theirs. I wrote the message, reading parts of it aloud as my colleague stood at my cubicle, offering suggestions. I tried to make a link between spending time with family and friends at the holidays, to the teamwork that’s present in successful projects. I finished it, and emailed it to my manager: 12 minutes exactly. 

“Maybe you are Sam Seaborne,” my colleague said, in what may have been the compliment highlight of my career. 

I ran down the hall to where my manager was already looking at the message. “This is good,” she said simply. “Sit down.” I sat; we edited the message together. I remember her highlighting a good two sentences of my text, and deleting it; I bit my tongue. But sure enough, what she replaced it with was even better than my words. In about eight minutes, we were done; a pretty strong product. We had our colleague read it over, and got a thumbs up. Twenty five minutes had passed since the first email requesting the message. 

My manager sent the message off to the ADM. “Let us know what you think, and if you approve, we’ll send you the French version,” she wrote. She started translating the message into French right away. 

“You guys should go to the party,” she directed. I had nothing to contribute to the French version, so off we went. With a shortcut or two, we got to the restaurant just as the first round of drinks was being served. 

Sam Seaborn: Aaron Sorkin’s speech for the stars.

It was fun playing Sam Seaborn for a moment. But just as good was that feeling of sitting next to my manager, someone who would end up providing lots of advice during my first years in government, and earning that “trusted colleague” status. She knew then that I had her back, and I could deliver on short deadlines; watching her edit and improve the message, I realized that she also had ‘the skills to pay the bills,” as another manager of mine would say in the future. If I was Sam (for a mere moment), then she was Toby Ziegler, or CJ Cregg: not just talented, but trustworthy, and trusting. It was one of the first moments, after three months on the job, that I didn’t feel completely lost; that maybe I could be a useful member of the team. Maybe I had something to offer. 

Our manager eventually arrived at the party, about 45 minutes later. I believe she bought me a drink. I remember it was a fun evening. 

And for the next ten years, I was almost inevitably late to staff holiday parties, due to some last-minute random web post to complete, or video to upload. But for that moment, laughing and joking with colleagues after delivering a solid win, I felt like celebrating. It wasn’t landing a probe on Mars, but it was a success. Sometimes, perseverance is all we need..

Back to Life

OUR PHONE hasn't worked for several days. Actually, it's been months since it started carrying more static than voices, but then it dropped out completely on Thursday night. And worse of all: No Internet. I suppose having the water cut off would have been worse, but it's a close call. 

The phone line to the house was replaced yesterday. So we're back on-line, and once again getting phone calls where the phone rings properly. For two months, we had the ultimate in call screening: if the houseline gave its abbreviate ring, we didn't rush to the phone, since we knew the line would conk out in a second. And if the person didn't call us back on my cell phone... well, obviously we didn't want to talk with them in the first place, did we? 

Surprisingly, not being able to post on this website hurt more than I anticipated. I have videos to post, things to write, errors to fix, templates to improve.... not having internet really puts a damper on your online life, y'know? Even though this site has been up for less than a week, posting here seems so familiar, so much of my everyday routine, that being denied that process for a few days was painful. 

Just bought an iPhone app today called "Streaks".  It's supposed to work on the same "Don't Break the Chain" method that Seinfeld famously used. Essentially, it helps build momentum in whatever pursuits you're striving for: anyone can slack off for a night, or two, or three, but when you have an unbroken chain of successes behind you, you're motivated to continue your streak. 

Seinfeld used a large wall calendar to mark off the days that he wrote new material. Now he'd probably use an app on his Apple Watch. Speaking of which, I'd love to hear what new materials he'd come up with about an Apple Watch. That would be something to mark on your calendar.