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My dad and I at the Apple store circa 2007, about to buy my first MacBook (this is a Photo Booth Photo).

(Author's note: This was originally posted on my Drake University-sponsored blog on Oct. 5, 2011).
His name was Frank Valentini, and 60 years before he’d flown planes across China and back at the height of World War II.

Now he was in a little house in Chisholm, Minnesota, sitting across from a wide-eyed 17-year-old journalist conducting the first interview of his life.

I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew I couldn’t screw it up. I recorded the interview, popping open my computer and firing up a popular little program called Garageband.

I took pages of notes during the two-hour interview, most of which made no sense afterwards. But that was okay, because I had it all there on the computer, ready to be taken and transcribed. I used that software six more times that summer, and I wrote about them.

I spent most of the summer after my freshman year of college coated in blood and screaming my head off. My close friends and I had decided to film a full-length horror movie involving trucks, kayaks and a bloody set of pruning shears. We wrote the script (the story involved a dysfunctional film crew who went into the Northern Minnesota woods to film a horror movie, only to begin dying themselves), acted the parts and edited the entire thing in a little program called iMovie. It was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life — I even wrote a column in the local newspaper about it.

Another summer, I decided to run a marathon along the North Shore of Duluth. I charged up my iPod — a white little beauty that featured full video-playback capabilities — and ran for 5 hours. It was so great — I wrote about it.

And tonight, it occurs to me that for the last 10 years or so, whenever I’ve experienced something that was so important to me that I had to write about it — I had some sort of device named after a piece of fruit with me. I couldn’t not write tonight, not when the caretaker of that strange little company passed away.

I never met Steve Jobs, but I did email him once, because my roommate convinced me to. His email was easy to find on his website. I told him about an idea I had about an iPad that slipped in and out of a console-type device, so that it dual functioned as a tablet and personal laptop. That was earlier this year, so I have yet to see if my idea becomes reality.

I don’t think I’m going to be very coherent tonight. There’s a lot of memories bouncing around. Tapping out papers about Romeo and Juliet in ninth grade on an iMac. Bono singing ‘Vertigo’ against colored silhouettes with white buds lacing up along their necks. Eagerly downloading season 2 episodes of LOST and watching them on a 2-inch screen. Winning an iPod shuffle and having it be one of the most exciting moments of my life. Falling through an icy pond and using my iPhone for a year afterwards. My mom discontinuing expensive wireless internet because the data plan on my dad’s iPad was $70 cheaper.

My parents began texting me. Best one: “Your father and I got netflix. So and so go to White Castle. Awful.”

And I couldn’t even begin to say what Steve Jobs did for my future. Journalism hasn’t quite figured that one out yet. But I’m starting to believe that the opportunities made existent by the technology ushered in by Apple will become the basis of my future career. And that’s intense, no matter how you look at it.

In a way, he kind of reminds me of Charles Schultz, the Peanuts cartoonist who worked tirelessly for 50 years and ran the last comic strip the day before he died. I don’t know where it is these strange pioneers who cause so much job come from.

I find myself thinking of those interviews again, the ones with the veterans. Their smiles. Their stories. And I think about the stories I’ve recorded with these keys, all the words I’ve saved with these programs.

What’s funny about Apple is that I won’t remember the broad, sweeping changes they made to the world while I was growing up. I’m going to remember staying up all night editing video with friends. It’s those little things I’ll remember. RIP, Mr. Jobs.

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Enduring Readers of mine will know that I recently did pretty well in an on campus publication, Periphery, with a piece of fiction and a poem. I just got back from their launch party and man, do I feel great. After all, it's not very often that you get a chance to speak to an audience of people enthusiastic not only about the arts, but about things you've written. The event was held at Mars Cafe — a local legend of a coffeehouse (I recommend getting Earl Grey tea and Chips and Hummus — it's incredibly cheap and caffeinated) which was pretty packed.

I went in extremely nervous, and alone. YES I DO HAVE FRIENDS. It's just that I was embarrassed. When you read fiction, you put yourself out there. If I had it my way, I would have everyone read the nice little blurbs and ignore the actual story and poem. So I didn't tell anybody about the party, really, and didn't invite my friends.

I really regret that now. The Periphery staff started talking to me almost at once, making me feel welcome and comfortable. I was asked to read first — I accepted, because I wanted to get it out of the way. I was introduced, and given a prize for my award (NO, IT WASN'T A CHECK!) in the form of this beautiful moleskine notebook. I love notebooks, but I never buy anything other than 50 cent college ruled ones at Wal-mart. Having this is sort of like having a four course gourmet meal handed to you when you're used to burgers and fries — it's awesome!

The reading went from strange to intense in only a few seconds; my story, "The Wolfhound" is supposed to be suspenseful. I never realized how suspenseful it actually was, though, until I looked up at one of the most intense parts and realized the entire coffeehouse, including the Mars Cafe workers, had gone completely silent, and were giving me (ME! THE FAT PHYSICS MAJOR WITH A COWLICK!) their riveted attention. Man oh man, that was strange.

Afterwards, I was interviewed by my former employer and beloved student newspaper, the Times-Delphic. It made the event so — special, somehow. I'm always the interviewer, never the interviewee. I tried to give her good quotes, but I think I talked in circles a lot.

The Periphery staff did such a great job with this publication. The design, the layout — everything is just great. The other authors were great to listen to — their work is so outstanding, you've got to read it on peripheryjournal.com. (You can also view my stuff there.)

I thoroughly regret not inviting people that I knew to the event. There's a difference between being humble and keeping your talents hidden. Maybe I'm being a little egocentric with this post, but I know the attention won't last. A week from now, celebration of my work will be over, and I'll just be another body in the crowd. Got to live it up while you can, right?
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So I haven't really blogged about this yet, but I recently kicked a whole lot of butt in my fiction writing endeavors. Two of my submissions for Drake University's "Periphery" journal were not only published, but THEY WON AWARDS TOO.

Huh? No... no I'm not getting a check... be quiet, okay?! This is the type of reward that comes with a warm, fuzzy feel and the knowledge that I can actually write worth crap. What I REALLY won were two very wonderful blurbs from people who actually know what they're talking about — I'm going to reproduce them here, and it's going to seem like my ego is similar to Tiger Woods' pre-Thanksgiving 2009, but I don't care. This is MY Web site. I can write all the nice stuff about me that I want, and if you don't like it, feel free to click out (although please, please don't leave me!)

The first blurb was from Johnathon Williams, a founding editor of Linebreak.org, a weekly magazine of original poetry, and an MFA candidate in the Creative Writing program at the University of Arkansas. He was writing about my poem, "Alive."

"Here I admire the poet's effort to tie the timeless to the temporary, the grand to the small. 'Now is the time of memories' is a bold, provocative opening line, the reach of which is made accessible by the many specifics that follow, such as the dandelions growing in the cracked sidewalk. Such juxtapositions are one of the many things that poetry does well, and here the technique is used with aplomb."

APLOMB! If I saw that word out of context, I would probably think it was a pokemon, but here it practically makes me jump off my feet and start fist pumping the air.

The other blurb was written about my short story, "The Wolfhound," by Andrew Porter, the author of the short story collection "The Theory of Light and Matter" as well as other awards I don't feel like typing out.

"From the opening paragraph of Matt Nelson's "The Wolfhound" I could tell I was in the hands of a natural storyteller. There's a certain confidence and honest in the narrative voice that immediately drew me in and made me care about his characters. Even more impressive, however, was the way Nelson subtly developed the conflict beneath the surface of the story, raising questions about the past, while at the same time keeping the reader firmly grounded in the present. A psychologically complex and emotionally powerful piece. If this story is any indication, I think Mr. Nelson has a very bright future ahead of him."

Not just any future, you notice. A very bright one. Not bad for a physics major, huh?

I shot off an e-mail to Mr. Porter and Mr. Williams, thanking them for their awards. Mr. Porter responded, and it turns out he's coming to Drake. TONIGHT. For a visit. And I get to meet him. In person. Better than Facebook.

I've been opening and closing doors all day, the most annoying nervous habit ever. I'm pretty sure the refrigerator has lost it's chill, and I'm probably driving my roommates crazy. The thing is, I've NEVER had someone other than a parent, school teacher or friend tell me my writing was any better than anyone else's. Any person who has ever read my work met me before they read it, never the other way around. That's why I was so pumped that he had such good things to say — there were no first impressions, no communication, nothing. It was just the writing he saw, and that's really what's most important.
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Z-Z-Z-Zombies! 04/03/2010
 
I'm Script Frenzying it up tonight! I have a solid 14 pages down, only 86 left to do during the month of April. So far, I'm having a pretty good time, but then again, first drafts are ALWAYS fun. You have no constraints to work with. No critic except for the internal one, and as long as you shut him up with a little stubbornness, you're good to go.

In many, many cases, someone starts on a first draft, gets a page or two in, then gets frustrated/bored/pissed off and walks away. Forever. FOR-EV-ER. And that once golden idea you just had, well, doesn't ever come back.

How do I beat it? I'm so glad you asked. Here are five writing tips I use to crank out content.

1) Know your ending. You should have an opening A and a closing B. Anything between those two points can happen, but you must, MUST have and end game in mind. Even J.K. Rowling wrote the epilogue to Deathly Hallows way before she started writing Sorcerer's Stone. With that being said...

2) Don't set things in stone. Sure, your main character might wind up happily married with two kids, but that doesn't mean he didn't fight off three sharks, have a dangerous affair with an exotic babe and own a yellow dog named Lexington who saved his life by pulling him unconscious from a raging stream after he fell in while fly fishing. To some extent, allow the ending to change too. Maybe he has two kids with the exotic babe instead of who you thought would be his wife.

3) Write from another point of view. If you get stuck writing with one character, try analyzing the scene or situation from another character. You may not use any of the material you write, but maybe if you understand what Lexington saw and felt when he dove into the raging river to save his master, ultimately losing his life in the process, you might be able to better write about the anguish the dog owner felt afterwards. If you lose your keys, you don't stand in the same place and look for them. You get on your knees, checking under tables, trying to get a different perspective. Writing is the same.

4) Do an exercise. Sometimes people try to write cold, and get stuck after only a few paragraphs. Take some time to write something creative — get warmed up. Read a passage of your favorite book and ask yourself why you like it so much. Try to copy it in terms of style and tone.

5) If you get bored, get unbored. It's your first draft, and it can go anywhere, be anything. Throw in a car chase, a terrible secret from the past suddenly unearthed, a mysterious man with a bowie knife. Play with it! There's nothing more exciting to a writer than wondering what is going to happen next in his or her writing (except for maybe getting a check for millions of dollars from their first bestseller, but that rarely happens so we just kind of pretend it doesn't).

That's why I like Script Frenzy — I have 100 pages to write about whatever the hell I want, in a format restrictive enough to give me focus, but free enough to keep it maniacally addictive. I may not be getting a grade, but darn it, writing about zombies is fun!
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