Welcome to the Rebellion

When blessings and curses swirl through the weekend, one must find faith in the Force.

On the same day I tripled my subscriber count — shoutout to the good folks at Tangle News for publishing one of my essays — the running water at my house went out and I caught a nasty flu. Which feels about right. Life never lets you just win.

So instead of crafting the weekly post I had planned, I was shivering under two blankets, quarantined from my wife (at her insistence), and trekking up and down the hill to the neighbor’s to fill a pail of water every time I needed to flush the toilet.

Also, I was overthinking how to introduce myself to all you new subscribers.

My first instinct was to write something political. Because that’s what Tangliers want, right? I desperately tried rubbing my few operating brain cells together to carve out a stance on global trade and immigration before the shivers gracefully timbered that idea like a tree in a lonely forest.

I’ve got plenty of fiction in the rough drafts folder, but the revision process proved too harsh for my delicate sickly soul. Besides, all you new subscribers had found me through a personal essay, so I should probably give you something personal.

My head spun, my muscles fatigued, my sinuses clogged. I was overwhelmed — emotionally, existentially, virally. How ironic the Universe must be to grant me new readers but render me unable to write to them.

Eventually I surrendered to sickness and determined that if I was helpless to heal my health, I would medicate my creativity instead. So I turned to an old friend from a long time ago which my wife cares nothing for: Star Wars.

Currently, I’m catching up on Andor Season 2. It’s one of the very few things Disney has made since its takeover of the iconic franchise that doesn’t feel like a flavorless action figure commercial. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were watching Homeland in space. It’s smart. It’s slow. It respects your intelligence. It builds the Star Wars universe with depth instead of just stacking it with callbacks.

Andor grounds itself as a gritty spy thriller with its heroes and antagonists maneuvering through a shadow war being waged in the plain sight of everyday life. What the show lacks in lightsaber duels it makes up for with morning shows from the Coruscant metropole, provincial death rites, ancient wedding customs, and narcotic dependency subplots.

In short: it’s exactly the kind of story I love.

Which brings me to this one. Mine. Yours. Ours, I hope.

For those of you who are new here: hi. I’m Michael. I write things. Somehow, strangers are now paying me to weave words. Each new subscriber feels like an audition. I am now trying out for a weekly role in your inbox. I don’t take that lightly.

To introduce oneself, one must define oneself, and that is something at which this oneself has ever been particularly adept. Instead I’m just going to hit you with a silly little biographical fact: my entire personality is based on Star Wars.

No, really.

It all started in the late 90s when LucasFilm was re-releasing the Original Trilogy in theaters with upgraded special effects. I was in seventh grade and didn’t recognize this for the generation bridging cash grab that it was, so I requested a Star Wars themed 13th birthday party. We saw The Empire Strikes Back in the theaters and had a glow in the dark sleepover complete with space rocks, plastic lightsabers, and nerf guns.

I wasn’t a big reader at the time, but someone gifted me a copy of the novel Jedi Search by Kevin J. Anderson in which Luke Skywalker scours the galaxy to rebuild the Jedi Order. That book lit the fuse on my imagination and sent me headfirst into the galaxy far, far away. I fell in love with Han and Leia’s now canon fodder kids, Jacen and Jaina Solo. I devoured the 19 book New Jedi Order series. I flew through the gritty X-Wing novels.

Eventually I found an online home in a message board community called the “Expanded Universe Defense Force,” earning commendations and promotions for passionately defending Star Wars books from haters. I eventually rose to the rank of Admiral. (No, I will not be taking questions at this time.)

I even launched a spin-off group called the “New Jedi Order Defense Force.” Because of course I did.

But the real turning point? I started writing fan fiction. I entered weekly fanfic challenges, imagined a secret order of Grey Jedi, and gave Boba Fett a son, receiving praise and accolades from the friendly nerds of the internet.

That’s right, you’re reading the work of an award-winning fanfic author. The first installation of my novelized alternate prequel trilogy — Star Wars: Episode I: Converging Fates — won “Best Alternate Universe” and “Most Realistic Character” for my take on the teenage Obi-Wan Kenobi. My professors were cool enough and my writing good enough that I was allowed to submit the 116,000 word story as my college honors capstone project.

Though I was proud of the achievement, the struggle of writing a novel that I’d never be able to publish weighed on me, and I shied away from the word processor for some time. Instead, I threw myself into acting, moved to New York to pursue theater, and tried to cultivate a cool new self-image while selling comedy tickets on the streets of Times Square.

One night out, I drunkenly bragged about my fan fictional prowess to a street selling colleague. A few days later my friend revealed he had done the kind of deep internet sleuthing that would terrify most politicians and outed me as a full-blown Star Wars nerd.

I was embarrassed at the time. Now? I just wish I could find the GalacticSenate.com fanfic archives to prove my trophies are real.

But I guess those accolades don’t matter anymore.

The only award that counts now is your continued readership. If the Force is with me, you’ll keep coming back to my weekly musings. You can expect me to unpack my psychedelic adventures, scoff at the news of the moment, and occasionally go full Obi-Wan on the page.

Welcome aboard.

Also,

Thanks.