About

The very short version:

Joe Graber works, runs, rides, and writes in Virginia, where he lives with his wife and four children.

The very long (but extraordinarily brilliant, shockingly personal, and wildly entertaining) version:

The work is the work …

Before I explain the above statement, allow me to backtrack just a bit … Writing first showed up on my radar as a teen. To Kill a Mockingbird got my juices flowing. Then several years later, I discovered John Irving, and that was it. I got it in my mind, one day I’d just flip a switch and write a masterpiece myself—fame, fortune, and respect would follow. During my time in college, I traveled a lot, drank too many beers, studied a little, and worked a bunch of random jobs: I tied steel on a feed tower construction crew, I delivered tuxedos, I worked in bars and restaurants. What I didn’t do much of is write. By the time I graduated, I’d completed a grand total of one short story and the draft of one really bad novel (handwritten) that I actually lost while changing trains in Copenhagen, Denmark (yes, that stung).

Then came grad school—a master’s in English Lit—ahh, the perfect setting to focus on that masterpiece. Nope. I got into running and climbing mountains and took on more random jobs: I built fences, worked the night shift in an Alzheimer’s facility, and became a case manager for juvenile parolees. By the time I completed my degree, I’d written a stack of academic papers but not a single page of fiction. Even when opportunities to forge a life as a writer popped up, I inexplicably let them pass. I wrote my thesis comparing the masculine ideal of ancient Greek and Germanic cultures to that of our modern American culture (think professional athletes). I presented the paper at symposiums, and my committee chair, in particular, really dug it. He urged me to cut it into a long-form magazine piece—he had a contact at Sports Illustrated and thought they might be interested. Instead, I moved to Atlanta and took a job in a glass high-rise in Buckhead. A nice view of midtown, an expense account, and my first real paycheck … again, writing could wait. That switch was just an arm’s length away, after all.

I finally got after it (somewhat) in my mid/late twenties, but by the time I hit 30, I had a wife, kids, a mortgage, and a new career. I was taking writing seriously enough to realize there’d be no simple flipping of a switch, but I told myself I still had plenty of time. I finally finished my first novel (not counting the handwritten tome I’d lost on the train years earlier) in 2002. But masterpiece or not (certainly not) I quickly realized I had little stomach for the hustle required to go the traditional publishing route. I was long out of academia, had no contacts in publishing, and I had too many other interests to keep me busy. I was okay with having spent thousands of hours alone, late at night, grinding the work out, but I just couldn’t bring myself to spend years querying agents, chasing publishers, and, if I was ever lucky enough to land a deal, having to edit my work into what a boardroom of suits might deem the most saleable version.

No problem. I had a great life. Everything, in fact, a man could ever wish for. I flirted with stopping writing altogether, in fact. But in the ensuing years, the ideas kept coming. That’s the thing with being a storyteller. You can’t turn it off. For the first time in my life, I realized I needed to write because I needed to write, not because I needed to be “a writer.” And so, I began another book—this time with no thought of ever publishing—really no thought of anyone ever even reading it. The novel I began working on then was, indeed, All Good Quests—the novel I just released. I finished the first draft in 2016. I showed it to a few people and set it aside. I spent the next several years working on other creative projects, screenplays, short film stuff, and new novel ideas, but I did nothing to take the next step with anything I’d already written.

Then I got sick … I’m not sure there’s a playbook exactly for when a doctor tells you you’re “on the clock,” but I immediately went into “get-your-house-in-order” mode. I checked my life insurance, I talked to my financial planner, I made plans for the future of our family business. I set all our bills to autopay, I put together a master spreadsheet for all the usernames and passwords we have, and I made sure my wife and kids knew how to do things like check the oil on the zero turn and change out the HVAC filters. But I found myself doing something else too: I organized all my writing—travel journals, short stories, essays, screen plays, and the novels, of course. Then I uploaded latest drafts of everything and gave access to a couple of old friends. I told them I was planning on sticking around for a while, but in case things went south, I didn’t want a lifetime of work to disappear. They’d figure out what to do with it if need be. More than anything, I wanted my kids to be able to get their hands on it one day. If they ever felt compelled to do a deep dive into who their dad was, they’d find me somewhere in those words. I was in there. This was telling. The panic I felt at the thought of saying so much over the years but having it all disappear into the wind, never to be read … well, you get the picture.

But it wasn’t until I began sharing details about my health journey with friends and family that I truly began to understand what writing means to me. The updates quickly evolved into digressions on a variety of subjects: running, adventure racing, parenting, friendship, faith, and, of course, writing, among other things. The experience gave me a newfound appreciation for the power of the written word. It’s no exaggeration to say the connections I made with those who read along literally saved my life.

A couple of important (to me, at least) notes on writing:

Writing has the capacity to dole out equal shares of bliss and torture to anyone who attempts it in earnest … Writing is the reason I built a barn, a pool, a fire pit, a deck, an addition on our house, and finished our basement. Writing is the reason I’ve run marathons, climbed mountains, and entered really long, punishing, downright stupid adventure races. Writing is the reason I worked a lot of unique, odd jobs in my youth and have had a couple of different professional careers later in life. Why? Because just about everything is easier than writing, particularly novels. It’s lonely. It’s laborious, it’s downright painful at times. You can never step back and “see” your work like a section of stone wall or a perfectly coped piece of crown molding. The novelist spends years pecking at a keyboard, the end product being little more than an electronic file or a stack of paper. It’s damn hard to share too. If I could play an instrument and sing, I could write a song in a day and share it in 5 minutes. A painting, a piece of sculpture, a film, or an amazing collection of photography? These may all take more than a day to create, but at least they’re easy enough to share with the world. Not so with a novel. For a novelist to “share” his or her work, he or she has to ask quite a lot of any would-be “sharee.” Ten, twelve, fifteen hours or more of absolute, undivided attention. Not to mention, imagination. The consumption of a novel is a two-way street, after all. The author creates the world, but in the end, it’s the reader’s own imagination that brings it to life. Yes, if the ability to write a novel is a “gift,” it’s a gag gift for sure. Alas, I only know 4 or 5 chords on the guitar, and my singing voice is barely passable (although I can do a decent Dixieland Delight: “White-tailed buck deer … munching on clover …”). Anyway, I guess I’m stuck with the novelist gig. It’s not all bad, of course. The same qualities that make writing a novel so difficult and reading a novel such a commitment, can, if the stars align, pay off in spades. If a catchy song is a one-night stand, a fine novel can run as deep, rich, and long as true love.

The work is the work … I almost forgot we began with that, didn’t we? Back when I was very young and dreaming of literary stardom—dreaming of becoming “a writer”—this thought never occurred to me. It wasn’t until I allowed that dream to be washed clean by the blessings of a full life outside of writing that I came to understand this simple statement. The work is the work means this: you commit to sitting down and spending hundreds or thousands of hours breathing life into a world and a story you can’t shake from your thoughts. You give that story room to grow, and you do your best to do it justice. When it’s done, it’s done, and God-willing, you’re at peace with it. Of course, you want it to be read. Of course, you’d prefer readers like it. But in the end, the work is the work, and nothing will change that. Land on the cover of a magazine as the next great American novelist? It doesn’t change the work. Spend your whole life writing in isolation, the words destined to never see the light of day? It doesn’t change the work. Sell 50,000,000 copies or 5 copies? You guessed it, it doesn’t change the work. No review, good or bad, no accolades or criticisms, no pats on the back or behind-the-back-ridiculing will ever change the work. I have read books that hold indisputable positions on the Mt. Rushmore of literature and thought they were so-so, at best. And I’ve read books by authors I’d previously never heard of that stuck with me for decades. I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere out there, some lonely writer has a novel stuffed in a desk drawer, that if I ever came across it, might be my favorite book of all time. I love that about writing. Anyone can take a crack at it. But when it’s done, it stands alone. It speaks for itself … the work is the work.

So, here we are. Wishing you’d stuck to the very short version? Sorry, it’s a little late for that. As for what comes next with all this writing stuff, I’m not quite sure. God-willing, there will be plenty more to come! In the meantime, feel free to drop me a line …

Joe