I Am Not An Illusion

August 24th, 2022

Mystery is an amateur magic show.

I get frequently asked why I tell people stuff on the internet. Like, the stuff you shouldn’t really tell people, the stuff people don’t talk about like I think they should, the stuff that is heavy or hard.

I do it because I feel like we should all play with our cards face-up on the table; I played for too long with indoor sunglasses and extra cards up my sleeves, bluffing and lying and cheating my way through games.

I figure if I give everyone the ammunition and evidence they need to know they are a better person than I am, then they might find themselves open about being open with me, in mind, heart, or opinion. They repeat what I tell them.

“You’re a drunk.”

Yep.

“You’ve said and done shitty things.”

Uh-huh, yeah, turns out people find that relatable.

“You’re still kind of a dick.”

I am, but I am also actively working against that, to change that, even when I fail. Especially when I fail. And I fail a lot.

I fail more when I’m not honest with you.

Some say that people should earn the right to really know you and your secrets; that your story is special and only individuals you trust should have access to those rooms in you.

There are a lot of people who believe in being mysterious, and that there is some kind of honor and dignity in keeping things to yourself.

I’m here to reveal that mystery never helped a person get better. I want to tell you that if someone had given me an instruction manual on how to help myself that I could understand, I would have gotten better a long time ago.

Mystery is for people who do not want to help; mystery is spectacle for people who don’t want to do any work. Secrets are kept by those who want to retain power; sharing secrets gives power to other people.

I am not mystery. I am verbose, urgent, messy. I am exact wants and specific needs. I am here, shouting into a black electronic void of our own creation, not sure if anyone can actually see or hear me, but screaming all the same.

I am not an illusion. I am the pain and pressure of showing you how the trick works, and the ecstacy of pulling it off in front of a live audience.

The actual magic is in the giving.

Great Big Tool

August 22nd, 2022

Like a spare key put someplace forgotten, artists can spend their entire lives looking for what it is that makes good art.

They go to school for art, attending art classes. They read about making art, and then talk about their art readings. They are taught how art makes people feel, and then talk about their art feelings.

They learn the rules to art and then change the way they do art to make their art more legal. They ask people what they think of their art and, consciously and sub-, their process for creating art reacts to their audience’s reactions.

I am no expert; however, I have found the key and it is a disappointing but encouraging shape.

All an artist has is their taste.

I read a lot about writing. Most of the time, I don’t really get a lot out of it, the rules and the tips and the tricks for becoming a good writer. And yet I can’t stop reading all these words about writing.

They are a comfort and an addiction and they distract me from my greatest tool: myself.

I am a great big tool.

But as a tool, I am a shape unlike any other. Nobody else has my experiences: my past, my history, my present, my specific, carefully curated collection of words and, most importantly, no one has my taste.

My weirdo decision-making process.

Nobody is ever going to use words exactly how I use words. Just like nobody will put paint on like you put paint on, or sing a note like you sing a note, or do a dance step in that singular way you move.

It’s why artists can have their most brilliant work early in their career. They are led by taste. Once we learn how things are supposed to work, how classics are constructed, we will often ignore our own instincts for the sake of making something for everyone.

When everything you make should be for you.

You can take the secret key with you or not; it’s yours to share or lose. I am bad at rules, so this revelation is convenient for me and my radical objections. My taste, however, is questionable at best, and the more I eat, the more I know what I like.

“That’s all any of us are: amateurs. We don’t live long enough to be anything else.”

  • Charlie Chaplin

Brushfire on Twin Cities Geek

August 20th, 2022

I got a Google alert for my name earlier this evening (yeah, I get Google alerts for my name, shut up) and was delighted to discover that it was because Twin Cities Geek published a sublime review of my all-ages series, Brushfire, written by the incomparable Kyle Casello.

Dennis Vogen’s Brushfire Is Just Right for All Ages

An excellent excerpt:

“His most recent release, Brushfire, is a perfect example of him taking the next step in his creative career with an all-ages graphic novel that mixes a Saturday-morning cartoon setting with science-fiction family drama.

“Vogen’s writing style is offbeat and at times does not shy away from difficult topics; his more adult-focused graphic novel The Weirdos featured some thought-provoking moments with its characters going through difficult life decisions. I wanted to know how he would apply this established method of storytelling to an all-ages story.

“As it turned out, Vogen transitioned into this category with ease and has created a world that a young reader can relate to.”

The whole review is so thoughtful, and both the critiques and praise are well-presented. Kyle has grown in leaps and bounds in his own writing journey, and I am so grateful to be a part of it.

Brushfire is available now.

Not Too Little, Never Too Late

August 19th, 2022

When people get comfortable around me and my sobriety, they start to ask more complicated questions about it.

The one they inevitably get to is: “Do you miss anything about drinking?”

I do. Of course I do.

Too much for a single post.

But I want to talk about something that might give you a glimpse inside the mind of an addict and why it’s so hard for us to quit, well, anything.

In the before-days, I was very proud of my beer knowledge. I worked in a beer bar. We did beer things. I loved learning about beer: the process of brewing it, the history behind it, the delightful and sometimes beautiful ways we describe it.

I was so invested in how I felt about beer; I sincerely felt like it was a big part of my personality. In fact, one of my biggest fears when I admitted that I had to stop drinking was that people were not going to like me because I wasn’t going to be about beer anymore.

I honestly thought I was going to have nothing to say without beer. I thought I was going to become boring and lifeless and everyone was going to leave me.

I am not exaggerating. Part of the reason I decided immediately that I had to find a way to be cool around alcohol is because I wanted to keep my bar job, to show people that I was still cool, and please don’t abandon me because I am less of a human being, barely a man, a person who can’t and could never hang.

That’s how it feels when you’re in it.

You will risk losing everything because everything feels like it’s waiting to be lost.

Almost five years on, that turned out not to be the case. I apparently was more than just beer facts. Instead of being less, I am very much so extra, more often too much. I’m still not cool, but I’m not (that) lame, either.

And I miss that culture a little still.

But, being full of honesty now, I wouldn’t trade this for the world.

Accessible Excellence

August 18th, 2022

The most common thing said about my books comes across as backhanded, but I’ve come to realize it aligns with what I want to do as a writer so completely.

The song goes: “I am not a big reader, but I really liked your book.”

Usually followed by the encore of: “I can’t even remember the last time I finished a whole book, but I finished yours.”

Which means my books are, I don’t know, easy, I guess?

But there’s a concept that has been my North Star since day one (or maybe day two), even when I didn’t know the concept had its own name:

“Accessible excellence.”

There are people who write simple stories. There are also people who write highly complex stories with complicated structures that explore big ideas that bound into every human and metaphysical territory.

My goal has always been to do both.

Talk about the biggest ideas in the simplest of ways.

And while everything changes, I don’t ever see this approach of mine as seasonal.

It’s what gets me up in the morning. It’s the idea that burns inside and fuels me; the idea that makes me excited about being alive and telling stories.

A few weeks ago on Hot Ones, Daniel Kaluuya used the phrase “accessible excellence” to describe Jordan Peele’s approach to filmmaking and storytelling. I absolutely explode with joy when I hear it in the wild.

The reason bad ideas get shared so quickly and easily is because bad ideas are simple and easy to share.

Good ideas deserve the same accessibility.

There should be no gate to keep when it comes to expanding our worldviews, feeding our minds, and nourishing our souls.

I didn’t always, but I know now the biggest compliment I can get is:

“I made it through the very last page.”

I hope you found something along the way.

Cold World Trailer

August 15th, 2022

It has not been a cold summer, but for my readers, it has been a Cold World summer.

Some of the best reviews of my writing career have made their way to me from people who have discovered the secrets of this story set on Earth in 2222; Cold World is a snowstorm of science-fiction and action on its blistering outside, and a tale about spirituality, family, grief, and hope at its eye.

I hope you’ll take a trip there, and invite your friends.

This is the trailer for #ColdWorld.

silly

August 15th, 2022

“As for its being silly, I don’t mind that. Sometimes it’s great fun to be silly, like children playing statues and dying of laughter. And sometimes being silly breaks the even pace and lets you get a new start.”

– The Winter of Our Discontent

Being silly is natural to me, but there are times I forget what silly is.

Those are usually times when I am anxious or stressed or I feel like I am letting people’s expectations of me down.

That is when being reminded of silliness is the most important thing to me. It’s one of the reasons I always have Spider-Man in the back of my mind; in even the most dangerous and life-threatening of situations, ol’ Web-Head has a joke to weave levity through the thread of despair.

Sometimes I am the bringer of silliness. Sometimes a stranger gives it to me.

Last week, I was having a stressful hour. There was too much to do, and I felt like I was too little to do it right. I had a perpetually refreshing list of tasks in my mind, and was dutifully checking boxes as quickly as I could when a woman stopped me.

She asked me if she could ask me a question.

I tried to politely disregard the fact that she had, in fact, already asked me one, and told her sure.

She then inquired: “Who gave you those dimples, your mom or your dad?”

My eyes welled with tears and I smiled, a real one.

I’ve had so many reminders of my mom lately, consciously and deeper; photos and memories, places and moments. I haven’t allowed myself to stay in any, because I haven’t felt strong enough to.

And then this woman reminded me how silly my mom was, and how she passed that silliness on to me; my mom left me so much and that includes these two dimples.

It brought me back. To Earth, to the present, to the moment, to silly.

And I let the list of things I needed to do grow, and I talked to her for a while. Everyone needed something from me, but she wanted to give.

So we were silly together for a minute, and then the world demanded me back, and I returned; not broken, not less than, but restored.

We Will Meet As Strangers

August 13th, 2022

You read the words again.

You’re young and you fall in love with the story, the first and last time you will fall in love. The plot thrills, the characters sing, the words pierce and they cut and they dig and find a place in your soul, creating a permanent home there.

You read the words again.

There are things in this story that you didn’t see before. You’re older now, by years, and you’re not sure if you changed or the story changed but one or both things must be true. Some of the feelings you felt before are there, but others fall away to make room for these new ones; it’s exciting, overwhelming, exhausting. You can’t go home again but you can, and home will always be a familiar and foreign place.

You read the words again.

You went on and lived more life and now you’re back in the story, not only piecing together its elements but your own; your past and present and future disregard the linearity of time, rearranging themselves and fitting in place, like bones, like limbs, making the story more than a story, and more like a life in itself.

You read the words again.

You realize the story isn’t a story at all. It’s a person, a living being. And you realize that all living beings change, both internally and by virtue of your change. You understand more, you feel more deeply, you see the things that have always been there but couldn’t see before. The story also knows you’ve changed and wants nothing more than to be there for you. It wants to hold your hand and walk with you, until you can no longer walk, until there is nothing left of you to take steps. The story loves you. The story has always loved you.

You read the words again.

You fall in love again. For the first and the last time. This is life, if you let it.

You read the words again.

You read the words again.

You read the words again.

No Judgement

August 11th, 2022

“Most of the things we love are the things that embarrass us,” wrote Helena Fitzgerald.

It is terribly true, and I would add: the things we love THE MOST are the things that embarrass us, and the things that embarrass us tell us the most about ourselves and each other.

I like learning about what others like, but I love trying to figure out why.

I’m often asking people what their hobbies are, or what they like to do in their free time, sometimes because of my job but most of the time because I am genuinely interested. Generally, people choose to tell me “normal things”; that is, they talk about the things they like that are widely believed to be what “normal people” like. (Spoiler alert: none of you weirdos are normal.)

It’s when someone tells me about something they love like it’s a secret I haven’t earned the right to know that my ears perk up because a truth is revealed.

When the eyes hit the floor, or the nervous laugh escapes their lips, or the sweat starts to drip from under their arms is when I know that the thing they love is a thing they don’t think they’re supposed to love.

And it is something so beautiful when they say it out loud.

It starts as admission and takes a leap to proclamation; it’s a love letter by morse code, a message in a bottle, said with the hope that someone around will see it, hear it, open it and tell you they feel the same way.

I was embarrassed a lot as a kid, and I love things hard. It took me a long time to understand that I am what I love, not who loves me. It’s why, over the years, I’ve worked hard to sand off my cynical edges; it is so much better to celebrate joy and loving things than it is to find fault and be critical of everyone and everything, which is the internet’s whole ass personality some days.

They say be the adult you needed as a kid; kid me needed this adult me to let him know it’s okay to love so embarrassingly hard.

Please feel free to share the things you love below, as long as you remember one thing:

It is never, ever embarrassing to love.

In Dreams: The Sandman, Flip, and Push

August 8th, 2022

I finished the first season of The Sandman on Netflix this afternoon. As a massive Sandman fan, for years, I personally think it is a better-than-perfect adaptation of the source material.

I also want to add how well the series is cast; Tom Sturridge as Dream is the single best casting choice I have ever seen for a character adapted from literature.

I adored every aspect and I’m obsessed.

Speaking of obsessions: dreams are one of mine.

I wrote a book called Flip back in 2014. It was about (go ahead, guess) dreams. A man, Liam, who has vivid dreams, and another man, Alen, who is killing in them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been telling someone about the book and they interrupt: “Have you ever read Sandman?”

Admission time: when I wrote Flip, I had not read even one volume of Sandman.

And I am so glad I hadn’t.

Sandman is one of those stories where you become two people: the person you were before reading it, and the person after. It’s impossible think of dreaming (and creativity) the same. There is no way I wouldn’t have been influenced by it, and I was surprised to see how many things that work and mine had in common.

You can sub a scythe for a raven.

I shouldn’t have been surprised though, considering how our dreams overlap and swim and bleed and live together.

Flip was me dealing with grief through dreams. When I finally wrote a sequel, Push, it was me dealing with post-grief; what do you fill that inexplicable emptiness with?

The Sandman, meanwhile, explains that we all must change or die.

And the thing that ties Dream’s story and Liam’s story together is that other inexplicable thing: hope.

They say a writer only has one story in them. They spend their lives telling it over and over again.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, the one story I keep telling in all of my books.

I don’t know if I’ve told it well yet.

But I do know I’ll keep trying until I do.