The Can’t Monster is a story about a boy who attempts to climb a mountain, fails, comes to terms with his failure, and tries again. Along the way, he encounters a monster that [SPOILER ALERT] turns out to be imaginary. The mountain and the monster are both plot devices with a symbolic meaning worth exploring.
During the considerable lulls in the publication process, I found myself pondering the significance of the symbols I employed in my story. I wondered if anyone else would pick up on them, or if they’d just take the story at face value. After all, The Can’t Monster is fundamentally a children’s book, not a contender for the title “Great American Novel.” Also, when it comes to the use of symbols, I’m not exactly Herman Melville (although, unlike Moby Dick, my book can be read in a matter of minutes, not over the course of several fortnights). Still, it’s worth discussing what the mountain and the monster in The Can’t Monster represent.
Here’s my take: the mountain is the thing to be achieved and the monster is the thing that stands in the way of achieving it. In the story, the mountain is a mountain. In life, a mountain can be a major life goal (a college degree, for example) or a lesser pursuit (a hobby, an adventure, a significant purchase, a project, etc.).
As a teenager, two friends and I ascended to the top of nearby Pilot Mountain from its base (as high as legally allowed, that is). It felt like quite the feat at the time. Today, that quest seems like a fairly leisurely hike. It’s not that I’ve climbed steeper or taller mountains since, because I haven’t. I’ve just accomplished things that are a lot more meaningful to me. Along the way, I’ve encountered many monsters.
Most recently, the process of publishing a children’s book represented a mountain. I wouldn’t exactly consider it my own personal Mount Everest, since my livelihood doesn’t depend on its success, and my investment of time was relatively modest (compared to most book projects), but this doesn’t mean that I didn’t run into a few monsters along the way.
The first of these was the submissions process. Not all book publishers take unsolicited submissions. Those that do tend to respond only when they’re interested enough in the project to offer a book deal. Would-be authors typically don’t get rejection notices…they just wait, wait, and then wait some more before giving up. I went through this with The Can’t Monster and am currently going through it again with a follow-on project. The late Tom Petty spoke for all authors and prospective authors when he said that the waiting is the hardest part.
Once I found a publisher, new monsters appeared. One of these was the process of trying to determine what the monster in the story should look like, given that it didn’t really exist. Limited to communicating with the illustrator through an intermediary at the publisher, I quickly grew frustrated. We went through four of five iterations of the monster before arriving at something I could live with. Getting some of the other illustrations right presented lesser, but still noteworthy, challenges. Eventually, I made peace with the idea that, for the book to ever see the light of day, I had to make some compromises. The great, it turned out, was once again the enemy of the good enough.
The monsters mentioned above were not enough to deter me from reaching the top of this one metaphorical mountain (i.e., publication). Had I allowed these obstacles (among others) to deter me, then The Can’t Monster would have won. If so, my unpublished story would hold a uniquely ironic significance for me, and for me alone. Fortunately, in this case, I successfully stared down the monster.
As Will discovers in The Can’t Monster, most of the monsters I’ve encountered throughout my life have been in my head. I’d like to be able to report that I’ve prevailed in each of these confrontations. The truth is that my track record remains quite mixed.
I suspect that yours might be, as well. That’s how life tends to be: to avoid the monsters, we end up avoiding the mountains. The Can’t Monster prefers it that way. Don’t let it win.
Buy your copy of The Can’t Monster today via Amazon or Barnes & Noble. FYI: the paperback measures 6.5″ square, whereas the hardcover edition is 8″ square.
The Can't Monster 