Resolute

ENGRAVING of the HMS RESOLUTE

When I hear that word, I either think of the desk, the one in the White House, or the ship which lent the desk both its wooden hull and its name. And this is where I’ll start my brand-spankin’-new blog, I guess, by ruminating on a failed arctic expedition, some ruin, a grand resurrection, and a legacy of reinvention. Also, arguably, by success and failure in nearly equal measure. And, oh yeah, also writing fiction. The Resolute desk, which has played host to many of modern America’s most important political moments since it moved to the Oval Office in 1961, was originally a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. From 1880 to 1961, it floated around the White House, only to be rediscovered by Jackie Kennedy during her restoration work as First Lady and put back in its proper place. That’s all fine, but not particularly interesting.

Here's the part I really do find interesting: The oak for the desk was taken from the timbers of the HMS Resolute, a barque-rigged Royal Navy ship outfitted specifically for Arctic explorations. The Resolute launched in 1850 as part of a massive effort to discover the fate of Arctic Explorer John Franklin, whose attempt to find a North West Passage in 1845 ended in silence and mystery (spoiler, he and his entire crew died in 1847).

Long story short (we’re here to talk about writing, after all, not boats…), the Resolute met a fate hardly better than Franklin’s. After a measly four years in service, unsuccessfully searching for the lost voyage, the Resolute became trapped in the arctic ice and was abandoned, left to do whatever ships do in such unfortunate circumstances.

In 1855, an American whaler from Connecticut found the vessel drifting nearly 1,200 miles from where it was last seen, and rescued it. The Resolute was purchased by the American government in 1856, cleaned up, and sailed to England as a gift for Queen Victoria. One can only imagine receiving such a bizarre gift from a foreign government, I suppose—but ever pragmatic, Victoria put the ship back into service, where it never again left home waters before it was retired and scrapped for timber in 1879.

The oak timbers were used to build, among other things, a desk. It weighed a whopping 1,300 pounds, and was sailed back to the United States, because apparently, such tokens of esteem were normal?

In other words, the Resolute had a pretty wild and relatively unsuccessful, disappointing life, and that was before it began serving as the stage for the many notable deeds and misdeeds of twenty four American presidents.

Here are my takeaways:

1)      Early failure does not preclude later success.

2)      Success, likewise, does not always look the way one expects it to.

3)      Boats and desks seem to share a capacity for resurfacing in unlikely places.

4)      If you want to make a lasting impression next Christmas, give someone a 19th century boat.

Seriously, though, I find it fascinating that a ship of middling repute as a sailing vessel found much greater notoriety as a desk. And as a desk, it hasn’t endured in the popular imagination because it’s level (true), strong (true), heavy (true), and huge (true)—in other words, it isn’t notable because it’s a good desk. It’s notable because of the things it has made people feel and the stories it has told. Fine, fine, a bit of a stretch, but hear me out. We remember the Resolute desk for things like FDR having a little door added so that his wheelchair could be hidden beneath it or John Kennedy Jr. playing in the footwell. It’s those stories that have seared themselves into the American consciousness. To say that desk has seen things is to understate the obvious (and maybe it is also to snicker with immature schoolkid glee).

I think if you’re going to make resolutions, you ought to do so knowing you can be resolute and still fail. You can be resolute and succeed in ways you didn’t plan that weren’t even part of your own goals.

This has happened to me, so I should know.

In 2022, I resolved to finish my MFA thesis novel.

I didn’t.

Instead, I finished it 2 months late. Success! Not on anyone’s timeline, of course, and as riddled with problems as I assume the Resolute was when it was found floating aimlessly in the ocean.

In 2023, I resolved to query that same (finished, ha!) novel to agents!

I didn’t!

Instead, I rewrote the manuscript twice, cutting out nearly a full third of what I’d written and completely reworking most of what I’d done before. We’ll talk more about that at a later date, I promise.

So here it is 2024, and it’s tempting to be hopelessly irresolute. Making declarations about what I’m going to do seems a bit pointless after two years of failure. But I’m finally ready to embark on the next part of this expedition, I think. My friend Tim would be pleased to see that his boat metaphor for novel drafts applies in grand fashion to this blog post; he’s already told me that it's time to see if this book is seaworthy.

Neither of us know whether it will float or sink, yet, but hey. The Resolute made better furniture than it did a sailing vessel, so maybe there’s some kind of future out there for this novel no matter what happens. Which is why I’m writing this blog—er, Captain’s Log?—to begin with.

On that note, here’s what I’m going to be up to, and very possibly failing to achieve, in 2024.

PUBLISHING:

Query that novel. I can’t control any other part of the process past that, so that’s the goal, packed with all the hopes and dreams that go along with trying to launch a successful career.

WRITING:

Finish the next book. There’s a fair amount of distance to cover before I’m done. I’m hoping some of the lessons I learned in revising this year (see the post I’m writing about revision!) will make the writing faster.

PROFESSIONAL LIFE:

Build out and launch a website. If you’re reading this, I may have succeeded!

Work on building writing community.

Write a blog (again, if you’re reading this, yay me!). No idea how consistent I’ll be, but I want to be able to start a good repository of my experiences for me and anyone else those stories might help down the road.

I am as resolute as I can be. Certainly resolute enough to be at least a boat-turned-desk kind of writer. Whatever comes next, I’m looking forward to figuring out how to be the best version of that writer I can be.

Note: all my facts came from things I learned in a book about the White House I read as a kid, verified by Wikipedia searching. This isn’t a research essay…I’m just a curious person with a blog.

Other note: Thanks, Tim, for everything. Also: thanks for reading, friend. Welcome aboard.