Like anyone entering his or her 20s, Dominic Cicere had a vision for what he thought life would look like one decade later.
"Things start clicking into place — find a job, getting married, some people start having kids by the time they’re 30," he said. "But I haven't gotten married yet, and kids are like a distant twinkle. I think these are things, when I was 20, that I thought I'd have done by I was 30."
An author who lives in Arlington, Cicere's captures the expectations and realities of life between 20 and 30 in "Near Wild Heaven," his new collection of shorts stories, poems and an original screenplay.
"Going from 20 to 30…it's easy to say that's the most important time [in your life]. Well, obviously, zero-to-10 is pretty important, too."
Cicere, 30, began writing creatively back in 1998. Some of the pieces in his book were crafted at a creative writing class at NOVA. "That time period is when I really started to write. Everything before that was, you know, papers for school," he said.
The work he's collected in "Near Wild Heaven" is symbolic of the propulsive emotions one feels approaching 30.
"There's definitely an over-arching feeling that one comes away with. It's sort of this 'almost there' kind of feeling. It's one of the reasons I chose the title. It's an R.E.M. song, and it's about a relationship that's almost there but can't quite make it. There's a lot of that in my writing, where things almost work out but there's still hope for the future," he said.
"But at the same time, it's not something to be taken too seriously," he said. "It’s not 'Ulysses' … or really anything like that."
THE SCREENPLAY he's included in the book was written in that spirit several years ago. "It's pretty much labeled as a derivative piece by anyone who's read it, and by myself. Kevin Smith, Ed Burns…there were the types of movies I was watching at the time, and it comes out in the piece," he said.
The plot centers on the search for Mrs. Right. "I don't necessarily find her at the end of the movie, but that's life," said Cicere.
The piece also serves as a snapshot of the lives of he and his friends at the time. "The screenplay was something for my friends to sit around and laugh at."
Laugh at, or laugh with?
"Hopefully both."
Cicere, who attended George Mason University and works for the government doing logistics, published "Near Wild Heaven" under the banner of Northside Limited. He said he'd like to create a publishing label in which he can release small books from other local writers who do short stories and poetry. "Not a money-making thing, but putting out a band of like-minded folks," he said.
Read more about Cicere and "Near Wild Heaven" by visiting www.myspace.com/dominicmcicere.