In Honor of Ink-Stained Wretches

My first paying job in journalism was writing features for the Richmond News Leader, may it rest in peace.  

That job was beyond fantastic, for two reasons: First, upon arriving in the Capital of the Confederacy from Alaska, I was told: "Write whatever strikes you as interesting. People, places, events. Tell us what you see, and why we should care."

Those extremely generous words came from Bob Walsh, my editor, and the late, great Nelson Hyde, the editor who initially hired me, a man capable of seeing -- somehow -- something worthwhile in a little greenhorn punk fresh out of journalism school.

But the second reason I loved that job?  The staff. The News Leader's reporters, editors and administrative assistants were seriously dedicated to putting out the best newspaper, every single day (except Sunday. We didn't have a Sunday edition).  They loved good writing. They edited with an adamant focus on serving readers. Plus, they were some of the nicest people I've ever met.

They were also characters. Reality TV has nothing on that newsroom.

One of those News Leader characters still kicking is Jay Stafford. He's now books editor with the Richmond Times-Dispatch. When I first met Jay, he sported a blonde mustache as macho as Magnum PI's, yet often offered impromptu tutorials about the finer details of the British monarchy. Jay could also be relied upon to upbraid any Yankee rudeness with the choicest terms available to the literary man.

Yesterday, his review of "The Clouds Roll Away" ran in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. It's an honor to be reviewed by somebody of his calibre. I'm so grateful. On a personal note, the review brought back many hilarious memories of the News Leader smoking room, where Jay often pontificated between puffs about the latest etiquette infraction committed by Sarah Ferguson. We now know Jay's take on the social-climbing Duchess was prescient. What I would give to hear Jay Stafford vent about Fergie selling access to Prince Andrew for money.

Here's to you, Jay Stafford. One of a kind.


Thank you.

Lost and Found

     I lost my notebook.
     Not just any notebook. This was a Moleskine that contained all notes for the next book.
     Every bit of it: Visits to the state mental hospital. Interviews with FBI agents. Insiders at Emerald Downs horse racing.
     Phone numbers. Contacts. Business cards.
     When I first realized the notebook was missing, I had just returned from my college reunion at Mount Holyoke. Searching my bags, I came up empty, then remembered everything spilling from my purse during some high-altitude turbulence.
     I called three airport lost-and-founds, calling day and night. No response. I wrote emails. Left more messages. Still no word. One recording said: "If you don't hear from us, it's because we didn't find it."
     Yesterday marked the tenth day without my notes. Today, I was scheduled to start writing the next book.
    No notes, no go. 
    The last ten days have been marked by a quavering sensation that thrummed across my rapidly beating heart. How in the world can I recreate all that information? 
    The answer kept landing with a thud: You can't. 
    While a close friend prayed for the notebook's return, my sister-in-law, the redoubtable Pasqualina Giorello Labello, told me to take a half-filled glass of water and drop St. Anthony inside. 
    Believe me, I was tempted. But after ten days petitioning lost-and-found, without response, I moved to the next stage. If God could rip every last possession from Job's hands, and Job could still praise God, shouldn't I be able to deal with some missing notes - and still give thanks?
    The notes were gone but I was alive and well. And maybe this awful situation had a point. Maybe I needed to do more research. Maybe I missed something. Delays, as people will tell you after some just-missed accident, have good reasons, although we never see it at the time. 
    Yesterday morning, I gave thanks for that which I didn't want. Instead of asking -- okay, begging -- for the notebook's return, I thanked God for knowing what was best. I got myself into this pickle, could He please show me how to get out of the jar?
   That's when the phone rang. 
   Right smack dab in the middle of that prayer. When I picked up, a man with a Chicago accent as heavy as wet wool said: "Is this da person who lost da notebook?"
    I held my breath.
   "I'm calling from United Airlines," he said. "We found da notebook, at O'Hare Airport."

    If you write this stuff in novels, readers throw the book across the room.
    She gives thanks to God, and suddenly the notebook is found?  Give me a break.
    But that's what happened. Fact. Not fiction.
    "The things that make God dear to us," wrote Oswald Chambers, "are not so much His great big blessings as the tiny things, because they show His amazing intimacy with us; He knows every detail of our individual lives."
    Lost. And found.

                                              

 WWMLD?     

     A women's college is not for every woman. 
     Particularly a women's college like Mount Holyoke, isolated in western Massachusetts with few outside distractions. 
     After one semester, some women transfer to co-ed schools with party scenes and unisex dorms. 
     But for those who stay, it's probably not overstatement to say we'd walk barefoot over glowing coals for our alma mater.
     The Marines holler, "Sermper Fi." 
     We cry out, "Mary Lyon!"
     At my 25th reunion this weekend, my Mount Holyoke classmates wore bracelets that read "WWMLD?" -- What Would Mary Lyon Do?
     In 1834, Mary Lyon left her position as assistant principal at Ipswich Female Seminary to spend the next three years crusading for a women's college that resembled Princeton and Harvard and Yale, all of which excluded females. Contacting people as far away as Michigan (not yet a state), Mary Lyon persuaded wealthy donors that young women deserved an education equal to that of their brothers and fathers. 
     Early donations ranged from six cents to one-thousand dollars. 
     Undeterred by an economic depression gripping the United States, Mary Lyon wrote ads and pamphlets announcing the school's plan. Despite severe exhaustion, she developed a curriculum, chose the school's location, and supervised the design of its first building. 
     Some people donated quilts and bedding. 
     Mary Lyon hired teachers and put the school's first applicants through rigorous entrance exams. She stocked the classrooms with science equipment and got that first building constructed.
     All the while, she endured ridicule from people insisting higher education was "wasted" on women. 
     This year, Mount Holyoke College turned 173 years old. The first of the Seven Sisters.
     For the class of 1985, our reunion was more than a trip down memory lane. It was a reflection on how Mount Holyoke transformed us from teenage girls to women of courage, curiosity, and conviction.
     When Raleigh Harmon first rolled into my creative life, I quickly realized she was a Mount Holyoke alumnae. The school offers one of best undergraduate science programs in the country, particularly in geology. (In 1837, Mary Lyon, who taught herself chemistry, required seven courses in science and mathematics for graduation, a requirement unheard of at other female seminaries.)
     Beyond college, Raleigh continues to exhibit Mount Holyoke hallmarks. Smart but not arrogant. Thoughtful but not wise in her own eyes. Never expecting anyone to make life easier, she will not hesitate to help others along the way. 
     For 173 years, beginning with Mary Lyon's example, Mount Holyoke women have exuded a certain gracious grit. 
     Educators, innovators, scientists-- like Virginia Apgar, class of 1929, who developed the Apgar Test for newborns. 
     Corporate heads, challenging artists, cabinet members -- like Elaine Chow, class of 1975, Labor Secretary under President George W. Bush, following the footsteps of Frances Perkins, class of 1902, the country's first female cabinet member, and the first head of Department of Labor. 
     But there's something else. Equally crucial.
     When the driver picked me up at the airport, heading for campus, he described his years as a bus driver around New England. 
     "You what I noticed about you Mount Holyoke girls?" he said, in a thick Massachusetts accent. "When you got off the bus, you always turned to me and said, 'Thank you.'"
      Yes. That's what Mary Lyon would do.

 

                                 Got Fear?

    That terrible secret carried since childhood. 
The time you didn’t get busted, because nobody witnessed the crime. 

  How you feel about that person -- that person everybody else adores.

  Painful, personal things we want to avoid thinking about.  
But writers should do the exact opposite.

  Writing books -- novels in particular -- is a perennially fearful journey. With each book, the writer begins with a flat field of good intention but soon enough everything is getting tilled, furrowed, hoed, seeded and then this strange unexpected harvest appears, the kind of odd fruit that causes the writer utter defensive statements to editors. Things like: “Well, I know I said the book was about quilting, but that was before I realized all these quilters were serial killers.”

  Writers sympathize with bad guys, because an author who doesn’t creates cardboard villains. We show the worst things happening to the nicest people, because conflict turns pages. We dig down to the messiest parts of the soul because -- wait, you are digging down to the messiest parts. Aren’t you?

Because that’s where the reader needs us -- and wants us. 

  More importantly, that’s where God wants us. 

  Consider the disciples in the boat:

  “On that day, when evening had come, [Jesus] said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.' And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. . . . A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?' He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be still!' Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"  Mark 4:35-40 (NRSV)
     If I could invent one tool for writers it would be a Fear-o-Meter. Looks like a hand-held compass but emits an ear-piercing screech whenever pointed at the writer’s worst fear. More than an embarrassing device for a humiliating profession, the Fear-o-Meter’s real purpose would be to make writers stop, and consider. 

    Maybe all that's needed is confession and repentance. Maybe more trust in the power of Jesus Christ.  
    But for writers, fear is usually a signal to start writing, start looking deep into those swirling emotions.

  Of course, that kind of examination requires hard work. Really hard work. And in the meantime, writers have thousands of ideas. Hundreds of stories. Dozens of great characters. 
    Unfortunately, most of them are worthless.

  Nobody can guarantee that writing about what scares you will automatically bring a best-seller. But it does mean your books are much more likely to have passion, and life, and that undefinable quality that draws in readers who later say, “Gee, I thought I was the only one who felt that way . . . .”

  Those two highly esteemed theologians, Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello, sat down last year for an interview before a live audience at the Apollo Theatre. Springsteen offered some insights into writing songs, and since his songs always sound like short stories to me, I sat up to listen.

  Guess what? The Boss has got a Fear-O-Meter! 
    And he never leaves home without it:

   "I’ve always believed the greatest rock and roll musicians are desperate men. You’ve got to have something bothering you all the time. My songs are good because … it’s like in art and love, hey, one and one makes three. In music, if it makes two, you’ve failed, my friends . . . . If all you got is your notes, you’ve failed. You’ve got to find that third thing that you don’t completely understand, but that is truly coming up from inside of you. And you can set it any place, you can choose any type of character, but if you don’t reach down and touch that thing, then you’re just not gonna have anything to say, and it’s not gonna feel like it has life and breath in it, you’re not gonna create something real, and it’s not gonna feel authentic. So I worked hard on those things." 

Bruce Judisch is so much fun to read. Even if I'm not going to read a certain book, I'll still read Bruce's review of it, just to hear what he says. And how he says it. He's got a gift. What an honor and privilege to hear his words about The Clouds Roll Away. Read his other reviews; you'll see what I mean.

Word Vessel

The gracious and generous Cathy Bryant invited me over to her great blog for writers, appropriately called Word Vessel.  I enjoyed surfing her site; it offers many different author voices. 


If you're on Facebook, sign up for Cathy's near-daily giveaways of FREE books. 


Isn't she awesome?

Silence and gratitude

It happens: Somebody reads your book and understands.

 Not just the story, but the theme running like ground water under the narrative bedrock.

Of course, leave it to The Christian Manifesto, whose motto is "Jesus. Culture. Sarcasm."

And thank you, Melissa Wells.