Why I Love Great Writing

Recently, I've read two stories that stuck with me.

The hitch: They were both about dead people.

The first was a long, thoughtful piece by Jeremy Markovich about race car driver Dick Trickle.

                                                                 Photo: SB Nation


The second was a brilliant obituary about a retired nurse named Mary "Pink" Mullaney.

It would be hard to argue either story had a happy ending. Trickle committed suicide after a long bout with untreatable pain, and Ms. Mullaney--who left behind an amazing 'To Do' list for the rest of us-- no longer graces this Earth.

But what both pieces did, brilliantly, is make me wish I'd known the person who inspired the story.

To me, that's what great writing does. It puts us in another world--whether that of a hard-partying short track driver or a Catholic grandmother who carries chicken sandwiches in her purse in case she encounters a hungry person.

Both writers sought to reveal truth. Both wrote with obvious love for their subjects. But what made these pieces special were the anecdotes, the little details that showed the character of the deceased.

Rather than say he was a 'hard-partying, hard-working' driver, Markovich told about the night Trickle became the oldest Rookie of the Year in NASCAR history.

Instead of describing Ms. Mullaney as 'generous,' her biographer made up a hilarious list of how she'd treated hitchhikers, homeless people, and invading possums.

If you have time, check out both stories. My guess is you'll wish you'd met these folks--or, like me--that you'd written these wonderful pieces.

Cheers...and Happy Reading!

-T

A Letter to Oklahoma State Football Players (From a Fan)

Dear Oklahoma State Player,

I've often wondered how you feel as you walk down Hester Street on Saturdays. How it feels to have hundreds of people wave and cheer, offer high fives, and hold up signs with your name on them. I've wondered what you think when complete strangers ask for your autograph or hand you their orange-clad babies for a picture.

photo: http://www.okstate.com/

As a fan and alumnus, I've even wondered sometimes whether you feel used. If, perhaps, you're walking along thinking, "These people don't know me. They can't possibly care about me as a person...or know what I've gone through to get here. They're only cheering because I give them wins."

The truth is I'll never know how you feel when you make that walk on game days.

But I can tell you what it's like to watch and cheer and offer high-fives to the young men who've chosen to play football at Oklahoma State.

I'm delighted when one of our Cowboys makes good--whether that's getting signed to a pro squad or being hired to coach high school ball. Come to my house on Sundays and you'll see me cheer like crazy when Kendall hits the gap in San Franciso, when Dan drills it through the uprights in JerryWorld, or when Dez drags defenders ten yards after making the catch. Like the rest of the Cowboy Nation, my husband and I shed bitter tears when Darrent Williams was killed--then wiped our eyes for a different reason when Donovan Woods earned his Super Bowl ring. (I still have your jersey, Number Eight.)

I don't know how you feel about us--the fans and Alumni. But here's how we feel about you:
                                                                         

Good looking kids, huh?

 

 

The day you chose Oklahoma State, you became family.

You're family because we realize you had other options. Some of you committed to Oklahoma State when our stadium was a joke (Rust-Oleum, anyone?) and our record was worse. And even after we started winning, we understand that a kid growing up in Houston or Dallas could opt for the 'bright lights, big city' experience at a larger school.

Yet you chose Oklahoma State.

And that makes us family.

Are families perfect? Heck, no. We mess up sometimes. We struggle and make mistakes, especially when we're young. (I've always claimed partial credit for Eskimo Joe's phenomenal success. Thankfully, I've matured since.) We're not perfect. We don't expect you to be perfect, either.

And we don't stop loving you when you're not.

Ask anyone from the O-State family about Prentiss Elliot (former player who got into legal trouble) and you'll get: "I heard he's doing better now, and I'm glad." Even after the furor this week over the Sports Illustrated article, an alum tweeted about Artrell Woods (a major source): "Makes me sad. I cried when he caught that catch (after coming back from a terrible back injury)."

We want you to succeed. We're sad (for you) if you don't.

Because you're family.

So when you see me cheering for you on Saturday, know this: I'm cheering because you decided to work, sweat, and study at the university where I met my husband, earned my veterinary degree, and where I want my children to attend.

Because you chose Stillwater, we've heard the same chimes ringing from Edmon Low, walked on the same sidewalks (with their goofy chalk reminders), and sat in the same freezing classrooms. You know better than to swim in Theta Pond (and to visit Voodoo Village if you got suckered into it), and you've felt Gallagher-Iba rumble when the Sooners came to town. Like me, you've waited in line at Whitehurst, cussed the walk from Morrill to Ag Hall, and wondered what genius came up the name Classroom Building.

That makes us family.

After college, whether you wind up in Houston or Chicago or Los Angeles, try this experiment:

Put on your OSU gear and walk around. See how long it takes until someone flashes you the 'Pistols Firing' sign or says "Go Pokes." It's happened to me in places like New Orleans and San Diego and Seaside, Oregon. I guarantee it'll happen to you.
                                                    

photo: http://www.pistolsfiringblog.com/

 

 

 

If you're the gregarious type, stop and tell the person you played football--then get ready to be peppered with questions about your life and career and whether you have kids and how often you get 'home' to Stillwater.

Because that's what family does.

How does it feel to be a Cowboy football player? I'll never know. But I can tell you how it feels to be an OSU alum...

...it feels like coming home.


Cheers...and Go Pokes!

-T

The Abyss

Our tiny rural school lost one of its own last weekend.

His name was Austin. A good kid. Well-liked and from a nice family, he'd seemed as healthy as any seventh grader on the playground. Third-hand accounts are always suspect, but apparently he'd been running, went for a drink of water, and collapsed.

His older brother was with him the whole time.

Photo Credit: http://www.billemory.com/2006/02/time-to-die.html

 

 

So this morning I looked at our little family, at our three-plus-one* children, and thought about all the precautions we take to keep them safe. The healthy food, early bedtimes and limited electronics, the visits to the doctor and dentist. I thought about teacher conferences and late-night parent strategy sessions and how we've chosen where we live based on the quality of schools. How every life choice starts with them.

And then I thought about the tears, the joys, and the tiny insistent worry that never goes away--that your kid will be the one struck by lightning. That you'll be the parent forced to grieve.

To say it's a nightmare is a poor cliché.

To say you'd never truly be happy again probably gets close.

We've known other families who lost children. At the funeral of their four-year-old daughter, my college friends talked about their precious girl, trying to describe her quirks and endearing qualities for those who'd never met her.

Our daughter was the same age. I remember listening to them, sobbing, wondering how anyone could really know our sweet child without having been there the Christmas she stepped into three-inch Barbie heels and chased her brothers around the living room. Without knowing she always puts on her best velvet dress to play in the sand pile, and that she likes to snuggle after her bath.

Who could truly appreciate our beautiful daughter when her daddy's the only one who saw the camel she drew last week during church...and the only one who heard her giggle through the service because she'd drawn a pile of manure behind it?

No-one loves our children like we do because no-one knows them like we do.

And no photos, no stories can truly describe them.

Maybe that's the real tragedy of a lost child. That the treasure we've held and cherished and looked forward to presenting to the world will forever be known only to us.

My friends buried their daughter six years ago. And they do have good times. They celebrate and laugh and enjoy their growing family. But when anniversaries roll around--their daughter's birthday, the day she passed--you sense the deep, painful abyss in their lives.

And so, like this weekend, when other parents lose a beloved child the rest of us can only swallow the lumps in our throats and try to listen to the stories they tell about their sons and daughters...

...and then go home and hug our own.


-T


*We're blessed to have a friend staying with us. She won't understand how much joy she adds until she has children of her own.

 

 

Surf Goddess...or Bionic Woman?

"I'm going to learn to surf," I told my husband. "All the cool people surf. Cameron Diaz and Eddie Vedder and that other guy..."
"Laird Hamilton?"
"Yeah, him. And Eddie Vedder."
My husband rolled his eyes and went back to working on his thesis. "Sounds like fun," he said.

But I was serious. Land-locked, rural dweller that I am, I aimed to surf in my forty-seventh year.

At heart I'm an ocean girl. Born at the rim of the mighty Pacific, drawn to her shore like a King Salmon finding its way home, I sneak away every year and recharge in the grey mist of the Long Beach Peninsula. Surfing isn't such a stretch, really. No so different from rolling up your pants and wading into the waves.

One thing about the ocean in Washington, though. It's damned cold. And at my age, there's less romance in proving you're tough.

So I decided to learn to surf in Hawaii. I studied up, practiced my yoga, and found a surf school run by women.

And on Fathers' Day, I surfed.

North Shore Oahu. Chun's Reef beach. Perfect sun, rolling breakers, my blue-and-white board under my feet. Here's how I felt:

Luckily, we captured some photos. Here's how I actually looked:

And then things got hairy. A wave or two later, I looked like this:

And wound up slightly worse for wear:

 

Swear to God, a surfer dude offered me a beer before he took this picture. When I told him I don't drink any more, he said, "Dude, that truly sucks. Also, you're gonna need a stitch or two before you go back out." 

Yep. I was IN. A real freakin' surfer.

Funny thing, thirty seconds before I cratered, we'd been sitting on our boards watching the waves, and I'd thought, 'I'm doing this again. Not just again, but a lot. Enough that when someone asks what I do, I'll say I'm a writer and a surfer and trail runner...'

Because getting up on the board and knowing I could do it again felt like this:

And if that means an occasional visit to the ER/dentist/endodontist/periodontist, what the hell? At least I can muster a decent attitude after I'm all stitched up:

And the word is, nine-months-to-a-year from now, I'll have a bionic front tooth. Hopefully it'll be surf-proof.

Cheers...and Happy Writing!

-T

                                     
                                   Next day at the Polynesian Cultural Center--all stitched up and ready to Luau!

The Last Honey Bee

I've made no secret of my raw admiration for journalists, especially those who risk their lives to write stories that change our world.

Though the news is often horrifying--Auschwitz, Watergate, babies dying from melamine-contaminated formula--our collective response is anything but. When faced with our failures as humans, we form world coalitions to halt genocide, demand transparency from those we've elected, and impose stricter regulations on food suppliers.

It's an age-old cycle: Exposure. Shock. Response.

But there's a less virtuous cycle, too. We humans adore our distractions, and I'm guiltier than most. But amid the manufactured outrage, the tawdry circus of Weiner photos and starlet mug (I said MUG, dammit) shots, a few journalists bravely paw through the muck for stories that truly matter to humanity.

Enter the humble honey bee.

Known as Apis mellifera, the western honey bee has for centuries pollinated our berries, vegetables, nut and fruit trees.

And bees are disappearing.

So quickly, in fact, that whole sections of food production are threatened. Scientists have been screaming and waving their arms for nearly a decade. Now journalists have taken up the call. TIME magazine has even decided the plight of the honey bee is as cover-worthy as a mom breast feeding a six-year-old.

Bees are important, though. And losing them will change our world. Last winter alone, the USDA reports that a third of all colonies collapsed. Add in the loss of other natural pollinators, and humans are facing a genuine crisis.

We love watching celebrities make fools of themselves. But we NEED to eat. And without bees, that'll be darned challenging.

Oh, sure. We'll have wheat and corn and other wind-pollinated crops. But without honey bees, human existence will be poorer. We need to understand what's happening, and why. And we need to take steps to fix the problem. Exposure. Shock (one hopes). Response.

My first job as a member of humanity is to make sure our species thrives. So the next time I reward a pointless, inane article with my valuable 'click,' I should ask myself why I'm not rewarding journalists who've exposed a real problem and demanded a response.

Maybe I should ask when I last saw a honey bee...

And whether I'll ever see another.

Before We Get to the Good Stuff (or: Better Sex, Part 3)

Earlier (okay, much earlier) I talked about writing as a two-stage process--What to Write, and How to Write It--and whined about my personal struggles with story structure. Then I claimed that the second part comes easier for me, which, by extension, implies I think my prose is hot stuff.

Except, not so much.

In fact, I've spent the last several months (beginning, I'm pretty sure, the day after I said I think I'm an okay writer) wondering how my craft will ever rise to the level of my literary heroes. I'm currently drafting my next thriller, and while I adore the characters and story, some days the words splattered onto the page are mule excrement.

Moments of doubt? Yep. And the Grand Canyon is a nice little ditch.

The result: My usually measured-but-steady pace has slowed to what could be generously termed 'glacial'. I start a scene bursting with action, conflict, and--wonder of wonders--critical plot points. But then, like sand in the gears, doubts sift into my writing. My fingers slow. My mind drifts. My eye catches a clunky phrase and won't let go. It's not so much writer's block as writer's ooze.

So I devour articles that promise to unleash my creativity. Join groups that track my daily word count. And if (when) my internal editor whispers that my prose sucks, I bash her over the head with a coffee cup and keep writing, writing, writing.

But when I'm not writing, I think.

I think about the story, sure. About how my characters will react when I heave them off the next cliff. About clarifying murky plot points. About boiling down the story to essentials, then seasoning the soup with rich detail.

Mostly I've spent the last few months thinking about what kind of writer I want to be. Should I try to crank out 'online content' every two months, or toil away on a deep-bellied tome that takes a lifetime to perfect? Maybe there's a place I should aim for, somewhere in the infinite, always-shifting middle.

That's right. I'm trying to decide whether I want to be McDonald's, Mahogany Steakhouse, or heaven help me, The Olive Garden.

I mean, there are ten thousand writers out there, and probably many hundreds of types of writers. And while I can learn something from--and I mean this sincerely--every single author on the planet, there are a scant few who exemplify the artist/technician/professional I want to be someday.

But there are a few. Robert Crais, Don Winslow, Elmore Leonard (the grand master), and a brilliant new author named Steve Ulfelder. Then there's Dennis Lehane who, in my opinion, is the best noir writer of my generation.

And here's what Dennis Lehane says about self-doubt: 

"Catch me on a good day, I think half of my books aren’t too bad. Catch me on a bad day, I think I’ve never written a good line."

 

After subjecting himself to the unsparing critique of fellow writers in college, Dennis Lehane began his career cranking out a book a year writing traditional--if deeper than average--crime novels. After achieving some success, he took five years to write The Given Day, a seven-hundred-page literary treatise on civil unrest and the dawn of the American Labor movement that confused his fans and confounded his critics.

The Edgar-winning sequel, Live By Night, took him four months to write.

Lehane has taught creative writing, composed episodes for a couple of television series, and written short stories. I think there's a stage production in there, too. And a movie or four. Meanwhile, he's an active participant in the writing community, a trustee of his local library, and a fierce advocate for literacy.

This isn't a guy who serves up McNuggets, cashes the check, and retreats to his private island.

Maybe Live By Night came easy, but it also came eighteen years into his career. And in those eighteen years, I doubt there was a single moment he sat at the keyboard and tried to generate 'content'. Though I haven't met Dennis Lehane (yet), based on interviews--and the breathtaking precision of his prose--I'd wager he's sweated over every word. That he's paused. Cursed. Backspaced. Typed-and-retyped a sentence forty different ways until it felt right.

I'd guess he sees himself as inhabiting the trenches, fighting to make every word his best and pushing other writers to produce their best. In this interview, he said:

"It's good not only to realise that you can't please all of the people all of the time, but that you don't want to. There's a certain type of reader that you don't ever want to write for. And that really helps."

I'm a long way from being the writer I want to become. But in the last few weeks, I've settled into a quiet acceptance that the way I want to tell stories requires a deep commitment to word choice, to precision and cadence. I've accepted that my chosen course means any success will be at once ephemeral, singular, and hard-fought.

Click on the reviews for Lehane's best book, and you'll find one-star reviews. Check the sales for McNuggets, and you'll see they're selling like...well, McNuggets.

What kind of writer do I want to be? The kind who tells deep, thrilling stories with fine prose. With my best prose. And that takes more than word counts. That kind of work takes effort and thought and perseverance. It means honing my ear, reading other authors. It means writing and re-writing my sentences until they sound exactly, precisely right.

And creating fine prose requires something else--at least in the beginning: Time.

Cheers...and Happy Writing!

-T

source for photo: http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-four-shapes-of-chicken-mcnuggets-2013-2

Stop what you're doing and read this.

I haven't posted in over a month, hard at work on next manuscript and unwilling to risk losing the 'thread' of my story. But I've taken a few breaks to read, and today I found this on Janet Reid's blog.

It's not about what you think...

http://therumpus.net/2010/07/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-44-how-you-get-unstuck/

I'll wait here while you finish. Yeah, I brought tissues. *taps foot*

Were you blown away? Talk about stripping away all the bullshit to reveal what's underneath. Writing bone-marrow deep like that takes real courage. Sometimes I get close. I look over the edge, stare truth in the eye. But something--now I know it's fear--makes me blink. Instead of bold and ugly and real, I pull back and write 'safe'.

Someday, I swear--and even if it takes a lifetime--I'm going to write like Sugar.

-T