On writers and writing

You wouldn’t listen to a record by Elvis Costello and then drop him a note, tell him what a fine record it was and how thoroughly Southern he managed to be for those three minutes, fifty-six seconds of “Country Darkness,” and that you write songs, too, and…

But you can write to writers. They’ll read your notes and write back. They’ll look over your scars and show you theirs – for a writer, a tattoo would just be too damned redundant – and then tell you to keep at it, just keep dragging ass to the computer or old Remington or taking up the pen and paper or the stick and dirt, you’ll be published yet.

A few years ago, I wrote Lewis Nordan. I’d read “Music of the Swamp” and “Wolf Whistle” and thought he’d understand. I sent him the opening chapter of my novel. This was either before I got my first agent or after my first agent died, and even longer before I got my second agent and she tried, Lord she tried, and then she dropped me. I was at some low point. My blues had teeth.

It was asking too much of his time, of course, but Lewis Nordan wrote back to say he was recuperating from a serious car wreck, I think it was, and so he had time to read what I’d written and respond. I was right. He understood.

I don’t know what it is about writers. Maybe it’s that they don’t make rock-star money. They live in real towns and hold down jobs. They teach writing at the college. They drink among us.

And so a few years ago I wrote to Larry Brown, down in Oxford, Miss. I must have been reading one of his books. “Fay,” I think it was. I told him what a damned fine book it was and asked him what advice he might have for an unpublished writer. I knew what he’d say, because there are only two things to say to an unpublished writer – keep writing or quit – and published writers never seem to prescribe the latter. Quitting is too easy. Quitting doesn’t scar.

He wrote back, of course. That’s what writers do. “I’m rushed for time so I’ll be brief,” it began, and then ran for just shy of two single-spaced pages. (See: what writers do.) “I do get a lot of letters like yours and can’t possibly answer all of them, but I read your paper (The Commercial Appeal, in Memphis) every Sunday, so there you go.”

He wrote about what he called “an apprenticeship period” and how his lasted eight years. He wrote about stuff he’d written and then shit-canned, five novels and some eighty short stories. “I burned one of the novels because I thought it would be strengthening for me. And it probably was. I know it was because I couldn’t tell you one line out of that novel now. It wasn’t any good.”

Six paragraphs in, Larry Brown made note of how he was going to be brief, “and here I’ve run on.” He had to catch a plane the next day to New York for a pre-premiere party for the movie made from his writing, “Big Bad Love.” He wrote about Arliss Howard and Debra Winger, who made the movie, and he wrote, “They’ve been to my house and I’m fixing to go to theirs.” He seemed amazed at his good fortune, but rooted as ever in his place in the world and his struggle and the struggles yet ahead. I guessed that by the time Larry Brown left New York for home his head wouldn’t have been turned even a little bit by New York but the big city would have some mud crusting on its fancy shoes.

He said he still got stuff rejected. He said his favorite parts of novels were sometimes cut because “because my editor shows me where it’s not needed. And sometimes we argue. But it’s a process.”

Finally, he said had to run. “All you can do if you believe in your stuff is send it out until you exhaust every possibility. A friend of mine had his book rejected fifty times before it was taken. So think about that.” He wished me luck. He wished me well. “all best,” he wrote, and signed his name.

Then, having given me all that time he didn’t have to spare, he got an envelope and wrote my name and address on it in letters nearly an inch high. Couple of days later, it made it up to Memphis from down in Oxpatch. I read the letter several times that day and probably several more the next and then I filed it away. I pull it out from time to time. I pulled it out around Thanksgiving of the year Larry Brown, who wrote strong stuff in a true voice, died of a heart attack.

I came across it the other day, going through my office, the room where I write. I was sorting stuff and things and I came across all manner of both -- rejections and old drafts of books and stories, the letter from Larry Brown and that note from Lewis Nordan, too. I kept the keepers and did what they said to do: keep keeping on.

Say what?

Monday morning. Marah's on the box singing, "Faraway You" and "My Heart is the Bums on the Street" and "The Catfisherman." I see that I haven't blogged in more than a week, and a funny thing about that. Originally, I wanted my previous post to stay on top because a literary agent had agreed to read a few sample chapters from my novels, and in my e-mail to her I mentioned that the post in question pretty much said everything there was to say about me as a writer. I hadn't intended to write such a post. Damned thing just sort of wrote itself.

Strange, feeling like you've finally said what it was you wanted to say. The urge to then just shut up is mighty, indeed.

Ah, but it's a new week. I've got Marah on my box singing, "Round Blue Eyes" and "Barstool Boys." There's writing to be done. There are things to say even if I can't imagine what they might be ...

The good book

Thursday morning. Josh Ritter's on the box, singing Springsteen and Prine and his own stuff, too. I think what we all want, really, is for our own stuff -- what we do, dream up, create -- to someday sit on a shelf with the work of the greats and not look like a Dixie cup aside a chalice.

We want to do work that matters, moves people. I'm not talking about fame and money and movie rights. My idea of conquering the world with my words must seem to some like small victories. Honest to God? I want to write a book that my wife, for whom Bleak House is the Bible, calls great.

Now tell me, hon, what you done with Chekhov's gun

Tuesday morning. The Band's on the box signing, "Now tell me, hon, what you done with the gun." And Chekhov, you know, he wrote, "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." He's not just talking about weaponry, of course, but about anything, everything, that one might put in a story. He's saying, if it doesn't count, doesn't mean something, it ought not be there. My general feeling on literary rules is, learn them, master them, then blow them to bits and feathers, but this is a good one. It may be the best. Words to write by. That's all from me today, my friends. Work now. Now work.

A damn good plan, with cursing

Friday morning. The sky looks like it just might tune up and cry. It's Phosphorescent on the box signing, "I Don't Care if There's Cursing." It could be my theme song if, I don't know, I needed a theme song. Like, say, if I had a TV variety show like dead old Mike Douglas. It would be a variety show without much, well, variety. I'd invite shitlots of great musicians like Josh Ritter and the Black Keys and the Avett Brothers and I'd turn over the whole damn show some weeks to my man Bob Dylan and my man Neil Young and maybe even My Morning Jacket. I'd have my favorite writers on, too (I hope there's money in the budget for a time machine. Or a shovel).

But anyway, I don't have a TV variety show. Alas, alas. I don't have much of a lot of anything in a king-of-all-media kind of way. I have this blog. I have a small handful of published stories. I have a couple of novels, unpublished despite their being hot-shit-in-neon worthy of the shelf (if I don't think so, why should anyone else?) And, let's see. Yeah, that's about it. No publisher. No agent. (I've had two, but one died and the other quit me. It's not like I'm death to agents -- the one who quit me is in fine health, so far as I know. We parted on good terms. She was great to me, it just didn't happen.) Oh, and I have my Twitter thing...

Yes, that's my big thing now. Just this morn on Facebook I posted:

David Williams cordially begs all of his friends to follow him at twitter.com/damnshortstory where he is tweeting, you know, damn short stories. Two or three a day, about my usual fare: music and drink, Memphis and the Delta, God, the devil and lesser evils, a little gunplay, some greyhounds. If you like it, please, please spread the word. This is my latest attempt to turn the publishing world's head or grab it by the scruff of the damned neck. Thanks, my friends.

My plan: Spend all of my morning writing time -- setting aside the latest novel, "Poor Boy, Long Way From Home," -- for the next, say, 50 days. Spend those days tweeting damn short stories two or three times a day. Be relentless about finding the right people to follow (good friends, dear readers, agents for literary fiction, publishing types, folk of the book world just generally, musicians I like, and George Clooney, because we're from the same Kentucky parts and played tennis once {I won; he was gracious} and he might want to turn one of my damn short stories into a normal length movie and I like George, I think he has talent and integrity, and I'd sell him the movie rights for, well, a shitlot of money.)

My plan, cont. Hope those people I follow then follow me. Rewteet me and the like. See my number of folowers grow to the point where -- hot shit in neon -- some agent or editor says one of two things:

1. What say we publish a book of these damn short stories?
2. Do you have any, you know, normal-length stories?

A hundred and forty characters walk into a bar

So this is me, trying to meet the modern world on its turf. This is me, buying the modern world a drink and playing it some jukebox songs. This is me, getting the modern world just a little bit loose and pickled on the booze I've bought and saying, "What about this, modern world? How about I tweet damn short stories on Twitter." The modern world says, "Short stories in 140 characters or less?" I say, "Hell, all it takes is one really good character for a story." The modern world asks if I've got a catchy name for it. I say, "damnshortstory." The modern world says -- well, I don't know. It was garbled. And the jukebox was loud. It was Tift Merritt on the box, singing "Mixtape" ...

Me, I've been waiting outside, most of my life, oh like a rare B-side

Our girl Tift sings about analog and cassettes and Mazzy Star -- mysteries, all, to the modern world.

Maybe, in some contrary way, that's the perfect soundtrack for this foray. So come visit my Twitter page for some stories. I'll keep 'em damn short.

Eggs and bacon down in Jackson Square

Saturday morning. Sitting here typing with the window thrown open. John Prine's on the box, singing one he wrote for his wife Fiona, "She is My Everything." Our man John sings,

She goes everywhere
from Copenhagen
to making eggs and bacon
down in Jackson Square

I'd like to drive a Cadillac
the color of her long black hair
she goes everywhere

War charms and a sky of soot: Reading Faulkner and listening to Sun Kil Moon

"How'd you like the army, Buddy?" Bayard asked.

"Not much," Buddy answered. "Ain't enough to do. Good life for a lazy man." He mused a moment. "They gimme a charm," he added in a burst of sly, diffident confidence and sober pleasure.

"A charm?" Bayard repeated.

"Uhuh. One of them brass gimcracks on to a colored ribbon. I aimed to show it to you, but I fergot. Do it tomorrow. ... I'll watch a chance tomorrow when pappy's outen the house."

"Why? Don't he know you got it?"

"He knows," Buddy answered. "Only he don't like it because he claims it's a Yankee charm. Rafe says pappy and Stonewall Jackson ain't never surrendered."

From Faulkner's "Sartoris." It's late in the book. Bayard Sartoris, his grandfather dead from Bayard's latest wreck in that damn-fool car, has repaired out to the MacCallum place in the country. It's one of my favorite stretches of Faulkner, ever.

Now, what to listen to when you're reading Faulkner? I've wrestled with this. Sometimes the mind demands silence, so as to summon all its power of comprehension. (Faulkner can be a mother to read, I believe is the technical way to put it.) But other times, music helps. And so: Sun Kil Moon's "April." It's a drowsy record, cinematic in its somber way. It's music for a soot-colored sky. A storm, somewhere off the distance, is thinking about thinking about moving in. Is that thunder? Or guitars?

The Memphis blues again

Thursday morning. Dylan on the box, singing, "Oh, mama. This might be the end. I'm stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again."

Memphis, for not rhyming with much at all, sure gets mentioned in a lot of songs. Dallas rhymes with Alice and Nashville with cash deal, but Memphis goes them some better. It stands as a character in any song it enters, a survivor who shook off yellow fever and went on to give the world all manner of things it didn't even know it needed: rock 'n' roll, the Piggly Wiggly, Black Moses. I could go on. But instead, a bit from my book, "The Long Gone Daddies":

Memphis is the sacred muck, the shining jewel of all sad backwaters. Memphis is the great lost city of sound. You can walk on whiskey, in Memphis. You can bang your blue guitar.

"Your guitar,” says Memphis to the pilgrim at the river banks, “is it blue?”

Pilgrim says, “Oh, it’s as sad as can be.”

On mighty big cars

28 feet from bumper to bumper
The last of the sweet old time gas guzzlers
Hard to drive, harder to park
But when you do somebody remarks
That's a mighty big car
That's a mighty big car
That's a mighty big car
-- Fred Eaglesmith

I've never had a mighty big car. I've never even had a particularly large car. But the band in my novel "The Long Gone Daddies" gets about in a big ol' muddy-brown Merc. That's a mighty big car. It was based, sorta, on a college buddy's car. We used to take it on bootlegger runs, back when it was dry up in Morehead, Ky. The bootlegger was always open, had a drive-up window on his shack, you just knocked if he wasn't there waiting. Two-fifty a six-pack, Bud or Miller. I started a story one time about the bootlegger. He sold so much beer to college students he began to think his name was Bud Miller.

But I was talking about mighty big cars, and so: in my other novel, "The Very Last Night," Lucy Miles' beloved Uncle Till has a band called Cherry Ball that "toured the Southland in a big, pale-yellow Checker Marathon station wagon with a standup bass strapped to the roof and the name of the band painted in black script on the front doors. Uncle Till would send Lucy postcards from places like Bossier City and Pass Christian; he’d send word of speed traps and what he called sweet mamas and road stretched out long, flat and straight like the neck of his guitar. Cherry Ball wasn’t famous or anything like that, but Uncle Till was Lucy’s hero because he was seeing the world and singing it songs, and he didn’t have to climb anything higher than a stage to earn his groceries."

Neither here nor there, but I always did think Pass Christian would be a good name for a NASCAR driver.

Lost dog provinces

Lance the retired racing greyhound steps outside each morning and sniffs it – I mean, sniffs the morning itself, the day. He’s never quite sure what to make of it. His right ear perks and cocks, like listening for word from some lost dog provinces.

Or not. I don’t know. Lance is a greyhound, and not at all a talking dog. We’re working on that. Mostly it’s me, talking to him. But not now. Not when he’s sniffing the morning, trying to get a feel for it. There’s wisdom at work. I ought to be doing the same. But hell, I’ve got to go out in it, anyway, no matter what’s out there. I’ve got to go to work. We all do, for to make that green – for to buy those pigs’ ears and soft beds and big bags of dog food. Eh, Lance?

Head up, one ear cocked and perked, he looks regal. I've never looked regal, ever. Lance the greyhound has been called elegant and chic, too. He’s a dark brindle; he’s like a tiger, striped and bronzed. People stop their cars in the middle of the street to say, “That’s a beautiful dog.”

But it’s his head I’d like to peek inside. Now he lowers the ear, a soft flop of that flap, and he's satisfied, it seems.

What’d’ya hear, boy? What’s the word from those lost dog provinces? You don’t say? Well, hell, that is something.