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I’m writing from an airplane.
Row 15. Seat F.
We’re still boarding, but I’m already hammering away at the keyboard, trying to get a good start on this column before the flight attendant makes me put my laptop away.
I’m practicing what I’ve been preaching. I’m only a couple weeks into teaching my first creative writing class and we’ve been focused on “freewriting.” The idea is simple, yet my students are having a rough go of it. They’re used to assignments with predetermined answers. They beg for writing prompts.
I hold strong.
I tell them to keep their pens moving. Don’t think. Just write! The good stuff will come later. Prompts are for other classes. There are no plans here. We’re CREATIVE writers! We make it up as we go. Which is exactly what I’m doing as the cabin doors close.
Planes thrill me. There are stories on every row. All these different people going all these different places. The first time I ever flew, I flew out of the Little Rock airport. It was bigger than Walmart, or the First United Methodist Church. It was the single biggest structure I’d ever stepped foot in.
Not anymore.
Everything is relative, like Brother Einstein said. Airports are relative too, especially after you’ve flown out of Dallas, D.C., or worst of all, Denver. Those airports make the Clinton International Airport look like the playground at my old elementary school, smaller now than it was twenty-five years ago, though the dimensions remain the same.
Welp. The flight attendant just tapped me on the shoulder. Be right back…
Okay. Where was I? Where am I?
Thirty thousand feet over East Texas Pine Curtain on my way to San Diego for a crime-writers’ convention. Two men in front of me are making small talk. All I can see is the backs of their heads. Good hair. Both of them (when you’re bald you notice these things). The one on the left is working hard to keep the conversation going. He’s talking about this Asian mail-order-bride he almost married once, how she wanted kids within nine months of the wedding or the whole deal was off.
“Red Flag,” the man says. “And get this, she was allergic to alcohol too.”
There’s a woman two rows ahead of me shading in the squares on a crossword puzzle. I haven’t seen her write a single letter yet. In front of her sits a man wearing a red “Route 66” hat. He keeps taking pictures of the aisle with his phone. There’s nobody in the aisle that I can see. Nothing happening, really, except for that guy who almost married that woman with the strange allergy talking about how he made her drink a beer once.
“She broke out in all these red splotches,” he tells his new friend. “Googled it and found something called the ‘Asian Flush.’ Anyway, the only good thing about having sleep apnea was —”
A light just came on overhead, telling me to “TURN OFF AND STOW ALL ELECTRONIC DEVICES.” We’re already descending. The flight is over, but I don’t want this column to end.
I want to hear what happened to that mail-order-bride. I want to know why that man keeps taking pictures of the aisle. I want to see at least one letter written in that crossword puzzle.
The flight attendant’s glaring at me now. She’s coming my way. Sadly, this is the end of the column, but there are more stories out there. Always more. Just keep your eyes peeled, your ears open, and a pen handy. Because what you look for you will find, dear reader, if it doesn’t find you first.
Don't Know Tough
Buy the Book
In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension.
Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy’s bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy—save him from his circumstances, and save his soul.
Then Billy’s abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs. |
Ozark Dogs
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In this Southern thriller, two families grapple with the aftermath of a murder in their small Arkansas town.
After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt.
Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend—or in some cases, destroy it. |
| Previous columns: |
• Writing from Mississippi Book Festival
• Writing from Bed
• Writing from Witherspoon Hall
• Writing From: Coco
• Writing from the Beach
• Writing From: Crooked Creek
• Writing from a Nursing Home
• Writing from a Firework Tent
• Writing from a Boat
• Writing from the Stars
• Writing from the Pool
• Writing from the Kitchen
• Writing from Summer
• Writing from Kindergarten
• Writing from Mom
• Writing from a Plane
• Writing from Home
• My second novel’s publication
• A New Marriage Milestone
• An Invitation to the Party
• Writing from a Thunderstorm
• Writing from a Soundbooth
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• Writing from the morning of my thirty-fifth year
• Writing on the day of the college football National Championship
• Writing from the space between breaths
• Writing from 2022
• Writing from the glow of a plastic Christmas tree
• Writing on a rollercoaster of triumph and disaster
• Writing from the drop-off line at my daughter’s elementary school
• Writing with Thanksgiving on my mind
• Writing from the crowd before the start of a Shovels & Rope show
• Writing from the depths of a post-book-festival hangover
• Writing from the Ron Robinson Theatre
• Writing to you on Halloween Eve
• Writing from my bed on a Saturday morning
• Writing from my office with two darts clenched in my left hand
• Writing from the shade of my favorite tree
• Writing from my desk on a Tuesday morning
• Writing from a pirate ship
• Writing from the airport
• Writing from the hospital
• I'm writing from the water
• Writing from my wife's Honda Pilot
• Writing from my office |
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