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I’m writing from the kitchen.
My wife just told me I had “that look” in my eyes again. I know the look she’s talking about. I can feel it in my chest. The same pressure that’s been there for the last week or so. The one I get anytime I get stuck.
Writing is a different kind of job. It’s not really a job at all, even if you’re earning a livable wage from your words. Writing is art, and art comes from the heart, that same tight place on the left side of my chest.
“Where do you get your ideas?”
That’s the number one question I get asked at readings. People want to know where these stories come from. I hem haw around. Sometimes I’ll say, “Walmart” and grin.
The truth, though, is that the stories come from me. My childhood. My life. The lives of others in close proximity.
Harry Crews once said something about how a writer has to look at the tough things. Has to stare straight at the stuff everybody else works real hard to ignore.
Harry’s not wrong.
A writer has to get up close and personal with ugly. The worst memories make the best stories. Those memories most people work so hard to forget — that’s the answer nobody wants to hear.
So, I grin and say, “Walmart,” and the event moves on to what sort of pen I use, or how my office is in an unfinished basement overlooking Lake Dardanelle. Pure bliss, right? A novelist’s dream . . .
My dreams are littered with my characters, these people I’ve created and set loose in the world. It’s all very narcissistic. Durn near masturbatory. Especially considering the fact that I’ve got two tiny lives I’m responsible for and a wife who just confronted me in the kitchen.
Not to mention the same shorts I had on yesterday and wrinkled Polo shirt. The beard isn’t going anywhere, but my head could use a fresh shave. Swimming helps some. My feet hurt too bad to walk. Plantar fasciitis and bone spurs in my heels, war wounds from my quarterbacking days. Great details for a story.
See?
It never stops.
That’s what they don’t tell you when you write your first page. Actually, Jack Butler tried telling me something along those lines. Alex Taylor did too. Just last week, I was talking to Alex and he was saying he felt like he’d hit a wall when it came to his writing. Said he thought he’d reached his peak, as good as he was ever going to get.
I called BS (“beautiful sunsets,” according to my 11th grade English teacher, Mrs. Franks).
I told Alex that skill wise, maybe he was right. Maybe he’d learned all the tricks. But, like me, Alex also has a family and a lot of life yet to live. Which means there are stories still to come, books pulled from the heartblood of fatherhood and moments like that one I just experienced in the kitchen.
I’m in the basement now.
I can see my reflection in the window. "That look” remains stamped in my eyes. My chest is still tight, but I can feel it loosening with every word I write.
Don't Know Tough
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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 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
• Writing from “Jazz Beach"
• Writing from the Sabbath
• Writing from somewhere between Little Rock and Russellville
• Writing from my back deck
• 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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