It all started with Trixie Belden. In the fourth grade, I picked up my first Trixie Belden Mystery and read every book in the series. In adulthood, my love of mysteries continued. I’ve watched every episode of Perry Mason at least a dozen times. I’ve read every mystery written by Raymond Chandler, James Lee Burke, Sue Grafton, Tony Hillerman, Walter Mosely and Robert B. Parker (unfortunately, I’ve outlived many of my favorite authors). Still, I’m hungry for good mystery writing. Hence, I’m up to date with Walt Longmire, Sebastian St. Cyr and Virgil Flowers, and I’m still hunting.
I was blessed with just a smidgen of my mother’s innate artistic ability. She was a self-taught sketch artist, who, despite only a sixth-grade education, made a living as a professional illustrator. In school, I was always the best artist in class, and in high school, I was selected for Georgia’s Governor’s Honors Program (1969). There, I spent the summer at Wesleyan College with some of the most talented people I’ve ever met. When I graduated high school, I had an opportunity to go to college on an art education scholarship. The only problem was, I knew enough about art to know I really wasn’t any good. Real artists could evoke emotion with their art; I couldn’t.
Then, I realized that the art that had the strongest ability to control an audience’s emotions was fiction writing. What hooked me on reading, was an author’s ability to spirit you away from the real world and carry you deep into theirs; and to allow you to share the thoughts and emotions of their characters. J. R. Tolkien had me speaking Hobbit, Ursula K. Le Guin had me flying on magical wings and Frank Herbert had me fighting for survival on a perilous alien world. I so much wanted to do what they could do, but I knew I couldn’t. Then, I read James Lee Burke’s griity Cimarron Rose. The thing that amazed me is Burke wrote like I spoke, and it worked. After that I wrote my first book, Southern Comfort (yet to be published). I was sure it was an instant classic, but it was ripped to shreds when I sent it to a professional editor, Robin Smith, for what I thought was a polishing for publishing. The good news is, though the investment in editing didn’t pay off as I expected, the lessons in writing were invaluable.
What I did find in that first attempt, is that being able to drop into the minds of the various characters and live out experiences through their eyes was very intriguing. I realized that the story wrote itself through the characters. As I wrote about a character, their personality became more developed. When I needed to see where the story should go next, I would look at the situation through the character’s eyes, and I would see what that character would do in that situation. When it came to dialog, I would put myself in that character’s head and I could hear what he would or wouldn’t say. The other thing I found, was my varied life experiences and the interesting people I have known, gave me great fuel for writing this way. I believe this gives my writing realism, which makes it easier to draw you into the characters’ world.
If you enjoy reading this book, I’ve accomplished what I had hoped to accomplish. Not satisfying an audience but creating a world where you enjoyed the visit.
Biographical Stuff:
I was born in 1953 in the magical city of Rome, Georgia, just two weeks before my mother’s sixteenth birthday. My mom and dad were both loving, but very immature people, and by the time I was six, JoAnn was a single mon with two little boys. We moved around a lot as my mother lived-out the life of a complex, yet damaged, woman. In 1966, we settled in my adopted hometown of Holly Springs, Georgia – a magical place where boyhood reached its apex.
In 1971, I graduated from Cherokee High School, in Canton, Georgia. Because of my mother’s experience as an illustrator, I studied drafting along with my focus on art. I had options to go to college and further my art education or go to an engineering school and build on my drafting background. Instead, I chose to get stoned and fantasize about pulling an Easy Rider, traveling around our great country on a motorcycle I couldn’t afford to buy.
When the Summer of Love hit our country, I was of the right age to get swept-up in the hippie movement and was one of the pioneers of long hair and drug experimentation in North Georgia. This provided a new adventure as I found out that as a drug dealer, you were always invited to the party. This lasted a decade, but then I had to grow up.
Our mother told my brother, Tony, and me that we weren’t born into money, so we had better get used to working. The one constant in my life, is that I’ve always had a job and have usually staved-off the bill collectors and the IRS (I said usually). My drafting training gave me a skill that paid better than most jobs, and I eventually studied Mechanical Engineering at night. Though I never finished my degree, my innate creativity, logical mind and engineering skills have put me in that desirous position where people pay me for what I know instead of how many hours I work.
I’ve been married two times (one practice round). Tina (Silverberg) became that steadying influence that allowed me to shake-off most insecurities and be comfortable as who I am. Between us, Tina and I have four children literally scattered around the world. They are each talented, creative individuals (each different as night and day), and a true blessing. Tina and I are now back close to my adopted home town of Holly Springs and are in the grandparent business.
Though Tina doesn’t believe me, I’m a Conservative Christian. I just believe that you don’t have to be hateful to be conservative, I know God isn’t just waiting for us to slip up, so he can send us to hell, and I don’t feel the need to brow-beat people into my way of thinking. Since I gave up drugs, I voted Republican until I switched to voting anti-incumbent a few elections ago (I did vote for Obama the first time because I do have an idealistic streak in me). I served ten years in the leadership of a grace-filled evangelical church, and I know firsthand that God is real. Now, that I’ve alienated half the audience, I just want to say I love you both.
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